Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?

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Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? Page 56

by Alan Weisman


  1. The actual 2012 Guttmacher/UNFPA estimate was 222 million women in the developing world whose contraceptive needs are unmet. A 2013 UN Population Division study upped the figure to 233 million by 2015 for all women worldwide currently married or in a union. The estimate here of a quarter-billion, or 250 million, reflects an additional unknown number of sexually active girls and women not in unions without ready access to modern contraception.

  2. The others were the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

  3. In 2013: 398 ppm, but already spiking over 400 ppm. Source: Global Monitoring Division of NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory.

  1. Pre–Industrial Revolution concentrations of atmospheric CO2 averaged 280 parts per million. In 2013, CO2 levels passed 400 ppm for the first time in 3 million years. (Some scientists say 15 million; either way, seas were 80–100 feet higher than today.)

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s Note

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1: A Weary Land of Four Questions

  Chapter 2: A World Bursting Its Seams

  Chapter 3: Body Counts and the Paradox of Food

  Chapter 4: Carrying Capacity and the Cradle

  PART TWO

  Chapter 5: Island World

  Chapter 6: Holy See

  Chapter 7: Gorillas in Our Midst

  Chapter 8: The Great Wall of People

  PART THREE

  Chapter 9: The Sea

  Chapter 10: The Bottom

  Chapter 11: The World Unraveling

  Chapter 12: The Ayatollah Giveth and Taketh Away

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 13: Shrink and Prosper

  Chapter 14: Tomorrow

  Chapter 15: Safe Sex

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 16: Parkland Earth

  Chapter 17: The World With Fewer of Us

  Author’s Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Alan Weisman

  Bibliography

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2013 by Alan Weisman

  Cover design by Kapo Ng; cover art by Sam Chung @ A-Men Project

  Cover copyright © 2013 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: September 2013

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  ISBN 978-0-316-23650-8

 

 

 


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