The World Watch Reader on Global Environmental Issues

This new edition of The World Watch Reader covers the most important “mega-problems” facing humanity at the outset of the new millennium: how to produce energy for electricity, transportation, and heat without causing dangerous disruptions to climate; how to reverse declining health of the oceans, forests, and freshwater resources on which our well-being absolutely depends; and what to do about the new social instabilities―such as resurgent disease and rising refugee flows―that result from environmental distress.

A new collection of articles drawn from World Watch magazine, winner of an Utne Reader Alternative Press Award for investigative reporting. A collection of the best and most-requested articles from the Worldwatch Institute's award-winning magazine, World Watch. What ails the earth and how can we fix it? People all over the world are wrestling with this question, and requesting reliable information on the nature of the environmental threats and how to deal with them. The World Watch Reader responds to this need for timely, authoritative information. Written by the world's preeminent environmental research team, this new edition of the popular anthology offers an in-depth diagnosis of the earth's ills as well as a practical vision of how to create an environmentally responsible future. In a highly readable style, the authors focus on such topics as energy and climate, the effects of water scarcity, the food prospect, oceans in distress, and consumerism and the future of the earth. Here the global, interdisciplinary perspective that makes Worldwatch research unique is available in an accessible, compelling form. All who care about the future of the planet will want to read this volume.

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.

Ed Ayres is the former editor of Worldwatch and author of God's Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future.