State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures

"State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures is breaking new ground. We are paying a high price for ignoring the issues of consumption and consumerism for so long. What a wonderful book this is to guide us into the years ahead."

“State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability” is a book by Worldwatch Institute, published by W. W. Norton & Company and examines the institutions that the goal is to shape culture. There are 26 articles from 60 experts on the topic of consumerism, sustainability and cultural change. The book provides information on how we can make develop change from consumerism to sustainability. Sustainability is defined as the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

In State of the World, it has shown not only how people could make a change but also shows the ways to transform consumerism into a culture that is based on sustainability. All in all, there are six Chapters which include education, business, the media, government, traditions and social movements that present possible solutions to global environmental problems, which focus on institutions that are the principal engineers of culture, such as governments, the media, and religious organizations.

State of the World 2010 explains that while the human population has grown, consumption has grown even more and is almost three times more. A quote coming from the book: “Consumption has grown dramatically over the past five decades, up 28 percent from the $23.9 trillion spent in 1996 and up sixfold from the $4.9 trillion spend in 1960,” written by Erik Assadourian, a Senior Researcher and Project Director of State of the World 2010. . If we continue to not stop and still adopt this kind of living, the Earth would soon dramatically decrease in only sustain people. While people focus consuming, cultural orientation on the other hand plays a bigger role for society and the planet. Finally, I observed that the book it is written clearly, it provides new ideas and opinions regarding the state of the world. It presents a clearer view of our fast changing world that we, and more importantly the leaders, cannot afford to ignore.