How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future by Vaclav Smil

This is not a guide to how world works. That is a really complicated topic.

This is more focused on how the industrialisation and science has evolved and contributed to the current state of mankind.

It talks largely covers four important drivers which are steel, food, ammonia, and fuel. But it focuses on a lot of myth busting. The ideas that take root in our understanding without knowing much about how we reached it. And that is the beauty of rationality. It has a lot of number crunching to drive a point why something is different (not better) than other.

It doesn't take side, and just put some arguments based on the numbers. We can always contest the data but that should not stop a discussion. This discussion is important to give us different perspective.

E.g. technical and chemical advances helped in delivering the food requirement of world's rapidly growing population or we can take the example of crude oil/coal as how it contributed a lot to how we live today (a lot of dependence on energy obtained from fossil fuel). But from the advances in both the fields, we saw equally negative effect on environment. Plus this was unevenly distributed which created a myopic view.

We can't turn the clock back and go back to how we were surviving in Palaeolithic age but there are still a lot of things that we can do not only at a global level but also at an individual level.

The world is not coming to an end but we don't have a magic pill either so rather then going for any extreme measure, it would require a more balanced approach and a dedication towards what we want to achieve. Announcing the goals to be achieved in the years which end in 0 or 5 without real action is just a gimmick.

Peace