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Empty Planet
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Empty Planet

by John Ibbitson & Darrell Bricker
  • english-from-quebec
  • history-politics-current-affairs
  • reference
  • science

From the authors of the bestselling The Big Shift, a provocative argument that the global population will soon begin to decline, dramatically reshaping the social, political, and economic landscape.

For half a century, statisticians, pundits, and politicians have warned that a burgeoning planetary population will soon overwhelm the earth's resources. But a growing number of experts are sounding a different kind of alarm. Rather than growing exponentially, they argue, the global population is headed for a steep decline. Throughout history, depopulation was the product of catastrophe: ice ages, plagues, the collapse of civilizations. This time, however, we're thinning ourselves deliberately, by choosing to have fewer babies than we need to replace ourselves. In much of the developed and developing world, that decline is already underway, as urbanization, women's empowerment, and waning religiosity lead to smaller and smaller families.

In Empty Planet, Ibbitson and Bricker travel from South Florida to Sao Paulo, Seoul to Nairobi, Brussels to Delhi to Beijing, drawing on a wealth of research and firsthand reporting to illustrate the dramatic consequences of this population decline--and to show us why the rest of the developing world will soon join in. They find that a smaller global population will bring with it a number of benefits: fewer workers will command higher wages; good jobs will prompt innovation; the environment will improve; the risk of famine will wane; and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence and autonomy for women. But enormous disruption lies ahead, too.

We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations and worker shortages weaken the economy and impose crippling demands on healthcare and social security. The United States is well-positioned to successfully navigate these coming demographic shifts--that is, unless growing isolationism and anti-immigrant backlash lead us to close ourselves off just as openness becomes more critical to our survival than ever before.

Rigorously researched and deeply compelling, Empty Planet offers a vision of a future that we can no longer prevent--but one that we can shape, if we choose.

Contributors

John Ibbitson, author

John Ibbitson is Writer at Large for the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. Successful authors on their own, their first collaboration was on The Big Shift, a study of change in Canadian politics that became a number-one national bestseller.

Darrell Bricker, author

Darrell Bricker is Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos Public Affairs, a leading international pollster.

Reviews

  • In this fascinating and thought-provoking book, Bricker and Ibbitson compellingly argue why by the end of this century the problem won't be overpopulation but a rapidly shrinking global populace, and how we might have to adapt. - Lewis Dartnell, author of The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch
  • A highly readable, controversial insight into a world rarely thought about—a world of depopulation under ubiquitous urbanization. - George Magnus, author of The Age of Aging and Red Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy
  • To get the future right we must challenge our assumptions, and the biggest assumption so many of us make is that populations will keep growing. Bricker and Ibbitson deliver a mind-opening challenge that should be taken seriously by anyone who cares about the long-term future—which, I hope, is all of us. - Dan Gardner, author of Risk and co-author of Superforecasting
  • Thanks to the authors' paintstaking fact-finding and cogent analysis, this treatise offers ample and persuasive arguments for a re-evaluation of conventional wisdom. - Booklist
  • Warnings of catastrophic world overpopulation have filled the media since the 1960s, so this expert, well-researched explanation that it's not happening will surprise many readers . . . delightfully stimulating. - Kirkus Reviews, starred review
  • The authors combine a mastery of social-science research with enough journalistic flair to convince fair-minded readers of a simple fact: Fertility is falling faster than most experts can readily explain, driven by persistent forces. - Wall Street Journal
  • John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker have written a sparkling and enlightening guide to the contemporary world of fertility as small family sizes and plunging rates of child-bearing go global. - The Globe & Mail
  • Arresting... Lucid, trenchant, and very readable, the author's arguments upend consensus ideas about everything from the environment to immigration; the result is a stimulating challenge to conventional wisdom. - Publishers Weekly, starred review
  • This book is riveting and vitally important. - Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now

Rights Holder

Rights Holder: Westwood Creative Artists

email: meg@wcaltd.com

website: http://www.wcaltd.com/

rights available: World, excl. Canada, China, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Serbia, Spain, UK (including audio), US (including audio)

Additional Information

age range: Adult

number of pages: 304

publication date: 02/05/2019

Original language of pub: English

Materials Available: finished book