Fred Pearce, Author of When the Rivers Run Dry
For more than two centuries there has been mounting concern that rapidly growing populations are putting an unsustainable strain on the Earth’s resources. However, much has been misunderstood about the current rate of population growth and its effect on the environment. Though the global population is four times what it was a century ago, women in nearly every country are having fewer children, people are living longer thanks to medical and technological advances, and soon global deaths will exceed global births.
In this forum, renowned science writer Fred Pearce will discuss what is in store for our changing planet, and what we can do to help build the foundation for a wiser, kinder, greener world. By exploring the sordid history of population control efforts, and emphasizing the important roles of women’s rights, migration, and conservation, Pearce shifts the argument away from over-population to instead look at the critical global threat of over-consumption.
Reviews:
“The population ‘debate’ is so fraught with the history of colonialism that no one wants to touch it. Thank goodness that Fred Pearce has had the courage to write this informative, timely, and brilliant challenge to the commonly held vision of overwhelming population growth laying waste to the earth. This book is about hope—just in the nick of time.”
—Maude Barlow, author of Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water
“What a wonderfully rich and humane book! As a generation of newly empowered women sweeps away our wrongheaded Malthusian nightmare, Fred Pearce demonstrates persuasively that the end of the population surge may well usher in a new era of ethnic tolerance, increased global integration, and a period of kinder and more nurturing governance.”
—Ross Gelbspan, author of The Heat Is On and Boiling Point
Fred Pearce is a former news editor at New Scientist. Currently its environmental and development consultant, he has also written for Audubon, Popular Science, Time, the Boston Globe, and Natural History, and writes a regular column for the Guardian. His books include When the Rivers Run Dry (Beacon), With Speed and Violence (Beacon), and Confessions of an Eco-Sinner (Beacon). Pearce lives in England.
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