Edited by Rick Docksai
Ending the MADness?
Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World by Tad Daley. Rutgers. 2010. 296 pages. $24.95.
Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is both feasible and necessary for survival, argues science journalist Tad Daley. As long as nations keep them, it is only a matter of time before they fire them at each other, he warns.
Daley examines the alternative futures that can unfold from the status quo of globally distributed nuclear arsenals. He concludes that, despite nations’ belief that they need nuclear weapons to ensure their own security, the only true security would be to not have them at all.
Daley outlines the steps that governments and social movements could take to abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 and rebuts some of the most common arguments against disarmament, such as the theory that a noncompliant nation would hold onto its nuclear stockpile and proceed to rule the world.
Skeptics may consider the goal of no nuclear weapons to be utopian, but Daley’s Apocalypse Never makes a bold and convincing case for policy makers to both believe in a nuclear-free world and to strive wholeheartedly toward it.
Grassroots World-Changing
Change the World, Change Your Life: Discover Your Life Purpose Through Service by Angela Perkey. Conari Press. 2010. 218 pages. Paperback. $15.95.
Despite the best efforts by government and nonprofit groups, many of the world’s problems seem to be getting worse. That’s why it’s up to individuals to contribute to community betterment, according to Angela Perkey, founder of the nonprofit group Students Serve. She shows examples of what regular citizens can do, such as participating in service organizations, building Web sites, or even starting service organizations of their own.
The best part, says Perkey, is that anyone can emulate these initiatives. It doesn’t matter what your education level, annual income, or background might be. If you commit your talents to an issue or cause that inspires you, you can make a difference in the world and be a much happier, more fulfilled person in the process.
Change the World, Change Your Life is a guide that philanthropists and activists across the globe may find inspirational.
Averting Planetary Meltdown
The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps by Peter Ward. Basic. 2010. 252 pages. Paperback. $25.95.
When global temperatures 125,000 years ago were just 4°F higher than they are now, Florida was submerged, according to biologist Peter Ward. A similar increase — or even more by 2100 — could happen with present-day carbon-dioxide levels, he warns. Should this warming take place, the ice sheets of Greenland, the Arctic, and Antarctica would mostly melt. The property losses, crop damage, famines, and displacements worldwide would be catastrophic.
Ward combines research on the earth’s ancient fossil record and present-day climate patterns to paint a vivid and alarming picture of how climate change would disrupt life over the long term.
Identifying Our Cultural Tribes
The Lifestyle Puzzle: Who We Are in the 21st Century by Henrik Vejlgaard. 2010. 235 pages. Prometheus. Paperback. $19.
Americans are more diverse and individualistic than ever before, observes social scientist Henrik Vejlgaard in The Lifestyle Puzzle. He cites the increasing fluidity of U.S. society: Few Americans today grow up in “traditional” two-parent households; fewer still keep the same jobs or remain in the same towns; and religious and political affiliations have grown highly interchangeable. Even age means less than it once did — senior citizens frequently adopt the clothing styles and hobbies of younger adults.
Yet certain patterns are discernible, he adds. Nonverbal symbols that carry universal meanings are ubiquitous: sports jerseys, corporate logos, national flags, etc. And the landscape teems with modern-day tribes whose members share clothing styles, recreational pursuits, and language: cowboys, hip-hoppers, and Goths, to name a few.
Tribes and cultural symbols are present in societies throughout the world. Many observers fear that globalization homogenizes cultures, but Vejlgaard concludes that the diversity of America’s cultural tribes suggests that people still find ways to be culturally unique and individually expressive.
The Lifestyle Puzzle is an analysis of contemporary culture and the forces likely to drive its evolution. Anthropologists and cultural critics will find it an especially valuable resource.
Better Brains, Better World?
The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World by Zack Lynch, with Byron Laursen. St. Martin’s Press. 2009. 245 pages. $25.99.
Although neurotechnology researchers’ primary goal is development of better-targeted medical treatments, neurotechnology applications are likely to transform many areas of human life during this century, including legal systems, health care, academia, culture, politics, and business, predicts Jack Lynch, founder of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization.
He and co-author Byron Laursen describe the explosive growth and activity that this field of research is undergoing, noting that universities invest millions of dollars in it. Private venture capital in neurotechnology start-ups has tripled in the last 10 years.
Besides describing major trends under way in neuroscience, the authors note the potential for great benefits as well as for misuses.
The Neuro Revolution is an overview of a major scientific field and its relevance to everyday life now and in the future. General audiences of all kinds will find it informative and approachable.
Alternatives to Consumption
Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet by Tim Jackson. Earthscan. 2009. 264 pages. $22.50.
Many nations experienced momentous economic growth across the globe over the last few decades, yet people’s reported levels of happiness stayed the same, according to environmental economist Tim Jackson. He adds that this is not surprising: Just because a nation’s economy is growing does not mean that its people are better off. In fact, sometimes economic growth can be detrimental to national well-being.
Jackson points out the roles that uncontrolled speculation and scarcities in land and resources played in hastening the 2008 economic crash and hampering economic recovery. Nonstop economic growth is the aim of most modern economies, but it is ecologically and socially impossible.
The great challenge of our time will be learning how to flourish within our ecological and social limits, Jackson concludes. This will require a new kind of “ecological macronomics” that will require structural reforms and societal values shifts to come into being.
Prosperity Without Growth is a futurist’s approach to global economics, its potential trajectories, and the desirable future to which the author believes societies can and should aspire. It is well-suited for economists and for general reading audiences.
Innovation to Avert Catastrophe
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley. HarperCollins. 2010. 422 pages. Paperback. $26.99.
Throughout the last two centuries, experts have repeatedly warned that civilization was headed for an imminent collapse and that society would shortly descend into anarchy, epidemics, famines, or other such catastrophes — yet the future kept turning out better than they had expected, says conservationist Matt Ridley.
The disasters never materialized, and instead living standards everywhere continuously improved. People in the twenty-first century are living longer, eating healthier, earning more, and enjoying vastly more and better amenities than they have at any time in human history.
“Apoca-holic” experts, Ridley argues, accurately described existing problems but failed to consider that future technological innovations might mitigate them. No one in the early 1800s foresaw the rise of fast transit by steam-engine trains, for example, and even the most savvy computer-industry experts in the 1960s had no idea that microchips would shrink computers to sizes that would fit inside users’ home offices.
Ridley advises having some hope in the capacity of future generations to solve problems that may seem insurmountable today. The key, he says, is making sure that our institutions and laws promote innovation rather than stifle it.
Combating Inequality
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Bloomsbury. 2010. 331 pages. $28.
Societies won’t make major cuts in their carbon emissions until they first reduce their socioeconomic inequalities, argue health professors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Wide gaps between the more-affluent and less-affluent members of a society are powerful drivers of consumerism — people buy and consume far more than they need in order to appear to hold higher social statuses.
Inequality has risen in most developed countries over the last few decades, according to Pickett and Wilkinson; as inequalities rise, so do unhealthy consumer buying habits and a wide range of associated ills: debt, minimal personal savings, obesity, crime, scarce charitable giving, and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
The authors favor a “steady-state economy” that would ration the extraction of the earth’s resources and keep their use well below present-day levels. Technology may ameliorate the situation by reducing the environmental and production costs of most goods, thus making them more affordable to more consumers. But true social equality will take a fundamental transformation of societal values.
The Spirit Level is a philosophical and political evaluation of national economies and how they might have to adapt to be viable in the future.
Cultural Transformation for Sustainability
State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures by the Worldwatch Institute. W.W. Norton. 2010. 244 pages. $19.95.
A worldwide binge of material consumerism has been draining the planet’s resources for the last few decades, but a new mass movement toward sustainability seems to be under way at last, according to the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2010.
The Institute report identifies such trends as religious leaders increasingly urging their congregations to embrace environmental conservation. Carbon fasts and “green” weddings are becoming common rites. Organic farmers, anti-consumerist social movements, and eco-villages promote the principle of living contentedly with less. Governments are passing legislation meant to encourage their citizens to live more sustainably. And businesses are increasingly assuming roles of social responsibility.
The report praises these initiatives as societal pioneering that could lead the way to a healthier and more equitable future — but only if their values become truly accepted by society at large. State of the World 2010 is a detailed road map for sustainable societal organization that readers of all professions may find insightful.