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The environmental politics of sustainable development has reached an impasse, despite the optimism that attended the'Earth Summit'held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Notwithstanding wide recognition of the environmental crisis, environmental protection continues to be regarded as less important than economic competitiveness. Because of the failure of governments to reach a consensus on appropriate policy action, sustainable development has in practice served mainly to extend the technocratic approaches and solutions that have failed in the past. By examining this failed discourse of environmental policy, the contributors to this book call attention to our neglect of the underlying cultural dynamics of ecological politics.