Over the course of 2013 and beyond, Worldwatch will be investigating the question “Is Sustainability Still Possible?” In short (for those of you who don’t mind spoilers), the answer is yes. And no. If we had started 40 years ago and really committed as a civilization, creating a truly sustainable human society would have certainly been a much easier process and the odds of major ecological changes disrupting the process and human civilization would have been much lower.
But we didn’t, so now we need to act rapidly, in much bolder ways than are currently on the table. This project breaks this key question into three smaller questions.
- What is sustainability and how do we measure it?
- Once defined, how do we achieve true sustainability?
- If we can no longer get there, how do we prepare for the disruptions to come?
State of the World 2013 explores all three of those questions offering answers to all three in the hope that readers (of both the report and this blog) will get serious about what sustainability really means, will use bolder strategies to get there, and third, will get ready now for the rocky ride we all have ahead–as it’ll be a lot less rocky if we know what’s coming.
Starting off this new blog over the course of January, we’re going to post several of the best blog posts from the Transforming Cultures and Sustainable Prosperity blogs, which have merged into this new blog. They all help answer the questions above so wanted to draw additional attention to them. I hope you all enjoy these and future posts.
We look forward to exploring these questions together over 2013.
