November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

Travels on a Dirty Planet

(Page 8 of 8)

September/October 1999 Issue
By Mark Hertsgaard, Utne Reader 
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Compressed in that brief exchange, it seems to me, is the essential dilemma facing the human species as we approach the 21st century. Can the material strivings of the entire human family be reconciled with the carrying capacity of the planet's ecosystems? Does my young Ugandan friend deserve the occasional book, and electric light to read it by? Will business as usual suffice to provide them? If not, will technical fixes be found in time? And what if technical fixes are not enough? What happens then?

Mark Hertsgaard is the author of On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency and A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles. He teaches nonfiction writing at Johns Hopkins University and lives near Washington, D.C. Adapted from Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future (Broadway Books, 1999).

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