We are in a race between political and natural tipping points. Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet and avoid catastrophic sea level rise? Can we raise water productivity fast enough to halt the depletion of aquifers and avoid water-driven food shortages? Can we cope with peak water and peak oil at the same time? These are some of the issues Lester R. Brown skillfully distills in World on the Edge. Bringing decades of research and analysis into play, he provides the responses needed to reclaim our future.

This book is one of the best summaries of the current global environment crisis. Many of the problems outlined in the book are solid problems that are occurring in the world at this very moment: global climate change, over grazing and over use of water from aquifers, poverty, illiteracy, and unsustainable population growth. Lester Brown, the guru of greening our way out of our environmental mess, points to water scarcity, higher energy prices, and looming food shortages as the coming "perfect storm" to undo much of the progress we have made--and perhaps civilization itself.The writing is well done, with the issues and solutions presented in a way that a non-scientist can understand.

''Lester Brown is one of the pioneers and heroes of global environmentalism. If the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize had been extended to a third recipient, the logical candidate would have been Lester Brown.'' -E. O. Wilson