Abstract

The human race has reached one of those great critical points in its history. There are a series of problems in the agenda, which are different in kind from any the human race has faced before. Some of these have to be resolved by the turn of the century if catastrophe is to be avoided. The prospect of an unlimited nuclear arms race, the population explosion, the longer-range aspects of the energy problem, the possibility of a sharp decline in the availability of certain critical raw materials and relations among people are some of them. These problems tend to merge into each other and become a whole of enormous complexity problems that will press against the outermost limits of the capacity of the mind of man. These are the very issues which could unify, could help bring into being a family of man as an organic community for the purpose of helping solve probIems common to all; or they could renew some of the oldest causes of conflict among nations. Everybody has been relying on the prospect that science and technology will somehow manage to find the food and raw materials that is needed for the existence. But somewhere along the way, by 1985 or 1990, that hope may prove to be illusory.