Modern science offers grounds for optimism concerning human comfort and well-being in the decades ahead. Yet, forces in nature and society still threaten to create conditions of worldwide physical and economic hardship unparalleled in recorded history. If, without despairing, we accept as a working hypothesis the likelihood that resource depletion and climate change will make deep and lasting changes in Earth’s geography and traditional social order, we can still find ways to keep alive the never-fully-realized aspirations that make life worth living. Drawing examples from human history and proposing novel attitudes and values, the authors argue that human beings can indeed survive and even manage to achieve lasting happiness in a future world of greatly diminished prospects and far fewer material comforts.
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