Abstract
Some assessments of the new global economy are overstated and this, with environmentalism's predisposition to decentralization, has limited global environmental politics. While globalization does provoke equity and environmental failures, it does not “universalize” unemployment, nor is it necessarily financially unstable. It may be successful in its own terms—advancing total global GDP. As well, it is arguable that some wage restraint in rich nations is ultimately necessary to the simultaneous achievement of sustainability and global-scale equity. Rather than resisting globalization, the better strategy for progressive greens might be to promote a global policy agenda including the democratic control of global media, harmonized tax shifts to energy and material throughputs (and/or higher commodity prices), environmental treaty enforcement using trade-based sanctions, and the establishment of a global minimum wage.