State of the World 2000: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Towards a Sustainable Society

by The Worldwatch Institute, Lester R. Brown, Christopher Flavin, Hilary F. French, Sandra Postel

Overview

State of the World 2000 shines an intense light on the great challenge our civilization faces: how to use our political systems to manage the difficult and complex relationships between the global economy and the Earth’s ecosystems.

The newest volume in the annual series that has become the bible of the global environmental movement—and indispensable for anyone concerned with the future of our world. State of the World 2000 provides national leaders and concerned citizens with a comprehensive framework for the global debate about our future in the new century. This annual survey by the award-winning Worldwatch Institute has become an invaluable analysis of negative environmental trends and a guide to emerging solutions. The book shows how our current fossil-fueled, auto-centered, throwaway economy is steadily destroying the very ecosystems that form the foundations of our lives. The great challenge we face in the next century is making the transition to a sustainable economy that reuses and recycles materials, is powered by renewable energy sources, and has a stable population. The authors argue that meeting this challenge will offer some of the greatest investment opportunities in history. Written in clear and concise language, with easy-to-read charts and tables, State of the World 2000 presents a view of our changing world that we, and our leaders, cannot afford to ignore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393319989
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/17/2000
Series:	State of the World Series
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	317,375
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

The Worldwatch Institute is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit research and publishing organization dedicated to fostering the evolution of an environmentally sustainable society.

Lester R. Brown is the founder of the Earth Policy and Worldwatch Institutes. He has been honored with numerous prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the United Nations Environment Prize, and twenty-five honorary degrees. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Hilary F. French is vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C.

Sandra Postel lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she directs the Global Water Policy Project. She is a Pew Fellow in Conservation and the Environment and a former vice president for research at the Worldwatch Institute. Her previous book, Last Oasis, now appears in eight languages and was the basis for a PBS television documentary.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	List of Tables and Figures	xiii
	Foreword	xvii
1	Challenges of the New Century	3
	Environmental Trends Shaping the New Century
	Replacing Economics with Ecology
	Crossing the Sustainability Threshold
	Crossing the Decline Threshold
	Two Keys to Regaining Control of Our Destiny
2	Anticipating Environmental "Surprise"	22
	Tropical Rainforests: The Inferno Beneath the Canopy
	Coral: Death in the Warming Seas
	The Atmosphere: An Invisible Confluence of Poisons
	An Agenda for the Unexpected
3	Redesigning Irrigated Agriculture	39
	Mounting Water Deficits
	The New Water Wars
	The Productivity Frontier
	Expanding Irrigation to Poor Farmers
	The Policy Challenge
4	Nourishing the Underfed and Overfed	59
	A Malnourished World
	The Roots of Hunger
	The Creation of Overeating
	Diet and Health
	Societal Costs of Poor Diet
	Nutrition First
5	Phasing Out Persistent Organic Pollutants	79
	The World of POPs
	Routes of Exposure and Environmental Fate
	Health Consequences
	The Policy Response to POPs
	Retooling Regulations, Business, and Agriculture
6	Recovering the Paper Landscape	101
	The Paper Landscape
	Uncovering the Costs of Paper
	Reducing the Burden of Production
	Trimming the Costs of Consumption
	Designing a Sustainable Paper Economy
7	Harnessing Information Technologies for the Environment	121
	An Expanding Global Network
	Squandering or Saving Natural Resources?
	Monitoring and Modeling
	Networking for Sustainable Development
	Information Tools for a Healthy Planet
8	Sizing Up Micropower	142
	Miniaturized Machines
	Cool Power
	Is Smaller Better?
	Remaking Market Rules
	How Far, How Fast?
9	Creating Jobs, Preserving the Environment	162
	The World of Work
	Boosting Resource Productivity
	Environment Policy: Job Killer or Creator?
	Restructuring Energy, Creating Jobs
	Durability and Remanufacturing
	Shifting Taxes
	Rethinking Work
10	Coping with Ecological Globalization	184
	Trading on Nature
	The WTO Meets the Environment
	Greening the International Financial Architecture
	Innovations in Global Environmental Governance
	Notes	203
	Index	263