The modern world is wondrous. Its factories produce ten thousand cars
every hour and ten trillion transistors every second. We carry
supercomputers in our pockets, and nearly a million people are in the
air at any time. In Civilization Critical, Darrin Qualman takes readers
on a tour of the wonders of the 21st century.
But the great strength of our modern word is also its great weakness.
Our immense powers to turn resources and nature into products and waste
imperil our future. And plans to double and redouble the size of the
global economy veto sustainability.
So, is our civilization doomed? No. Doom is a choice. We can make
different choices.
Qualman demonstrates that a 19th- and 20th-century transition to linear
systems and away from the circular patterns of nature (and of all
previous civilizations) is the foundational error--the underlying
problem, the root cause of climate change, resource depletion, ocean's
full of plastics, and a host of mega-problems now intensifying and
merging, with potentially civilization-cracking results. In this
sweeping work, Qualman reinterprets and re-explains the problems we face
today, and charts a clear, hopeful path into the future.