"Billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilization will collapse." This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet.
According to the report, the effects of climate change are worsening—by 2025 there could be three billion people without adequate water as the population rises still further. And massive urbanization, increased encroachment on animal territory, and concentrated livestock production could trigger new pandemic.
Nevertheless, there are answers to our global challenges although decisions are still not being made on the scale necessary to address them. Three great transitions would help both the world economy and its natural environment—to shift as much as possible from freshwater agriculture to saltwater agriculture; produce healthier meat without the need to grow animals; and replace gasoline cars with electric cars.

Aside from Charles Darwin, most students of animal behavior in the past believed that animals didn't have emotions—or that if they did, we'd never know. Over the years, the belief hardened into dogma. Then, in the mid-60s, came Jane Goodall. Since she had little scientific training, she had never been indoctrinated with behaviorist theory. "But I'd had this amazing teacher my whole life," she says. That would be Rusty, a little black mongrel who lived at a hotel in her childhood neighborhood. "He went everywhere with me, and he didn't even belong to me," she says. "At the hotel he was disobedient, but he was beautifully behaved and sensitive with me. Of course, I thought animals had emotions, personalities, minds, How could I not?"