A workable framework for understanding the how and why of dramatic societal, envir
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Part I How to Approach the Next Twenty Years 1
1 The Coming Storm 3
2 The Lens: How to See the Future 7
3 A World Worth Inheriting 11
4 Trust Yourself 14
Part II Foundation 21
5 Dangerous Exponentials 23
6 Problems versus Predicaments 38
7 An Inconvenient Lie: The Truth About Growth 42
8 Complex Systems 47
9 Our Money System 55
10 What Is Wealth? (Hint: It’s Not Money) 69
Part III Economy 75
11 Debt 77
12 The Great Credit Bubble 90
13 Like a Moth to Flame: Our Destructive Tendency to Print 100
14 Fuzzy Numbers 109
15 Crumbling Before Our Eyes: The Story of Concrete 118
Part IV Energy 123
16 Energy and the Economy 125
17 Peak Oil 141
18 Shale Oil 160
19 Necessary but Insufficient: Clean Energy, Nuclear, and Coal 166
20 Why Technology Can’t Fix This 191
Part V Environment 199
21 Minerals: Gone with the Wind 201
22 Soil: Thin, Thinner, Gone 211
23 Parched: The Coming Water Wars 219
24 All Fished Out 226
25 What Do You Mean We’re Running Out of Sand? Strange but True 231
Part VI Convergence 233
26 Where Have All the Insects Gone? Silence of the Lamps 235
27 The Bumpy Path to 2030 238
Part VII What Should I Do? 247
28 The Good News: We Already Have Everything We Need 249
29 Closing the Book on Growth 257
30 What Should I Do? 260
31 Build Up Your Capital! 270
Appendix 291
Notes 293
Index 303
