In “Malthus Redux” Eban Goodstein makes it clear that sustainability and globalization are false opposites. While it is true that the process of globalization we are passing through today is in conflict with ecological imperatives, achieving sustainability requires globalization of a different sort. In broad strokes, Goodstein contrasts these two globalizations, the actual and the necessary, and offers guidance in how to make the transition.

The two goals Goodstein sets before us are balanced, sustainable growth in the South and the development of environmentally benign technologies, initially in the North but to be quickly disseminated worldwide. These are being obstructed by pressures emanating from “actually existing globalization”: the international trading system places trade considerations above ecological ones, and the greater muscle of multinational capital has created a poor political climate for public action. The solutions he proposes are a global fund to finance the enforcement of environmental regulations in the developing world, international arbitration of complaints by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that national laws are not being enforced, and aggressive government investment in clean technologies. It is his view that the obstacles to this program are not economic in an objective sense but political. We need only the will to see them through. I agree with the general direction Goodstein has taken; it reflects a happy blend of expertise and good sense. I differ on some of the details of his analysis, however, and the rest of these comments will focus on these differences.