Shape of the future

Danny Dorling reviews The Next Supercontinent: Solving the Puzzle of a Future Pangea by Ross Mitchell. Why write a book about the possible future supercontinent dubbed Amasia, a landmass not expected to fully form until 200 million years from now? Author Ross Mitchell credits the naming to Paul Hoffman, a geologist currently based in Beijing at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. What Mitchell’s work has mostly concerned until now is the past, constructing the record of what happened before. To get us interested in that, and why it matters, he has written instead about the future. But what this book is actually about is neither the future nor the past: The ..

My Life in Fragments by Zygmunt Bauman - review

My Life in Fragments presents the life and thought of the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman through an assemblage of letters he wrote to his daughters. Combining biography and broader reflections on the pressing issues of our time, this edited collection provides a sharp, rewarding insight into one of recent history’s most renowned thinkers, writes Danny Dorling. My Life in Fragments. Zygmunt Bauman, edited by Izabela Wagner and translated from the Polish by Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Paulina Bożek and Leigh Mueller. Polity. 2023

World population projections: Just little bits of history repeating?

The world population is expected to peak in the summer of 2086. But do the official United Nations estimates give enough consideration to human behaviour? Danny Dorling gives his verdict

Don’t panic about the birth of Baby 8 Billion. Before he’s 65 our numbers will be in reverse

We should not be alarmed at the rise in global population; it’s inequality, greed and waste that are the real problems of our age