1. Failing Governance, Unsustainable Planet -- 2. Understanding Governance -- 3. Governance, Sustainability, and Evolution -- 4. Ecoliteracy: Knowledge Is Not Enough -- 5. Digitization and Sustainability -- 6. Living in the Anthropocene: Business as Usual, or Compassionate Retreat? -- 7. Governing People as Members of the Earth Community -- 8. Listening to the Voices of Young and Future Generations -- 9. Advancing Ecological Stewardship Via the Commons and Human Rights -- 10. Looking Backward (Not Forward) to Environmental Justice -- 11. The Too-Polite Revolution: Understanding the Failure to Pass U.S. Climate Legislation -- 12. China’s Environmental Governance Challenge -- 13. Assessing the Outcomes of Rio+20 -- 14. How Local Governments Have Become a Factor in Global Sustainability -- 15. Scrutinizing the Corporate Role in the Post-2015 Development Agenda -- 16. Making Finance Serve the Real Economy -- 17. Climate Governance and the Resource Curse -- 18. The Political-Economic Foundations of a Sustainable System -- 19. The Rise of Triple-Bottom-Line Businesses -- 20. Working Toward Energy Democracy -- 21. Take the Wheel and Steer! Trade Unions and the Just Transition -- 22. A Call to Engagement.

Citizens expect their governments to lead on sustainability. But from largely disappointing international conferences like Rio II to the U.S.’s failure to pass meaningful climate legislation, governments’ progress has been lackluster. That’s not to say leadership is absent; it just often comes from the bottom up rather than the top down. Action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations. These diverse efforts are the subject of the latest volume in the Worldwatch Institute’s highly regarded State of the World series. The 2014 edition, marking the Institute’s 40th anniversary, examines both barriers to responsible political and economic governance as well as gridlock-shattering new ideas. The authors analyze a variety of trends and proposals, including regional and local climate initiatives, the rise of benefit corporations and worker-owned firms, the need for energy democracy, the Internet’s impact on sustainability, and the importance of eco-literacy. A consistent thread throughout the book is that informed and engaged citizens are key to better governance. The book is a clear-eyed yet ultimately optimistic assessment of citizens’ ability to govern for sustainability. By highlighting both obstacles and opportunities, State of the World 2014 shows how to effect change within and beyond the halls of government. This volume will be especially useful for policymakers, environmental nonprofits, students of environmental studies, sustainability, or economics—and citizens looking to jumpstart significant change around the world.