THE STATE OF THE WORLD 1996 ...

THE STATE OF THE WORLD 1996 edited by Linda Starke (Norton: $11.95; 249 pp., paperback original). The annual World Watch Institute’s report on “progress toward a sustainable society” is both informative and depressing. Wasteful practices and overpopulation, the institute concludes, continue to expend the Earth’s finite resources at an unsustainable rate. The overuse of chemical pesticides is creating resistant insects and weeds, fresh water is being extracted from aquifers faster than it can be replaced, the greenhouse effect is producing more powerful and destructive storms. The technology to solve many of these problems already exists, but the will to implement the solutions is often lacking. Institute President Lester R. Brown: “Can we avoid catastrophe? The answer is yes, but not if we continue sleepwalking through history.”