Ten Billion

by Stephen Emmott Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

Overview

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

Just over two hundred years ago, there were one billion humans on Earth.

There are now over seven billion of us.

And, sometime this century, the world population will reach at least ten billion.

Deforestation. Desertification. Species extinction. Global warming. Growing threats to food and water. The driving issues of our times are the result of one huge problem: Us.

As the population continues to grow, our problems will increase. And this means that every way we look at it, a planet of ten billion people is likely to be a nightmare.

Stephen Emmott, a scientist whose lab is at the forefront of research into complex natural systems, sounds the alarm. Ten Billion is a snapshot of our planet, and our species, approaching a crisis, and a stark analysis of where this leaves us. Ten Billion is not another climate book.  Ten Billion is a book about us.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

09/02/2013
This muscular but anxious broadside by Emmott, a Cambridge scientist, predicts a bleak future of critical shortages, droughts, starvation, and natural disasters once the Earth's population reaches the book's eponymous number. Whether it's water or food, population trends mean that present levels of consumption can't continue. The author is forceful, if frantic, in supplying the numbers. Forty percent of the planet is already devoted to agriculture, with governments and conglomerates in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia quickly gobbling up the remaining land. As the global population grows in number and wealth, the demand for food and resource-depleting consumer goods will rise. With a few hair-raising facts, Emmott deftly demonstrates that production is itself consumption: One liter of bottled water requires four liters to produce; a hamburger takes 800 gallons. Whereas technology helped forestall crises in the past, it now uses up the very resources it's designed to preserve. Water desalination, for instance, requires energy intensive and releases many pollutants. Nuclear power would offer short-term hope but remains unpopular. The author sees only "radical behavior change" as a viable solution but does not say how this would work. Emmott's facts are enough to shake steely optimists, though the book's Malthusian pathos could be a bit cloying even for like-minded pessimists. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

A rallying call to arms. . . . Succinct and righteously pessimistic. . . . [with] an indispensible message to galvanize a world in potential crisis.”
    —Kirkus Reviews
 

Praise from the U.K. for TEN BILLION

“The cumulative effect of [Emmott’s] uncluttered, unadorned prose, buttressed with graphs and illustrations, is significant. . . . A spine-chilling warning of the environmental disaster that awaits the Earth.”
    —The Daily Telegraph (4 stars)
 
“Powerful. . . . Compelling. . . . The shift in thinking that will be needed if we are to prepare ourselves for living in a different world begins with reading Emmott's indispensable book.”
    —The Guardian 
 
"A stark, simple and short warning about the coming catastrophe, which [Emmott] feels is inevitable, resulting from human overpopulation and over-exploitation of the world’s resources. . . . A valuable contribution to rekindling a discussion on global population that has waxed and waned in the two centuries since Thomas Robert Malthus first brought the issue to public attention."
      —Financial Times

Acclaim for the theater production of TEN BILLION, performed by Stephen Emmott at London's Royal Court Theatre:

"This an hour of Matrix moments, of reminders of what underlies our daily lives. It's freeing to face the facts as well as alarming. . . . It informs, unsettles, provokes. Job done." —The Times (London)

"Professor Emmott argues his case with an implacable logic. He is quiet, humane and deeply concerned and when he says . . . 'I think we're fucked,' you have to believe him." —The Guardian (London)

"A new kind of talk . . . a daring one-man show in which Emmott desperately strives to pull together into one grand and devastating portrait the many ways we are impacting the planet." —New Scientist

Kirkus Reviews

2013-09-01
A rallying call to arms on the deteriorating state of our overcrowded planet. British environmental expert Emmott, current chief of Microsoft Research's Computational Science Laboratory in Cambridge, presents a succinct and righteously pessimistic manifesto on the human race's impact on planet Earth. Channeling his inner Al Gore, the author forewarns of the issues of an increasing global population rate (currently at 7 billion and counting) as it gains momentum and causes the expanding degradation of the planet's intricate ecosystemic network. Disturbing the harmonious interdependent synergies of the Earth's atmosphere may bring about what Emmott calls an "unprecedented planetary emergency." The dire consequences of overpopulation are all around us, writes the author, and he delivers a laundry list of human offenses: increasing demand for fresh water could lead to the resource's eventual scarcity; mushrooming levels of greenhouse gasses produced from industrial production alter the Earth's climate and weather patterns; mounting food and fuel demands increase pollution; melting ice caps contribute to rising sea levels; and land misuse is causing the "mass extinction" of species. Emmott directly blames humans for these disasters, since "our cleverness, our inventiveness, and our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face," from methane gas plumes to global warming to deforestation. With charts and photographs and a stark few-sentences-per-page layout, the author further illustrates the catastrophes at our doorsteps with sufficient urgency. He also offers several possible solutions. A "technologizing" approach incorporating nuclear power, "geoenergy" and desalination efforts is one, along with a radical, universal behavioral change that replaces overconsumption with hyperconservation. Both, however, pale in comparison to Emmott's hopelessly resigned final thought on the final page: "I THINK WE'RE FUCKED." Shocking facts and an indispensable message to galvanize a world in potential crisis.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169063202
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/10/2013
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

This is a book about us.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Ten Billion"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Stephen Emmott.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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