Five Horsemen of the Modern World

Daniel Callahan is president emeritus and cofounder of The Hastings Center, which focuses on ethical and policy issues. He has published seventeen volumes, including Taming the Beloved Beast: How Medical Technology Costs Are Destroying Our Health Care System (2009), Medicine and the Market: Equity v. Choice (2006); and What Price Better Health? Hazards of the Research Imperative (2006).

This book is a wide-ranging, sincere, and syncretic attempt to identify and analyze the greatest threats to the planet today. It is a work of tremendous breadth of vision, with an earnest concern about some of the most serious problems of our time. Callahan is a master of clear communication. -- Donna Dickenson, author of Me Medicine vs. We Medicine: Reclaiming Biotechnology for the Common Good Daniel Callahan's powerful, lucid book offers a sober confrontation with some of the most serious problems facing the world today, asking us to change our ideas of progress to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of how we have come to live. -- Michael Roth, Wesleyan University Callahan, a pioneer in bioethics, has written a thoughtful meditation on our most recalcitrant worldly challenges, from the health of our bodies to the wellbeing of our planet. Well-written and accessible, The Five Horsemen of the Modern World demonstrates how the complex mix of technology, politics, and media have slowed progress and calls for a more productive partnership with sustainable businesses to chart a path forward. -- Paul Sabin, author of The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon and Our Gamble Over Earth's Future Callahan is subtle in expressing his point of view-you never feel like he is pushing an ideology or a single-minded solution at the reader. He lets the data speak first, and then he sets the path. -- Sheldon Krimsky, author of Stem Cell Dialogues: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry Into Medical Frontiers Callahan's analysis of the evolution of global problems is instructive and accessible; his use of data, clear and persuasive. A work of impressive scope. -- Steve Cohen, Columbia University It is hard enough to write a wise book on a single major social problem, but Daniel Callahan has written a wise book about five of them, ultimately proposing important suggestions for moving forward. The Five Horsemen should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in climate change, food distribution, the water supply, chronic illness or obesity-in other words, all of us. This book challenges us to look at the global and local ramifications of everything we know and do. -- Barron H. Lerner, MD, PhD, Author of The Good Doctor: A Father, A Son and the Evolution of Medical Ethics Pragmatic and measured. Nature Recommended. CHOICE

• Preface Acknowledgments I. Mapping an Irregular Terrain 1. Our Overheating, Fraying Planet 2. Feeding a Growing Population: How, and with What Kind of Food? 3. Water: Not Everywhere and Not Always Fit to Drink 4. Chronic Illness: Rich or Poor, Few Escape 5. Obesity: The Scourge of Bad Diets and Sedentary Habits II. Examining the Pathways Through the Thickets 6. Always More People and Ever More Elderly: Caring and Paying 7. The Technology Fix: A Way Out? 8. A Volatile Mix: Public Policy, the Media, and Public Opinion 9. Law and Governance: Managing Our Public Planet and Our Private Bodies III. Toward the Future: Progress, Hope, and Fear 10. Progress and Its Errant Children: More Is Never Enough 11. The Necessary Coalition: Social Movements, Legislatures, and Business Notes Index