The Problems We Face

Abstract

We begin by providing an overview of the book’s main themes. The world faces a number of interconnected serious environmental and resource challenges, including (but not limited to) the widely-publicised global climate change and oil depletion problems. A range of largely technological solutions to these problems have been extensively discussed, but we draw on both engineering principles and Earth Systems Science to argue that previous analyses have been over-optimistic. If Earth resources and pollution absorption capacity are indeed limited, then distributional issues become crucial in a world with grossly unequal access to resources. Further, the time frame in which to find viable solutions and make the changes is limited, compounding the problem of deep uncertainty about the future.

The world will need to move beyond the carbon civilisation of the past two centuries, to one based largely on renewable energy sources. We argue that a new approach to economics is also needed, and even a re-orientation of our core values, with a shift in emphasis from economic growth to the satisfaction of basic human needs. In brief, far more reliance will need to be placed on social solutions to our environmental and resource problems, and less on technical fixes.