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A new report says the global economy that sprang from the industrial revolution may not be suitable for sustainable growth in the 21st Century. The Worldwatch Institute says environmental stress, economic volatility and growing social inequality are threatening prospects for prosperity. The report is called State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity. Michael Renner, co-director of the report, said, “We chose the term ‘sustainable prosperity’ because we feel that there’s a real danger that this notion of taking care of the environment is too often seen as a burden that just comes at the wrong time when we’re facing a big economic crisis. And I think it’s absolutely essential to proceed in ways that we look at both the environmental concerns and the social and economic concerns. How can we reduce the burden on the planet?” For more people to lead the so-called good life, Renner said, existing resources need to be used wisely. “Well, you know, the good life I think sort of traditionally has in Western countries been defined as a life that is built on fairly massive consumption of resources – energy, water, materials of all sorts. What we like to argue is that you can still lead a good life, just without consuming so much in the way of resources,” he said. One example, he said, is better infrastructure. “How can our transportation system, for example, be organized so we don’t have to travel such huge distances every day just to go to jobs, go to the stores or the movies and so on. And so there are various technical and structural ways to ensure that we have a decent life,” he said. He said countries need to move toward developing renewable energy and not rely on fossil fuels. He added that new oil finds in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and other countries may not be the long-term solution to energy demands. “The scale that we’re talking about in terms of global consumption - these additional finds of oil are really not going to make that mu