The five horsemen of the modern world : climate, food, water, disease, and obesity / Daniel Callahan.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Our overheating, fraying planet -- Feeding a growing population : how, and with what kind of food? -- Water : not everywhere and not always fit to drink -- Chronic illness : rich or poor, few escape -- Obesity : the scourge of bad diets and sedentary habits -- Always more people and ever more elderly : caring and paying -- The technology fix : a way out? -- A volatile mix : public opinion, the media, and shaping policy -- Law and governance : managing our public planet and our private bodies -- Progress and its errant children : more is never enough -- The necessary coalition : social movements, legislatures, business.

In recent decades, we have seen five perilous and interlocking trends dominate global discourse: irreversible climate change, extreme food and water shortages, rising chronic illnesses, and rampant obesity. Why can?t we make any progress in counteracting these problems, despite vast expenditures of intellectual, institutional, and societal capital? What makes these global emergencies the "wicked problems" that resist our best efforts and only grow more daunting? Daniel Callahan, noted author and the nation?s preeminent scholar in bioethics, takes a cross-cutting look at these global problems and shines a light on the institutions, practices, and actors that block major change. We see partisan political and ideological forces, old fashioned hucksters, and trumped up scientific disagreements, but also the problem of modern progress itself. Obesity, anthropocentric climate change, wasting illnesses, ecological degradation, and global famine are often the unintended consequences of unchecked industrial growth, reckless eating habits, and artificially extended lifespans. Only through well-crafted political, regulatory, industrial, and cultural counterstrategies can we change enough minds to check these threats. Big thinking on issues that are usually evaluated separately, this book is sure to scramble partisan divides and provoke unusual, heated debate.

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