Description

The world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion – a crisis that encompasses shortages of oil, coal and natural gas, copper and cobalt, water and arable land. With all of the Earth s habitable areas already in use, the desperate hunt for supplies has now reached the final frontiers. The Race for What s Left takes us from the Arctic to war zones to deep ocean floors, from a Russian submarine planting the country s flag under the North Pole to the large-scale buying up of African farmland by Saudi Arabia and other nations. With resource extraction growing more complex, the environmental risks are becoming increasingly severe – and the intense search for dwindling supplies is igniting new border disputes. The only way out, Klare argues, will be to alter our consumption patterns altogether, a crucial task that will be the greatest challenge of the coming century.