ABSTRACT
Has the future a future? Are we bringing history to an end? Observing any one of several individual but critical trends suggests that, without rapid and positive action, history may have only a very short way to run. Whether it is the growth of world population, of greenhouse gas concentrations and the accelerating rate of climate change, the running down of oil and natural gas reserves, growing shortages of fresh water for agriculture, industry and domestic use, or the increasing difficulty in controlling epidemic diseases � we are facing a mounting global crisis that will peak in less than a generation, around the year 2030. Taken together, these trends point to a potentially apocalyptic period, if not for the planet itself then certainly for human societies and for humankind. In this compelling book, and update to The 2030 Spike, Colin Mason explains in clear and irrefutable terms what is going on � largely below the surface of our daily or weekly news bulletins. The picture he paints is stark, and yet it is not bleak. Being forewarned, we are forearmed, and he draws on his own extensive political experience to describe how much we can do as individuals, and above all collectively, not merely to avert crisis but to engineer thoroughgoing change that can usher in genuinely sustainable and valuable alternatives to the way we live now.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |95 pages
Is There a Crisis?
chapter |11 pages
The Drivers
chapter |18 pages
Running Out of Fuel: The Coming Energycrunch
chapter |10 pages
Population and Poverty
chapter |15 pages
Climate: How Long to Tipping Point?
chapter |14 pages
Is There Enough Food and Water?
chapter |11 pages
One World?
chapter |13 pages
The Fourth Horseman
part |54 pages
Directions
chapter |9 pages
Which Way Science?
chapter |12 pages
In the Genes: New Plants – And People?
chapter |9 pages
The Values of the Sea
chapter |10 pages
Multinationals: Good Business or Bad?
chapter |12 pages
The Trouble with Money
part |55 pages
Upgrading the Individual
chapter |8 pages
The Pursuit of Happiness
chapter |5 pages
Love, Family And Freedom
chapter |12 pages
Habitat: The Dilemma of the Cities
chapter |9 pages
Making Education Work
chapter |9 pages
Health and Wealth
chapter |9 pages
Religion: The Cement of Society?
part |75 pages
The New Society