Ebook: Future Worlds
Author: John Gribbin (auth.)
- Tags: Ecology
- Year: 1981
- Publisher: Springer US
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- pdf
During the middle and late 1960s, concern about the way the world might be going began to move out of the arena of academic debate amongst specialists, and became a topic of almost everyday interest to millions of people. Concern about mankind's disruption of the natural balance of 'the environment' brought the term 'ecology' into widespread use, though not always with the meaning to be found in the dictionary, and fears that world population might be growing so rapidly that very soon we would run out of food, resulting in mass starvation and a disastrous collapse of civilisation, helped to make books such as The Limits to Growth best sellers in the early 1970s. Today, quite rightly, decisions on long-term policy with widespread repercussions - most notably, those concerning nuclear energy planning - are a subject of equally widespread public discussion. But all too often such debate focuses on specific issues without the prob lems ever being related effectively to an overall vision of where the world is going and how it is going to get there. At the Science Policy Res~arch Unit, University of Sussex, a group working on studies of social and tech nological alternatives for the future has been contributing to 'the futures debate' for several years, cautiously (perhaps, in a sense, almost too cautiously!) developing a secure foundation for forecasting the way the world may develop.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages 1-8
Introduction....Pages 9-21
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
Boom or Gloom? The Great Debate....Pages 25-48
Prospects of Doom....Pages 49-73
Front Matter....Pages 75-75
Population and Food: The Malthusian Myth....Pages 77-99
Energy Alternatives....Pages 100-133
The Raw Materials....Pages 134-156
Front Matter....Pages 157-157
Policies and Prospects: Technical and Social Change....Pages 159-183
Living in the Future World....Pages 184-215
Back Matter....Pages 216-224
Content:
Front Matter....Pages 1-8
Introduction....Pages 9-21
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
Boom or Gloom? The Great Debate....Pages 25-48
Prospects of Doom....Pages 49-73
Front Matter....Pages 75-75
Population and Food: The Malthusian Myth....Pages 77-99
Energy Alternatives....Pages 100-133
The Raw Materials....Pages 134-156
Front Matter....Pages 157-157
Policies and Prospects: Technical and Social Change....Pages 159-183
Living in the Future World....Pages 184-215
Back Matter....Pages 216-224
....