The core argument is very simple: America has a problem and the world has a problem.  America's problem is that it has lost its way in recent years - partly because of 9/11 and partly because of the bad habits that we have let build up over the last three decades, bad habits that have weakened our society's ability and willingness to take on big challenges.\n\n 'The world also has a problem: it is getting hot, flat, and crowded. That is, global warming, the stunning rise of middle classes all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in a way that could make our planet dangerously unstable.  In particular, the convergence of hot, flat, and crowded is tightening energy supplies, intensifying the extinction of plants and animals, deepening energy poverty, strengthening petrodictatorship, and accelerating climate change.  How we address these interwoven global trends will determine a lot about the quality of life on earth in the twenty-first century.

• climate change
• humanity
• population growth
• society
• usa
• animals
• life
• will
• change
• america
• energy
• poverty
• plants