From resource scarcity to ecological security : exploring new limits to growth

From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security revisits the findings of "The Global 2000 Report to the President" commissioned by President Jimmy Carter and released in 1980 and presents an up-to-date over view, informed by the earlier projections, of such critical topics as population, water, food, energy, climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity. It examines current environmental trends in order to consider the state of the global environment over the next thirty years and discusses what can be done now to achieve ecological security.

The contributors to From Resource Scarcity to Ecological Security find that the world population will likely continue to level off, but the population decline in many industrial ized countries will create new socioeconomic and political problems including the "reverse demographic shock" of dispropor tionately large aging populations. Although world food production is likely to increase at a rate that keeps up with population growth, greater demand in China as well as distribu tional issues will keep significant numbers of people malnourished. In addition to these continuing scarcity issues, ecological insecurity may increase because of new threats that include global warming, loss of biodiversity, bioinvasion, and the rapid worldwide spread of new diseases. Assessing Limits to Growth not only analyzes the nature of these impending problems but also suggests ways to solve them.