Feeding the World

A Challenge for the Twenty-First Century
Erscheinungsjahr 2001
ISBN: 978-0-262-69271-7
Verlag: MIT Press

Buch, Englisch, 390 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 635 g

Reihe: The MIT Press

A realistic yet encouraging look at how society can change in ways that will allow us to feed an expanding global population.This book addresses the question of how we can best feed the ten billion or so people who will likely inhabit the Earth by the middle of the twenty-first century. He asks whether human ingenuity can produce enough food to support healthy and vigorous lives for all these people without irreparably damaging the integrity of the biosphere.What makes this book different from other books on the world food situation is its consideration of the complete food cycle, from agriculture to post-harvest losses and processing to eating and discarding. Taking a scientific approach, Smil espouses neither the catastrophic view that widespread starvation is imminent nor the cornucopian view that welcomes large population increases as the source of endless human inventiveness. He shows how we can make more effective use of current resources and suggests that if we increase farming efficiency, reduce waste, and transform our diets, future needs may not be as great as we anticipate.Smil's message is that the prospects may not be as bright as we would like, but the outlook is hardly disheartening. Although inaction, late action, or misplaced emphasis may bring future troubles, we have the tools to steer a more efficient course. There are no insurmountable biophysical reasons we cannot feed humanity in the decades to come while easing the burden that modern agriculture puts on the biosphere.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smil, Vaclav

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltpolitik, Umweltprotokoll
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Umweltökonomie
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltmanagement, Umweltökonomie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Umwelt- und Gesundheitspolitik

Über Autor(innen)

Smil, Vaclav
Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of forty books, including Energy and Civilization, published by the MIT Press. In 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013 Bill Gates wrote on his website that “there is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil."

Vaclav Smil is Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba and the author of many books, including Energy at the Crossroads (2003), The Earth's Biosphere: Evolution, Dynamics, and Change (2002), and Energies: An Illustrated Guide to the Biosphere and Civilization (1998), all of which are published by The MIT Press. He is the 2000 recipient of the Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology given by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the 2007 co-winner of the Olivia Schieffelin Nordberg Award for excellence in writing and editing in the population sciences.