Customer Reviews

The 2030 Spike: Countdown to Global Catastrophe

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The title of this book is much more pessimistic than its content. It does catalogue in great detail the range of threats to human society, as well as the failings of the current world order, and advance the thesis that a series of trends are converging towards a major 'crunch' about 2030. However, much of the book is devoted to pointing out that the resources, the technology and the expertise are available to manage most if not all of these issues if only we could get our priorities right. The author, who is a former Senator in the Australian Parliament, puts forward two axioms against which he tests proposals for managing towards a sustainable world.
The 26 chapters cover an enormous range of issues, centering on six drivers that the author identifies, but covering health and education, the family, religion, money and other subjects as well. This provides valuable breadth and understanding of interconnections, but at some expense in terms of depth of analysis of particular issues.
Most of the issues that the author addresses are also covered by many other authors. The value of this book is that it is relatively short, presents the issues clearly, and offers directions which, even if not 'the answer', provide a useful starting point for dialogue and development. 

Although the general conclusions are often right, the data is now old, and old solutions are no longer valid. Ways of thought that are invalid are still prevalent, like Mason's thinking that it is a direct link between poverty and over-breeding, when in reality it is intelligence. It is already too late for many solutions to ever work, because immediate 2003 steps had to be taken and were not.
The arctic has heated up enough that by 2009 it was reported at the tipping point for methane self-release, for example.
I had erroneously thought that the book was new, and wish I had not bought it. Too much has changed to make the book really of much use.

I liked this little book. It felt good holding it in my hands. The writing style is a little dry. It has some very good chapters and some that will make you a little tired. Overall, Colin Mason has some important points to make. I think he has the year wrong. I don't think things will spike in 2030. I think they will spike by 2020 or 2025. You can be the judge of that because you can buy this book used on Amazon for almost nothing and this book is well worth the postage. Regard, Keith Renick, Peachtree City, Ga.