Anthony D. Barnosky

Elizabeth A. Hadly

Overconsumption, population growth, dwindling natural resources, climate change, disease, contamination, storms, thirst, and war. Will the struggle to simply stay alive become humanity's future rather than its past? What happens if population pressures finally hit a threshold that tumbles the dominoes of food, water, energy, climate, pollution, and biodiversity, which in turn break up the intricate workings of the global society? Just how close we may be to a global tipping point becomes apparent when you take a helicopter view and see what's happening at the scale of the entire planet. In 'End Game' Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly have compiled an overview of the calamities which we face from huge human population growth.

Tipping Point for Planet Earth?

End Game

"Tipping Point for Planet Earth explains why Earth is headed for a tipping point, a change so fast, dramatic, and unexpected that humanity will reel at the consequences.Midway through this century, there will be more than nine billion people on the planet. Already we are using most of the arable land that exists and overfishing the oceans. Water, too, is becoming scarce in many places.The services that humans depend upon--like a supply of clean water, food production, and protection from disease--are subject to dangerous threats as well. We can still keep humanity moving forward by ensuring that the negative changes that are accumulating do not outweigh the positive ones. Tipping Point for Planet Earth offers sensible solutions to our most pressing problems. The grand challenge of the 21st century is to change the endgame from one that looks like a train wreck, to one that sees the train carrying us all into a bright future"--

How Close Are We to the Edge?

Tipping Point for Planet Earth

Four people are born every second of every day. Conservative estimates suggest that there will be 10 billion people on Earth by 2050. That is billions more than the natural resources of our planet can sustain without big changes in how we use and manage them. So what happens when vast population growth endangers the world’s food supplies? Or our water? Our energy needs, climate, or environment? Or the planet’s biodiversity? What happens if some or all of these become critical at once? Just what is our future? In Tipping Point for Planet Earth, world-renowned scientists Anthony Barnosky and Elizabeth Hadly explain the growing threats to humanity as the planet edges toward resource wars for remaining space, food, oil, and water. And as they show, these wars are not the nightmares of a dystopian future, but are already happening today. Finally, they ask: at what point will inaction lead to the break-up of the intricate workings of the global society? The planet is in danger now, but the solutions, as Barnosky and Hadly show, are still available. We still have the chance to avoid the tipping point and to make the future better. But this window of opportunity will shut within ten to twenty years. Tipping Point for Planet Earth is the wake-up call we need.

Elizabeth A. Hadly

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