Overview
The United Nations estimates that the global population will grow to nine billion by 2050, meaning a 50 percent increase in our consumption of natural resources by 2030, with a similar increase in our production of harmful waste. In Costing the Earth, Bernd Meyer explains the economic conditions needed to achieve sustainable development around the world.
Synopsis
Bernd Meyer explains why we need to decouple resource consumption from economic growth to live sustainably.
Library Journal
A gift to sustainability science by German businessman and editor Wiegandt, the "Sustainability Project" (www.the-sustainability-project.com) is a 12-volume, 3000-page series (of which these four titles were submitted for review) initially published in Germany. The aim is to present current research on complex topics in a manner accessible to general readers while keeping content scientifically sound. The series succeeds, but by no means is it a walk in the park; Wiegandt makes no apologies, asking 12 leading experts to explore critical environmental, economic, and social pressure points that must be addressed in the next 30 years. A survey of some of its constituent titles suggests this set's breadth: Our Threatened Oceans, Feeding the Planet, The Demise of Diversity, Overcrowded World?, Climate Change, and The New Plagues. The volumes are not numbered, but Jill Jäger's Our Planet: How Much More Can Earth Take?, with its discussion of planetary "overshoot," generally introduces the other titles, while Harald Müller's take on future world governance in Building a New World Order: Sustainable Policies for the Future provides a fitting conclusion. The argument carried relatively uniformly through all 12 volumes—i.e., confront the dismal truth about conditions, then suggest possible courses of action—lends the set unity, as does the way project authors refer to one another's work (an obvious method of linking the pieces together, a cumulative index, is lacking). Many of the solutions offered are practical and well known, e.g., label consumer products with metrics that will inform potential buyers of their real ecological cost and use less energy. Otherrecommendations are sensible but tough, e.g., "dematerialize" American society by a factor of ten within a few decades and make the knowledge presented here part of the educational curriculum from kindergarten through university. But one of Müller's recommendations, though wished-for, seems downright contrary to (human) nature—his suggestion to outlaw war. VERDICT Glossaries, graphics, and brief reading lists help to make the dauntingly comprehensive "Sustainability Project" palatable for advanced readers. While academic and large public libraries will no doubt want the entire set, smaller libraries could safely buy the relatively inexpensive individual titles on hot topics like climate change and water resources. Those wanting more graphics and less text will find a superb alternative purchase in Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent's The New Atlas of Planet Management. James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the End of the World would be another solid choice.—Robert Eagan, Windsor P.L., Ont.