State of the World, 2004 the Worldwatch Institute

State of the World, 2004 The Worldwatch Institute W.W. Norton New York, 2004

This excellent reference book on the consumer society and the harm it is doing to people and the planet is well worth owning and sharing. It makes the superbly researched case that we cannot continue to devour resources at the current rate--or even at yesterday's rate. It points out that the ethic of over-consumption so feverishly adhered to in North America is growing and spreading into new areas, such as China where private ownership of vehicles has increased since 1980 from near zero to near 25 million private cars today. Meanwhile, around the world, resource depletion and sweatshop working conditions accompany the manufacture of the stuff we demand.

But the book is not just a grim compendium of waste, mismanagement and (particularly North American) appetite run amuck. It has a positive--even hopeful--side because it also tells us what people, governments and even some corporations around the world can and are doing to use our rapidly depleting resources more wisely. For example, individuals can ask themselves "do I need this?" and "how/ where was it made?" and make personal and community well-being their standard; governments and businesses can practice green purchasing, fair trade, and even "cradle-to-cradle design" in which products and manufacturing processes actually improve the environment and use perpetually recycled materials.

This is a great book for dipping into and pulling out a fact or a useful idea. There are eight chapters, each by a different author. The first few chapters describe the consumption problem as it relates to energy, food and water; the later chapters focus on ways to practice appropriate consumption. Sprinkled throughout the book are boxes, tables and pithy "Behind the Scenes" articles that tell the story at a glance. The piece on cotton t-shirts made me wonder why my shirts don't reek of pesticide--drenching the cotton crop with pesticide accounts for over 10 percent of the total global pesticide use each year.

Don't feel guilty buying this book. Its purchase, and shared reading, falls under the category of appropriate and necessary consumption.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Briarpatch, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group