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Eleven
UN projections show global population reaching 11 billion—and the world economy growing by 500%—by the end of this century. But can the planet accommodate an additional 3.7 billion people and a five-fold economic expansion given our current ecological footprint already exceeds Earth's biocapacity by 60%?
This question will preoccupy humanity throughout this century. Our mission is daunting: Somehow, we must support 50% more people and raise billions out of poverty and reduce our ecological footprint to a sustainable level last found in 1976, when we were 4 billion.
Clearly, humanity has to change direction. Yet every facet of our social-economic-political order—indeed the totality of the dominant global culture—trains us to maintain the status quo: perpetual material growth.
ELEVEN considers how we got into this predicament and maps a way forward. It argues that solving this conundrum will require an ethical revolution, one that will wholly transform humankind, reshaping its inner life and external conditions. This process will result in the emergence of a new culture, a new agriculture, and ultimately a new human race.
Current models cannot generate the level of change that is demanded. ELEVEN introduces a framework for global transformation: Only a dynamic, grassroots capacity-building process, involving individuals, communities, and institutions, in neighbourhoods and villages everywhere—linked together on a global scale—can make this transformation succeed.
Making the world work for 11 billion people will be humanity’s greatest challenge. That we will unite to meet this ultimate challenge is neither a utopian vision, nor even a matter of choice. It is the next, inescapable stage in human evolution.
ELEVEN is available from www.friesenpress.com/bookstore, most online booksellers, and select bookstores.
This question will preoccupy humanity throughout this century. Our mission is daunting: Somehow, we must support 50% more people and raise billions out of poverty and reduce our ecological footprint to a sustainable level last found in 1976, when we were 4 billion.
Clearly, humanity has to change direction. Yet every facet of our social-economic-political order—indeed the totality of the dominant global culture—trains us to maintain the status quo: perpetual material growth.
ELEVEN considers how we got into this predicament and maps a way forward. It argues that solving this conundrum will require an ethical revolution, one that will wholly transform humankind, reshaping its inner life and external conditions. This process will result in the emergence of a new culture, a new agriculture, and ultimately a new human race.
Current models cannot generate the level of change that is demanded. ELEVEN introduces a framework for global transformation: Only a dynamic, grassroots capacity-building process, involving individuals, communities, and institutions, in neighbourhoods and villages everywhere—linked together on a global scale—can make this transformation succeed.
Making the world work for 11 billion people will be humanity’s greatest challenge. That we will unite to meet this ultimate challenge is neither a utopian vision, nor even a matter of choice. It is the next, inescapable stage in human evolution.
ELEVEN is available from www.friesenpress.com/bookstore, most online booksellers, and select bookstores.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
400 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2014
25 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 11, 2018
Eleven is about how at the end of this century, the population of Earth will have grown to 11 billion, which "will force everyone to change everything.” The author goes into many different areas—society’s values, corporate culture, the burden on the environment, etc—and talks about how we need to reinvent what it means to be human and need to work together to support such a large population. He is optimistic that we can, we must, we will. (I am not so optimistic.)
This book is FASCINATING. I've already recommended it to many people. Almost anyone would enjoy (and should read) this book. (However, the language is academic and could make a difficult and slow read for someone who isn’t used to that.) The author is scary smart and an amazing writer, moving from topic to topic in a structured way, always keeping it fresh and holding my attention with statistics, studies, and anecdotes.
These days I read more nonfiction than ever before, but it’s rare for me to actually finish a nonfiction book. Many (especially the self-help kind) seem to bog down in the middle and I quit picking them up, eventually returning them to the library unfinished. Not so with Eleven. I read every page, and many sections out loud to my husband.
Put it on your library list! Everyone should read this book.
This book is FASCINATING. I've already recommended it to many people. Almost anyone would enjoy (and should read) this book. (However, the language is academic and could make a difficult and slow read for someone who isn’t used to that.) The author is scary smart and an amazing writer, moving from topic to topic in a structured way, always keeping it fresh and holding my attention with statistics, studies, and anecdotes.
These days I read more nonfiction than ever before, but it’s rare for me to actually finish a nonfiction book. Many (especially the self-help kind) seem to bog down in the middle and I quit picking them up, eventually returning them to the library unfinished. Not so with Eleven. I read every page, and many sections out loud to my husband.
Put it on your library list! Everyone should read this book.
July 8, 2018
The ideas in this book form a thoughtful and passionate vision of what is at the root of the problems facing our world and, more importantly how we can begin to address them. This book should be taught in schools and read by world leaders.
January 18, 2018
I didn't find the writing style engaging. There are a couple of sections with interesting stories the author used to demonstrate a point and those stories themselves were engaging. If you're interested in a lot of numbers and comparisons of data it's here. While the book is advocating a position for change so that the planet can support the future of 11 billion people, his "answer" is simply repeated at the conclusion of each chapter. Seems there are more solutions necessary and there needs to be more complexity in the approach.
September 4, 2017
So many parts I want to quote. Wish I had the hard copy to highlight. But I saved a tree.
March 6, 2017
"The modern growth economy is an illusion raised on a contradiction: it cannot be sustained without ever-accelerating growth on a planet that cannot sustain accelerating growth. Growth is the monumental myth we live by."
In this pseudo-world, where representative reality occupies the main part of nonworking time, we are all passive spectators. We have become consumers of illusions.
I have a notebook full of quotes from this book. Based on research it describes the origin of many world-threatening issues, and outlines the movements that are emerging to address them. If you read it, you will conclude for yourself that the elites and politicians, whether in Ukraine, the US, the EU or elsewhere, are leading us collectively towards a very dark place.
One of the key themes of this book is that the critical problems testing humanity— such as feeding billion people on a deteriorating land resource under threat of climate change— are the very factors that will trigger the next stage of human evolution.
The author is a Baha'i. I co-authored the book "Spirit in Agriculture" with him more than 10 years ago. Although the word Baha'i is not directly mentioned, the solutions put forth provide a comprehensive rationale for the world-wide activities of the Baha'is, which represent efforts to create a new paradigm before it is too late.
In this pseudo-world, where representative reality occupies the main part of nonworking time, we are all passive spectators. We have become consumers of illusions.
I have a notebook full of quotes from this book. Based on research it describes the origin of many world-threatening issues, and outlines the movements that are emerging to address them. If you read it, you will conclude for yourself that the elites and politicians, whether in Ukraine, the US, the EU or elsewhere, are leading us collectively towards a very dark place.
One of the key themes of this book is that the critical problems testing humanity— such as feeding billion people on a deteriorating land resource under threat of climate change— are the very factors that will trigger the next stage of human evolution.
The author is a Baha'i. I co-authored the book "Spirit in Agriculture" with him more than 10 years ago. Although the word Baha'i is not directly mentioned, the solutions put forth provide a comprehensive rationale for the world-wide activities of the Baha'is, which represent efforts to create a new paradigm before it is too late.
July 6, 2016
It is rare, in my opinion anyway, that one can read a book fully expecting to be bored by it and after having read it come away buoyed with the feeling that life is hopeful. That is exactly what Paul Hanley's latest book, with the unlikely title of "11", did for me. Paul explores a world with 11 billion inhabitants by century's end and even though, based on what we know today, it is a doomsday scenario he gives us hope that, yes, humanity can survive in such a world. "11" is a must read if we want to know the common sense rules by which to live from now on. It is not too late, he tells us, but read his book and if we can incorporate what we've learned, then.....
June 20, 2017
Substantive, really well-written and compiled - a companion for contemplating a future that demands major shifts in perspective.
Sample themes:
"Breaking our addiction to consumption, and learning to use power and wealth in the service of others, will require an unprecedented change in culture, a change that transforms even our mental infrastructure. The ethical transformation called for can only be brought about through a mass-scale moral education movement that will reorient the minds and hearts of children, youth, and adults of every social class, in every nation."
Sample themes:
"Breaking our addiction to consumption, and learning to use power and wealth in the service of others, will require an unprecedented change in culture, a change that transforms even our mental infrastructure. The ethical transformation called for can only be brought about through a mass-scale moral education movement that will reorient the minds and hearts of children, youth, and adults of every social class, in every nation."
January 12, 2017
I was pleased (and challenged) to review this book for subTerrain magazine, issue #75 (Nostalgia). You can find my review on page 71.
April 22, 2020
The author never makes the case that we should allow the world's population to grow to 11 billion. It is presented as inevitable that this will be the case. Once we reach that number, what then? What other changes for the growth to 15 billion? 20 billion? Rather than "re-educating" the entire human race, maybe we should spend our efforts in controlling population growth.
The good:
Some of the statistics presented, especially about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, are interesting. I did not realize the scale of what could be sequestered by aforestation/reforestation. I had not thought of trees as carbon sinks, just as a way to scrub CO2. Sadly, this low tech method of sequestration will probably not be pursued because it will not allow someone to make a fortune.
The bad:
1. "Re-education" - the way to adjust to 11 billion is to get everyone on the planet to change their core beliefs? This sounds similar to the re-education that occurred/occurs in, oh, say, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and Cuba, to name a few.
2. Not all land that is used for pastures for cattle is suitable for growing food crops. For example, where I live we get an average of 13" of precipitation per year with an evaporation rate of 81". It is possible to ranch this land, but to grow food crops would require massive amounts of irrigation which is not sustainable. However, I do agree that it is much more efficient for crops to go from the field to humans without the intermediate step of becoming meat.
The good:
Some of the statistics presented, especially about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, are interesting. I did not realize the scale of what could be sequestered by aforestation/reforestation. I had not thought of trees as carbon sinks, just as a way to scrub CO2. Sadly, this low tech method of sequestration will probably not be pursued because it will not allow someone to make a fortune.
The bad:
1. "Re-education" - the way to adjust to 11 billion is to get everyone on the planet to change their core beliefs? This sounds similar to the re-education that occurred/occurs in, oh, say, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and Cuba, to name a few.
2. Not all land that is used for pastures for cattle is suitable for growing food crops. For example, where I live we get an average of 13" of precipitation per year with an evaporation rate of 81". It is possible to ranch this land, but to grow food crops would require massive amounts of irrigation which is not sustainable. However, I do agree that it is much more efficient for crops to go from the field to humans without the intermediate step of becoming meat.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews