Thoroughly updated with greater coverage of urban environmental issues, consumption and the private sector, and global political ecology, this third edition is lavishly illustrated by examples and case-studies.

The book discusses:

• the origins of thinking about sustainability and sustainable development and its evolution to the present day
• the ideas that dominate mainstream sustainable development (ecological modernization, market environmentalism and environmental economics)
• the nature and diversity of alternative ideas about sustainability that challenge ‘business as usual’ thinking (for example ecosocialism, ecofeminism, deep ecology and political ecology)
• the dilemmas of sustainability in the context of dryland degradation, deforestation, biodiversity conservation, dam construction and urban and industrial development
• the nature of policy choices about the environment and development strategies and between reformist and radical responses to the contemporary global dilemmas. 
   

W.M. Adams is Moran Professor of Conservation and Development in the Department of Geography at Cambridge.