The dangers are now evident, and also the opportunities are becoming visible. The silver lining at the edge of the gathering clouds is what the Chinese had long known but we have all but forgotten: crisis is both danger and opportunity. Yet living in a crisis-ridden world has its positive side. Growing waves of migrants move from social and political hot-spots and ecologically threatened areas toward relatively stable and prosperous regions, where they stress society and overload the economy and the ecology. Grassroots movements to overthrow dictators and power-elites are sweeping Africa and are spreading to Asia and Latin America.

Social structures are breaking down in countries both developed and developing, and inequality and injustice, exposed by global flows of information, fuel resentment and revolt.In its present form the global financial system is entirely untenable, yet bankers and politicians still try to stabilize it. In its search for markets and profits, mainstream businesses feed people's appetite for resource consumption, pushing one natural resource after another past peek production into decline. Despite great advances in the technologies of production and distribution, the gap is growing between rich and poor. There is unsustainability in the economy.The way we pollute the air is not sustainable either: it would soon present serious health hazards especially in urban and industrial agglomerations. A growing population with growing per capita resource consumption is rapidly depleting the vital resources of the planet. The way we withdraw and consume water, manage our productive lands and the resources of the sea, cannot be prolonged for long. There is unsustainability in the ecology.

Worldshift steam