Published on November 1, 2007
World Watch magazine retrospective
In its first year, 1988, the contributors to WorldWatch argued that solving the world’s environmental problems meant taking climate change seriously, creating a sustainable farming system, switching to renewable energy, and voting for politicians who understand what’s at stake.
Twenty years later, these authors believe that those priorities are even more urgent than they were two decades ago. To mark the 20th volume of World Watch, nine current and former staff of the Institute revisit issues they addressed in 1988.
In one of his first articles for the magazine, current Worldwatch Institute president Christopher Flavin described NASA scientist James Hansen’s groundbreaking testimony on the clear scientific evidence of global warming as a public policy “turning point.” Today, in “The Heat Was On,” Flavin laments the failure of governments to enact many of the policy recommendations he and other experts made two decades ago. But Flavin notes that as the scientific and public consensus on climate change has grown in the past year, many of these policy ideas are now moving forward: “The powerful interaction of innovative policies, advances in technology, and growing investment have led to a pace of change in energy markets unseen since men like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford created the last great energy revolution a century ago,” he writes.
Contributors Hilary French and William Chandler also point to the slow progress made in addressing climate change, noting that the effects on the planet have taken hold sooner than expected. They look to the United Nations-led climate negotiations that will resume in Bali in December, and to energy efficiency, as key elements of the solution.
In his 1988 article “Car Crash,” Worldwatch researcher Michael Renner predicted that “auto production [was] not likely to rebound to the high level once forecast. It could even decline.” He writes today that global output of passenger cars in fact doubled from 27m in 1982 to 49m in 2006. Renner observes that the automobile appears to be an unstoppable force, despite its hugely destructive impact, and calls for accelerated efforts in public transportation.
Other contributors note that progress has been made in many areas. Marcy Lowe reports that the American public is now beginning to make the connection between the farm economy, which heavily subsidizes the main ingredients of “junk food,” and human health-in particular the growing obesity epidemic. Also encouraging are several initiatives that China has launched to prevent its looming water shortages, which water expert Sandra Postel warned of after visiting that country in 1988.
And former Worldwatch researcher Alan Thein Durning writes that positive trends such as the dramatic growth in wind power capacity and rising interest in once-lofty concepts such as tax shifting and carbon neutrality are part of a slow-motion sustainability revolution. “Movements for fundamental change always unfold over many years, in fits and starts. Even the most visionary leaders cannot predict their course, but only their ultimate success,” he observes.
www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/.
More info: www.worldwatch.org
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November 12, 2007 by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Earlier analyses, including an NIA-supported study suggests America’s obesity epidemic, which is contributing to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, could be threatening the decline of our health. Furthermore, some of the today’s common diseases didn’t even exist 40 years ago. In this same time frame, we have made enormous advances in medical technology: we have more doctors, more pharmaceutical drugs, and more hospitals. In conclusion, all we have to show for all this is the sickliest generation of Americans in history with ever increasing disease rates. 
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