The best minds from the 2050 Project saw three scenarios for the near future: Market World, Fortress World, and Transformed World. In 2015, it appears that civilization is shifting from Market World to Fortress World. The author believes there are many benefits to expanded free markets and trade, but if ecological and social problems were left unattended, these problems would eventually cause regional collapses, failed states, and mass migrations. In contrast, the Transformed World scenario can get started if optimistic citizens' groups and popular movements can direct government in the right ways. This book has many similarities with Mathew Burrows' "The Future, Declassified" and Stephen Emmott's "Ten Billion". It also references "The Camp of the Saints" by the French author Jean Raspail, which mirrors the mass migration on today's EU borders.
Overpopulation trends are well described in this book. There is a sort of futility to those people having large families in poor countries, and wherever the birth rate is already above the replacement of 2.1 children per family. Sociologically, the traditional status and free labor provided by many children inevitably causes a vicious cycle. That is, with each generation there is less farm land, requiring even more intensive labor to achieve the same yields as before. With the Earth's arable land at full utilization, and new farm land being gained nearly always at the cost of the precious rain forests, there are few choices left. Diminishing farm land per person is a major threat, but one that is "out of sight, out of mind": "One way to gauge potential scarcity is to assess a country's stock of fertile land per capita. When the stock falls below 0.07 hectacre (about 0.17 acre) per person - the amount estimated to be needed to raise one person's food for a nonmeat diet, without modern methods of intensive cultivation, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides - warning signs are indicated .... By the year 2025, however, 918 million to 3 billion people will be living in land-scarce countries" (p. 98-99, and 107). There is no good political answer for dividing food resources once the acreage is below 0.17 acre per person; this is a matter of inflexible physical law, chemistry and biology. The problem can only be solved in advance, through foresight and government planning, and by never crossing the lower limit of the Earth's carrying capacity.
Published in 1998, this book is unusually prescient. Allen Hammond, a Harvard graduate, writes that the 21st century "may also see human tragedy on a scale that could make the Holocaust seem modest" (p. 12). There is a tragic tendency of famines and genocides to gallop along in tandem. Hammond lays out the dire overpopulation risk and what it will take to stabilize population in the next decade or two. The challenge is that "we must know more about where the world appears to be headed and what choices we need to make" (p. 12). Which world will be ours? Market World, Fortress World, or Transformed World: this is the choice of today's citizens.
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
