Worldwatch Reports and Papers

Worldwatch Paper #152: Working for the Environment: A Growing Source of Jobs

As societies confront environmental challenges, they will need to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, metals, and lumber; restructure the utility and transportation sectors; and boost the efficient use of energy and materials. Many fear that moving toward sustainability will disrupt the economy and trigger massive job loss.

Worldwatch Paper #151: Micropower: The Next Electrical Era

Electricity is returning to its origins: generating power on a relatively small scale, close to where it is actually used. Technological, economic, and environmental trends are turning a family of "micropower" devices into increasingly viable choices for meeting electrical needs. Use of these generators can avoid expensive investments in large central power stations and transmission and distribution systems, provide greater reliability, and leave a lighter ecological footprint.

Worldwatch Paper #150: Underfed and Overfed: The Global Epidemic of Malnutrition

For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people rivals the number of underweight people, according to a forthcoming report from the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based research organization. While the world's underfed population has declined slightly since 1980 to 1.1 billion, the number of overweight people has surged to 1.1 billion.

Worldwatch Paper #149: Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape

Global consumption of wood fiber for papermaking can be cut by more than 50 percent, reports a new study by the Worldwatch Institute. This reduction can be achieved through a combination of trimming paper consumption in industrial countries, improving papermaking efficiency, and expanding the use of recycled and nonwood materials, according to Janet Abramovitz and Ashley Mattoon, co-authors of Paper Cuts: Recovering the Paper Landscape.

Worldwatch Paper #148: Nature's Cornucopia: Our Stake in Plant Diversity

Earth's natural systems increasingly display signs of the ecological costs imposed by our globalizing society, from large-scale declines in thousands of species, to growing infestations of non-native organisms, and to the widespread simplification of natural communities. By examining the benefits we obtain from one group of organisms--green plants--author John Tuxill shows just how much we stand to lose if the erosion of nature's diversity continues unabated.

Worldwatch Paper #147: Reinventing Cities for People and the Planet

Cities are home to more people than ever before. In 1900, only 160 million people, one tenth of the world's population, were city dwellers. But soon after 2000, in contrast, half the world (3.2 billion people) will live in urban areas--a 20-fold increase in numbers.

Worldwatch Paper #146: Ending Violent Conflict

The Cold War is over, little has changed fundamentally as far as reliance on the military is concerned. Thus, at the threshold of the twenty-first century, the international community faces a fundamental challenge: either build the foundations for a lasting peace or be overwhelmed by an endless string of internal wars capable of devastating entire countries, even of re-igniting big-power confrontations. And as events in the Balkans have demonstrated, current peace and security policies are woefully inadequate.

Worldwatch Paper #145: Safeguarding the Health of Oceans

For much of human history, humanity has treated oceans as inexhaustible both in terms of what they could produce and in terms of what they could absorb. But humanity has pushed the world's oceans close to--and in some cases past--their natural limits. In this thorough review of the challenges facing us in managing oceans, author Anne Platt McGinn examines the threats to our oceans and prescribes the steps we must take quickly to protect ocean health.

Worldwatch Paper #144: Mind Over Matter: Recasting the Role of Materials in Our Lives

Nations and businesses are discovering ways to use materials more intelligently--to provide the goods and services people want using much less wood, metal, stone, plastic, and other materials. By reducing wasteful use, and by steering production toward du rable goods that are easy to reuse, remanufacture, or recycle, a few pioneering firms are recasting the role of materials in our lives. Some businesses have even shifted out of manufacturing and become purveyors of services--dramatically lowering levels of materials use.

Worldwatch Paper #143: Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem

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Many countries that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades are showing signs of demographic fatigue. Overwhelmed by the need to educate children, create jobs, and deal with the environmental effects of population growth, governments faced with a major new threat-such as AIDS or aquifer depletion-often cannot cope.