Vital Signs 1999: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future (Vital Signs: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future

by Lester R. Brown, Brian Halweil, Michael Renner

This annual volume from the Worldwatch Institute shows in graphic form key trends that often escape the attention of the news media, world leaders, and economic experts, but should be integrated into their plans as they map out our global future. Written by the staff of the award-winning Worldwatch Institute, this book allows readers to track key indicators that show social, economic, and environmental progress, or the lack of it. Their authoritative data have been distilled from thousands of documents obtained from government, industry, scientists, and international organizations into forty-five "vital signs" of our times. Vital Signs 1999 presents up-to-the-minute information on environmental and sustainable development topics such as global temperature, population growth, Internet use, fossil fuel consumption, grain production, and fish catch. Each trend is presented in both text and graphics, providing a thorough, well-documented, and very accessible overview. Vital Signs is an excellent companion volume to Worldwatch's highly acclaimed State of the World series.

Genres: Environment

197 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Lester Russel Brown is an American environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day calls him "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."

In the mid-1970s, Brown helped pioneer the concept of sustainable development, during a career that started with farming. As early as 1978, in his book The Twenty-Ninth Day, he was already warning of "the various dangers arising out of our manhandling of nature...by overfishing the oceans, stripping the forests, turning land into desert." In 1986, the Library of Congress requested his personal papers noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”

He has been the recipient of many prizes and awards, including, the 1987 United Nations Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "contributions to solving global environmental problems."

Excerpted from Wikipedia.