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How We Make a Difference

Using an array of tools—including the widely admired State of the World report and prize-winning World Watch magazine—Worldwatch plays a unique role as an educator, a source of reliable data, and an interpreter of complex issues. The Institute’s books and papers have been published in more than 40 languages and are used in venues ranging from classrooms to legislative chambers.

The stories below—and many more like them—show the Institute at its best: delivering education that inspires action around the world. Whether by encouraging people in wealthier nations to live more simply or by moving China's government to conserve water and cropland, the educational efforts of the Institute often play a galvanizing role. The cumulative result is a growing global consciousness of the need for change if the next generation is to have the benefits of a healthy, natural world.

Korea imageAwakening in South Korea

In 1980, a leader of South Korea's student democracy movement, Yul Choi, read The Twenty-Ninth Day, an early Worldwatch book, in his jail cell. The book so moved him that he vowed—should the opportunity ever come—to steer the energies of the student movement toward the defense of Korea's environment. After the government freed him, Choi made good on his vow, founding the Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement. Today, KFEM has a membership of 60,000, a staff of more than 100, and has become a potent force in Korean politics, bringing environmental issues to the forefront of public consciousness and building a new generation of environmentally aware young people.

Iran imageTesting the Odds in Iran

In 1990, an Iranian doctor named Hamid Taravaty found a secondhand copy of State of the World 1989 in a local bookstore. At the time, Iran was not only in the throes of revolution, but was experiencing the pressures of rapid population growth and a serious shortage of fresh water. Although the book had been written in the United States (a country with no diplomatic relations with Iran), Taravaty was inspired by it—and felt impelled to spread the word. He published a Persian edition, and later repeated the effort with other Worldwatch publications. Today, Iran's Ministry of Agriculture distributes 1,600 copies of each edition of State of the World to senior officials.