Mark Charlesworth is Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Social Sciences, Keele University, UK.

This book characterises the current limitations of scientific prediction for global environmental issues. It presents a review of the epistemology of this policy field including current policy responses (e.g. to abrupt climate change) then suggests potential ethical and policy implications and resolutions. Specifically, it has developed innovative approaches to respond to these difficulties in prediction, which should also allow sustainable development policy to be more democratic, plural and open in line with Agenda 21.

1. Introduction 2. Can humans manage the earth? - No! - Implications 3. Discourse Analysis - Brundtland and management 4. Discourse Analysis - Do governments want to manage the earth? - Yes! 5. Environmental Management Responses to Sustainable Development 6. Sustainable Development Theory - Moving from management to stewardship 7. Ecological Virtue - A better ethical basis for sustainable development than the ethics of market fundamentalism? 8. Democratising Global Stewardship 9. Conclusion - Environmental policy in the light of at least one metre sea level rise