The Five Horsemen of the Modern World : Climate, Food, Water, Disease, and Obesity / Daniel Callahan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Callahan, Daniel, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Public health--United States.

Public health.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (414 p.)

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 social 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, examines 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, anthropogenic climate change, degenerative diseases, ecological degradation, and global famine are often the unintended consequences of unchecked industrial growth, insatiable eating habits, and technologically extended life spans. Only through well-crafted political, regulatory, industrial, and cultural counterstrategies can we change enough minds to check these threats. With big thinking on issues that are usually evaluated separately, this book is sure to scramble partisan divides and provoke unusual, heated debate.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

I. Mapping an Irregular Terrain

1. Our Overheating, Fraying Planet

2. Feeding a Growing Population

3. Water

4. Chronic Illness

5. Obesity

II. Examining The Pathways Through The Tickets

6. Always More People and Ever More Elderly

7. The Technology Fix

8. A Volatile Mix

9. Law and Governance

III. Toward The Future: Progress, Hope, and Fear

10. Progress and Its Errant Children

11. The Necessary Coalition

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 21. Dez 2019)

ISBN:

9780231541527

023154152X

OCLC:

948826673