Overview

In recent decades, we have seen five perilous and interlocking trends dominate global discourse: irreversible climate change, extreme food and water shortages, rising chronic illnesses, and rampant obesity. Why can't we make any progress in counteracting these problems despite vast expenditures of intellectual, institutional, and social capital? What makes these global emergencies the ""wicked problems"" that resist our best efforts and only grow more daunting? Daniel Callahan, noted author and the nation's preeminent scholar in bioethics, examines these global problems and shines a light on the institutions, practices, and actors that block major change. We see partisan political and ideological forces, old-fashioned hucksters, and trumped-up scientific disagreements but also the problem of modern progress itself. Obesity, anthropogenic climate change, degenerative diseases, ecological degradation, and global famine are often the unintended consequences of unchecked industrial growth, insatiable eating habits, and technologically extended life spans. Only through well-crafted political, regulatory, industrial, and cultural counterstrategies can we change enough minds to check these threats. With big thinking on issues that are usually evaluated separately, this book is sure to scramble partisan divides and provoke unusual, heated debate.

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9780231170024

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Reviews

This is a wide-ranging, sincere and syncretic attempt to identify and analyze the greatest threats to the planet today. It is a work of tremendous breadth of vision, with an earnest concern about some of the most serious problems of our time. Callahan is a master of clear communication. -- Donna Dickenson, author of Me Medicine vs. We Medicine: Reclaiming Biotechnology for the Common Good Callahan is subtle in expressing his point of view - you never feel like he is pushing an ideology or a single-minded solution at the reader. He lets the data speak first and then he sets the path. -- Sheldon Krimsky, Lenore Stern, Tufts University, Author of Stem Cell Dialogues Callahan's analysis of the evolution of global problems is instructive and accessible, his use of data clear and persuasive. A work of impressive scope. -- Steve Cohen, Columbia University

Author Information

Daniel Callahan is president emeritus and cofounder of The Hastings Center, which focuses on ethical and policy issues. He has published seventeen volumes, including Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System (2009), Medicine and the Market: Equity v. Choice (2006); and What Price Better Health? Hazards of the Research Imperative (2006).

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