State of the World 1991

Fülszöveg

As the dust from the cold war settles, the battle to save the planet will replace the battle over ideology as the organizing theme of the new world order. During the twenty years since the first Earth Day in 1970, the earth lost tree cover over an area nearly as large as the United States east of the Mississippi River. Deserts claimed more land than is devoted to crops in China. Thousands of plánt and animal species with which we shared the planet in 1970 no longer exist. The world's farmers lost as much topsoil as covers India's cropland. And more people joined the world's population than inhabited the planet in 1900. How can we design a vibrant world economy that does not destroy the natural resources and environmental systems on which it depends? That is the question of the 1990s, and the question that State of the World 1991 sets out to answer. State of the World 1991 lucidly examines the options for restoring our planet's health. From energy production to úrban transportation,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

As the dust from the cold war settles, the battle to save the planet will replace the battle over ideology as the organizing theme of the new world order. During the twenty years since the first Earth Day in 1970, the earth lost tree cover over an area nearly as large as the United States east of the Mississippi River. Deserts claimed more land than is devoted to crops in China. Thousands of plánt and animal species with which we shared the planet in 1970 no longer exist. The world's farmers lost as much topsoil as covers India's cropland. And more people joined the world's population than inhabited the planet in 1900. How can we design a vibrant world economy that does not destroy the natural resources and environmental systems on which it depends? That is the question of the 1990s, and the question that State of the World 1991 sets out to answer. State of the World 1991 lucidly examines the options for restoring our planet's health. From energy production to úrban transportation, and from forest management to the reuse of common materials like glass and paper, State ofthe World 1991 details how we can provide the energy and goods the world needs in a way that-ís sustainable-that does not consume the resource base of future generations. The authors of State of the World 1991 conclude that partially replacing income taxes with environmental taxes is the key to quickly transforming our environmentally unsustainable global economy into one ihat is sustainable. Such "green" taxes would add charges to the burning of fossil fuels, the use of nonrecyclable materials, and the discharge of toxic wastes while generating income for environmentally sound development. State ofthe World has been translated into all major languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, Germán, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. In the absence of a comprehensive annual assessment by the United Nations or any national government, this book is now accorded semi-official status by national governments, UN agencies, and the international development community. More than 1,100 U.S. college and university courses-ranging from biology to geography to political science-use the volume. As the New York Review ofBooks points out, State ofthe World "deals with ealamitous events rationally and constructively, and always offers logical solutions." Cover design by Mike Mclver Vissza