Tipping Point For Planet Earth by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadly, St. Martin’s Press, N.Y., 2015.

Fifty percent of Earth’s land “…has been changed from forested prairies to farms and pavement.” This book gives us a laundry list of what to do. Now, five years after this book’s publication, as we dominate Earth’s global ecosystem…”we are seeing more of what the authors predicted--genocides, and scarcities of food, water and oil. As the globe’s complexity increases, irreversible “state-changes” become real, not just likely

The authors’ numbers tell the tale: Human populations have increased “threefold from 1950 to 2015, double from 1969 to 2011. Eighty percent “live below poverty levels, and nearly a billion have inadequate food and water. Drought and hot weather have “been going on since 2010, while rapid growth of the human population continues--but could be brought down fast with a promise of “education and economic betterment.”

The rest of the book focuses on “stuff” and storms, hunger and thirst, too many diseases and war--all ready to push us over the tipping point if not reduced or controlled. Five Earths are required for all the world’s population to enjoy the American lifestyle.

The needed shift in our thinking is obvious: 1)Level our percapita consumption, 2) Change economic modeling from growth to consistency, and 3) Encourage reuse, and design products that leave no environmental footprint.

On page 238 one finds the authors’ summary of ways to reverse our rush to the tipping point. Conserve water, consume less, educate women with economic opportunities and health care, recycle, buy experience not things, design products with low environmental footprints, use carbon-neutral energy sources, eat less meat and waste less in distribution, waste less water, produce energy from waste, use wind and solar, track vectors and minimize deforestation, and avoid war by lowering population growth and ensuring basic needs while recognizing the one “common theme that runs though all solutions: “There is no such thing as local any more.”