An argument that despite increasing prosperity for most of Earth's inhabitants and an explosion of goods overall, consumption of natural resources such as metals, water, and timber has begun to decline.
Citing sources such as government reports, economic data, scientific publications, and world news coverage, McAfee illuminates the connections among these four facets and how they affect economic activity, social capital, sustainability, and humanity’s overall state of well-being. His arguments are complex at times, as he covers varying interdisciplinary fields to suggest that humans have excelled in integrating technological progress with capitalism to fulfill human needs and wants, which has also directly impacted the environment. Readers interested in environmental sciences, economics, and political economy will find McAfee’s work to be deeply engaging and useful in understanding the roles of capitalism and technology in shaping humanity’s future.
McAfee synthesizes a vast literature on economics and the environment into a lucid, robust defense of technological progress, including nuclear power and GMOs. This stimulating challenge to anticapitalist alarmists is full of fascinating information and provocative insights.
McAfee’s enthusiasm for the mineral wealth brought by fracking seems to overlook a few unpleasant externalities ... Given that a fundamental tenet of economics is that scarcity governs the availability and distribution of resources, McAfee’s certainty that the planet is 'big enough to contain' all the resources we’ll need 'for as long as we’ll need them' might seem to some readers counterintuitive, as he allows ... A cogent argument, though climate scientists may find McAfee’s assumptions and faith in market solutions too rosy.
