Epochal Transitions

Abstract

The modern world has been created by five relatively rapid and interconnected transitions. They led to temporarily high growth rates of the global population and, eventually, to much reduced fertility, longer life expectancies, and mass-scale urbanization. Increased agricultural productivity eliminated famines, reduced undernutrition, and resulted in a surfeit and waste of food in affluent countries. Transition from traditional biofuels to fossil fuels brought large increases of per capita energy supply and higher efficiencies of energy conversion, along with new powerful machines. Economic growth reached unprecedented rates, transformed sectoral contribution, created material abundance, and enabled high levels of mobility and instant communication. Environmental consequences of these transitions range from land-use changes to many forms of pollution and to global climate change. Future transitions have to address many problems created by our past successes and failures, but given the magnitude of the challenges, they will have to unfold gradually.