The Future Is Not What It Used To Be: Climate Change and Energy Scarcity

“The future is not what it used to be because we can no longer rely on the comforting assumption that it will resemble the past. Past abundance of fuel, for example, does not imply unending abundance. Infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible.”

The Future Is Not What It Used to Be provides a potent antidote to wishful thinking about the scale of global problems and a brutally honest high-level assessment of humanity’s failure to act. For pessimists there is much to confirm one’s world-view and insight into how to avoid the traps of despair or denial. For optimists the book is a gruelling but ultimately enlightening experience. Falling into the latter camp, I found the book a dark masterpiece. A sober check against reckless hope, it contains a message that anyone interested in civilisation’s long-term future needs to hear.       —Robin Lovelace, Environmental Values