Book excerpt: Modernization and Industrialization have presented the human race with many problems, inflicting deprivation, poverty, war and premature death on millions of people. Until recently, however, solutions were achievable. Drawn from the much-acclaimed Coming Age of Scarcity and adapted here for general classroom use, this work will be an ideal introduction to courses in population, environment and resources, genocide studies, and social conflict. As we enter the twenty-first century, several components converge, namely population, land for cultivation, energy resources, and environmental carrying capacity. Michael N. Dobkowski and Isidor Wallimann establish a realistic projection of the disastrous future that awaits humankind as surplus populations collide with dwindling resources. Scholars from a variety of disciplines investigate the problems and suggest ways to maximize individual and collective survival, discussing cause-and-effect scenarios concerning industrialization, biophysical limits, exponential population growth, and genocide.