Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
Page 56
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.
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ISBN 978-0-316-23650-8