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Origin of this book In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) initiated the 2000 Watt Society, a University-wide research program meant to help Switzerland realize a dramatic reduction in its future energy use. A project within the initiative “Sustainability in the ETH domain,” the 2000 Watt per capita Society sought to promote “the gradual introduction of a way of living and working that requires only one-third of current energy consumption but 1 2 still delivers an improved quality of life. ” Two thousand watts is roughly the current world average per capita energy consumption; it was the average level in Switzerland in the 1950s; it is some three times less than current 3 Swiss usage; and reducing to that level again (in concert with other industrialized nations) would greatly facilitate stabilization of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO )levels in the long-term