Wasted World

Download or read book Wasted World written by Rob Hengeveld and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biologist’s “monumental cri de Coeur” for our planet offers a holistic view of our species, the waste we produce, and a path toward sustainability (Nature). In Wasted World, Rob Hengeveld traces the entwined histories of population growth and resource consumption to reveal how our global waste crises came about. As Hengeveld explains, human life depends on energy, which we first obtained through food. Later, we supplemented this with energy from water, wind, animals, and finally fossil fuels, as one source after another fell short of our ever-growing needs. Greater energy consumption has created greater waste, including the atmospheric waste that is driving climate change. As we face a web of interconnected problems, addressing them individually will not work. Instead, Hengeveld argues, we need to tackle their common cause: our staggering population growth. A practical look at the sustainability of our planet from a biologist and expert in the abundances and distributions of species, Wasted World examines the whole process of using, wasting, and exhausting energy and material resources. And by elucidating the complexity of the causes of our current global state, Hengeveld offers us a way forward.