Cities are in trouble. There is no place for the world's huddled masses to go. Migration, both external and internal, is rising due to both population pressure and environmental destruction. The wage gap between the poorest and the richest continues to increase around the world. Clearly, whether or not human activity is the cause, global climate change is a fact, leaving uncertain those whose livelihoods depend on planning for the future.
Human activity continues to affect the biosphere.
Ignorant of the workings of the systems that sustain us, we continue to squeeze them, not knowing whether we are squeezing them too much. Infectious disease, which in our hubris we thought we had nearly conquered, is resurgent. Fundamentalist and charismatic groups continue to increase in popularity. While the book is evidently not an academic volume, and thus we shouldn't expect footnotes, more complete acknowledgments and perhaps a bibliography or further reading list would have been useful and given Linden's conclusions more credibility. The main problem with the book, however, is that Linden offers no answers.