The news is perplexing. Both the president and vice president of the United States have fallen ill with mysterious, flu-like symptoms. It is not long before both me receive the same devastating diagnosis: pancreatic cancer. But that is not the worst of it. Soon, many in Congress and the Supreme Court start to exhibit the same symptoms. In less than four months, the president is dead, the vice president is barely hanging onto life, and one-third of Congress is deceased. Unfortunately, the U...

Citizens expect their governments to lead on sustainability. But from largely disappointing international conferences like Rio II to the U.S.’s failure to pass meaningful climate legislation, governments’ progress has been lackluster. That’s not to say leadership is absent; it just often comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around th...

This ninth annual edition of Vital Signs takes the world's pulse by compiling a wide-ranging collection of trends that identify both problems and progress in the quest for a sustainable society. It highlights both alarming situations and encouraging developments. Part One is a comprehensive presentation of the key indicators in areas such as food, agriculture, energy, atmosphere, economics, transport and the military. Part Two provides in-depth special feature articles on: environmental fe...

This annual volume shows key trends that should be integrated into the planning of our global future. It enables readers to track key indicators that show social, economic and environmental progress, or the lack of it, into 45 vital signs of our time. Each trend is presented as an overview using both text and graphics.

**"Book and man are brilliant, passionate, optimistic and impatient . . . Outstanding." —The EconomistThe landmark exploration of economic prosperity and how the world can escape from extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens, from one of the world's most renowned economists**Hailed by ***Time***as one of the world's hundred most influential people, Jeffrey D. Sachs is renowned for his work around the globe advising economies in crisis. Now ...

From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the transitions that structure our modern world--and the environmental reckoning that will mark its success or failure. What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live. Societies that have undergone all four tra...

Soaring income inequality and unemployment, expanding populations of the displaced and imprisoned, accelerating destruction of land and water bodies: today’s socioeconomic and environmental dislocations cannot be fully understood in the usual terms of poverty and injustice, according to Saskia Sassen. They are more accurately understood as a type of expulsion—from professional livelihood, from living space, even from the very biosphere that makes life possible.This hard-headed crit...

The Skeptical Environmentalist challenges widely held beliefs that the environmental situation is getting worse and worse. The author, himself a former member of Greenpeace, is critical of the way in which many environmental organisations make selective and misleading use of the scientific evidence. Using the best available statistical information from internationally recognised research institutes, Bjørn Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental problems that feature ...

“[Brown’s] ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable.”—Katherine Salant, Washington PostAs fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial R...

The politics of food is changing fast. In rich countries, obesity is now a more serious problem than hunger. Consumers once satisfied with cheap and convenient food now want food that is also safe, nutritious, fresh, and grown by local farmers using fewer chemicals. Heavily subsidized and underregulated commercial farmers are facing stronger push back from environmentalists and consumer activists, and food companies are under the microscope. Meanwhile, agricultural success in Asia has spur...

“An urgent and at times terrifying dispatch from a distinguished reporter who has given heart and soul to his subject.”—Hampton SidesIn The End of Plenty, award-winning environmental journalist Joel K. Bourne Jr. puts our fight against devastating world hunger in dramatic perspective. He travels the globe to introduce a new generation of farmers and scientists on the front lines of the next green revolution. He visits corporate farmers trying to restore Uk...

For millennia, we lived in harmony with the Earth, taking only what we required to survive. But in just the past few centuries, we have used our powers to satisfy our obsession with consumption and new technology, without regard for the consequences. And in doing so, we have exploited our surroundings on an unprecedented scale. In this revised and updated edition of From Naked Ape to Superspecies, David Suzuki and Holly Dressel lucidly describe how we have evolved beyond our needs, trampli...