" Gilding's premise is that the current "system" (economy and culture based on continuous growth and the accumulation of "stuff") is unsustainable and must be replaced by one that is sustainable (steady state economy with redistribution of wealth and a focus on personal development, human relationships, and community). Using climate change as an example of how the current system is dysfunctional, he points out that we are currently using 1.4 planets worth of resources to fuel the growth of our economy and support our exploding population and, in the process, destroying our ecosystem through anthropogenic global warming. He proposes that we may have reached the end of economic growth in 2008 and that we have already damaged the climate through the release of greenhouse gasses to the point that the planet will warm two degrees (F) by the end of the century without drastic action. He believes that the collapse of the old economy and the effects of global climate change will lead to "The Great Disruption," a kind of bottleneck through which humanity must pass in order to survive. The disruption (droughts, crop failures, loss of land to rising seas, mass migrations, economic collapse, failed states -- in other words, chaos) will result in the loss of a few billion people, but it will inspire an effort equivalent to that of the West in World War II, which will end global warming through "The One Degree War," effect a transition to clean energy sources, create a new and socially just economic system, and focus the energies of those who remain on achieving happiness (I assume in the Aristotelian sense) rather than on shopping. Although he has the science right, I think he is a bit too sanguine about human nature. His "one degree war" (intended to limit global warming to only one degree) relies heavily on untried, expensive, and possibly unsafe technical fixes carried over the century. The transition to a new economy and clean energy technology will take place largely during "The Great Disruption" and will be given urgency and credibility by that destabilizing event. (We only have to look at Somalia to get an idea of how difficult it is to effect major changes in the midst of chaos.) Gilding is a bit too glib about the prospect of losing a few billion people and 50% of the species now living and coming out of that disruption with our optimism intact, our priorities reordered, a more just economic system, clean energy, a stabilized climate, and a healthier Weltanschauung. He fervently believes that we will respond too slowly to the coming crisis but with overpowering zeal and ingenuity when we do respond. I hope he is right about that response; I fear that he is very wrong. "
— Michael, 2/12/2014