The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

The world's population is exploding, wild species are vanishing, our environment is degrading, and the cost of resources from oil to water are going nowhere but up. What kind of world are we leaving for our children and grandchildren? The news is both alarmingly bad and surprisingly good.

In The World in 2050, scientist and Guggenheim fellow Laurence C. Smith constructs a sweeping thought experiment: accept that these four forces are exceptional, accept the mainstream interpretation of the global physical data we now have, and let the tape run for forty years. The headline results? Eight nations of the Arctic Rim (including the United States) will become increasingly prosperous, powerful, and politically stable while those closer to the equator will face water shortages, aging populations, and crowded megacities sapped by the rising costs of energy and coastal flooding. Smith's core argument is that these four global pressures will transform the northern quarter of our planet, making it a place of greater human activity, strategic value, and economic importance.

Smith combines the lessons of geography and history with state-of-the-art model projections and analytical data---everything from climate dynamics and resource stocks to age distributions and economic growth projections. But Smith offers more than a compendium of statistics and studies---he spent fifteen months traveling the northern world, gathering personal experiences, insights, and interviews. These stories resonate throughout the book, making. The World in 2050 an extraordinary human work of scientific investigation.

Packed with original maps, photographs, and tables, this is the most up-to-date, balanced, and compelling account available of the challenges and opportunities facing our world in the coming century.

Laurence C. Smith is vice chairman and professor of geography, and professor of earth and space sciences at UCLA. He has briefed Congress on the likely impacts of northern climate change, and his work appeared prominently in the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, drinking water imported from hundreds of miles away.