Introduction xi
People
The Inhabitants of Our World
What happens when we have fewer children? 3
The best indicator of quality of life? Try infant mortality 8
The best return on investment: Vaccination 12
Why it's difficult to predict how bad a pandemic will be while it is happening 15
Growing taller 20
Is life expectancy finally topping out? 24
How sweating improved hunting 28
How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid? 31
Why unemployment figures do not tell the whole story 35
What makes people happy? 39
The rise of megacities 44
Countries
Nations in the Age of Globalization
The First World War's extended tragedies 53
Is the US really exceptional? 57
Why Europe should be more pleased with itself 61
Brexit: Realities that matter most will not change 65
Concerns about Japan's future 69
How far can China go? 73
India vs. China 77
Why manufacturing remains important 82
Russia and the USA: How things never change 86
Receding empires: Nothing new under the sun 90
Machines, Designs, Devices
Inventions That Made Our Modern World
How the 1880s created our modern world 97
How electric motors power modern civilization 101
Transformers-the unsung silent, passive devices 105
Why you shouldn't write diesel off just yet 109
Capturing motion-from horses to electrons 113
From the phonograph to streaming 117
Inventing integrated circuits 121
Moore's Curse: Why technical progress takes longer than you think 125
The rise of data: Too much too fast 129
Being realistic about innovation 133
Fuels and Electricity
Energizing Our Societies
Why gas turbines are the best choice 139
Nuclear electricity-an unfulfilled promise 143
Why you need fossil fuels to get electricity from wind 147
How big can a wind turbine be? 151
The slow rise of photovoltaics 154
Why sunlight is still best 158
Why we need bigger batteries 162
Why electric container ships are a hard sail 166
The real cost of electricity 170
The inevitably slow pace of energy transitions 174
Transport
How We Get Around
Shrinking the journey across the Atlantic 181
Engines are older than bicycles! 185
The surprising story of inflatable tires 189
When did the age of the car begin? 193
Modern cars have a terrible weight-to-payload ratio 197
Why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet) 201
When did the jet age begin? 204
Why kerosene is king 208
How safe is flying? 212
Which is more energy efficient-planes, trains, or automobiles? 216
Food
Energizing Ourselves
The world without synthetic ammonia 221
Multiplying wheat yields 226
The inexcusable magnitude of global food waste 230
The slow addio to the Mediterranean diet 235
Bluefin tuna: On the way to extinction 239
Why chicken rules 243
(Not) drinking wine 247
Rational meat-eating 251
The Japanese diet 255
Dairy products-the counter-trends 259
Environment
Damaging and Protecting Our World
Animals vs. artifacts-which are more diverse? 267
Planet of the cows 271
The deaths of elephants 275
Why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature 279
Concrete facts 283
What's worse for the environment-your car or your phone? 287
Who has better insulation? 291
Triple-glazed windows: A see-through energy solution 295
Improving the efficiency of household heating 299
Running into carbon 303
Epilogue 307
Further Reading 309
Acknowledgments 327
Index 335