By 2050, the world’s population will top ten billion people. As industrial capitalism evolves across the globe like no time in human history, will our planet’s ecosystem be able to sustain itself during this rapid transformation? Will human beings be able to support themselves with agriculture and survive on this planet, or are they doomed, like other species before them, to consume all resources and die out? This is just one of many questions that Charles C. Mann’s grapples with in The Wizard and the Prophet. The popular science author’s book studies the past to predict the future, focusing on two twentieth century scientists: Norman Borlaug and William Vogt. Their respective visions about how humanity should progress into the future still sharply divides society today. Mann assigns these opposing groups two labels: “Wizards” and “Prophets”. The prophets are disciples of Vogt, who believed we need to reject consumerism and conserve the environment. “Vogt said we can grow food to feed our burgeoning population, but in doing so, we will destroy the ecosystem on which our life depends,” Mann explained, from his home in rural Massachusetts. The Wizards, meanwhile, are heirs of Borlaug, and his so-called “Green Revolution” which transformed global… Read full this story
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Are You a 'Wizard' or a 'Prophet'? The Dueling Visions for How Humanity Will Survive have 335 words, post on gizmodo.com at March 16, 2018. This is cached page on The World Articles. If you want remove this page, please contact us.