Overview

This book is set in numerous cultures, in various countries, but has a common theme -- how to survive the twenty-first century. Resilience, sustainability - these two words catch the spirit of the early twenty-first century. After a century of environmental neglect -- in fact denial, by some of the worst polluters in the world -- we have awoken. Global warming is a reality. It is no longer a theory. Practical people faced with the job of countering the threats of potentially dramatic climatic surprises, melting icecaps and sea-level rises are seeking solutions to lower and hold constant, the emission of greenhouse gases. We will need to reduce them by 60 to 80 per cent in a short time -- by the year 2050. Practical people will also have to deal with - adapt to, if you like - the adverse impacts that cannot be halted whatever actions we take today. Sea-level rises resulting in flooding in low-lying countries are the most obvious impacts we will have to live with until we turn the greenhouse ship around. It is as cumbersome as a giant tanker, and as dangerous as one loaded with crude oil. It has also dawned on us that, notwithstanding stable or even declining populations in the rich world, a demographic growth projectory means we must expect a 50 per cent increase in the world's population before it stabilises at nine billion plus within the next 30 to 40 years. Virtually all the population increase is going to occur in the poor countries, some of which are desperately poor. Three results are certain: greater poverty, increased degradation of local environments as the hungry search for their next meal, and even more carbon dioxide is released into the global atmosphere. There is a fourth fact to understand. The metaphor of China as an awakening sleeping giant is apt. We rejoice with those Chinese who have become middle class and can start to enjoy the goods and services that the world's middle class have taken for granted since the consumer revolution took off in the 1960's. In concert with the pleasure we feel for these hard-working and fortunate Chinese, we worry a lot about the smokestack pollution that goes hand in hand with their economic achievements. They, and the even poorer Indians, Indonesians and the desperately poor Bangladeshis and Pakistanis -- not to mention many sub-Saharan Africans -- need, and deserve, economic growth. Don't let any green advocate deny this...

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Tor Hundloe was the first Australian recognized with an Order of Australia award for his development and practice of economics in line with ecological reality and ethical imperatives. He is a professor at the University of Queensland and a very active professor at Griffith University, Queensland, where he is researching the economic and ecological feasibility of utilizing farm wastes as biofuels. In his hometown of Brisbane, Australia, he is known as the Green Viking due to his part-Norwegian heritage and his green professional pursuits. In his youth, as a roustabout in far-western shearing sheds, he was known as Beatie (after Beatnic) for his ability to recite bush ballads and more prosaic poems around the evening campfire.

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