The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

Part I How to Approach the Next Twenty Years

Chapter 1 The Coming Storm 3

Chapter 2 The Lens: How to See the Future 7

Chapter 3 A World Worth Inheriting 11

Chapter 4 Trust Yourself 15

Part II Foundation

Chapter 5 Dangerous Exponentials 21

Chapter 6 An Inconvenient Lie: The Truth about Growth 35

Chapter 7 Our Money System 41

Chapter 8 Problems and Predicaments 53

Chapter 9 What is Wealth? (Hint: It’s Not Money) 57

Part III Economy

Chapter 10 Debt 65

Chapter 11 The Great Credit Bubble 79

Chapter 12 Like a Moth to Flame: Our Destructive Tendency to Print 95

Chapter 13 Fuzzy Numbers 103

Chapter 14 Starting the Race with Our Shoes Tied Together 115

Part IV Energy

Chapter 15 Energy and the Economy 125

Chapter 16 Peak Oil 141

Chapter 17 Necessary but Insufficient: Coal, Nuclear, and Alternatives 159

Chapter 18 Why Technology Can’t Fix This 177

Part V Environment

Chapter 19 Minerals: Gone with the Wind 187

Chapter 20 Soil: Thin, Thinner, Gone 197

Chapter 21 Parched: The Coming Water Wars 205

Chapter 22 All Fished Out 213

Part VI Convergence

Chapter 23 Convergence: Why the Twenty–Teens Will Be Difficult 219

Chapter 24 Closing the Book on Growth 227

Chapter 25 Future Scenarios 231

Part VII What Should I Do?

Chapter 26 The Good News: We Already Have Everything We Need 249

Chapter 27 What Should I Do? 255

Chapter 28 The Opportunities 267

Appendix 277

Notes 279

Index 291