The Next Forty‐Nine Years

Abstract

This article is expanded from a commencement address delivered by author Wes Jackson to graduating seniors at Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland, May 20, 2007. It adds detail to his longstanding argument that the environmental majority is mendaciously optimistic in suggesting that new—and sometimes still uninvented—technology will solve the world's food and energy problems. Jackson lays out statistics on how fast the world is using up its energy sources, noting that biofuels such as agriculture‐based ethanol will provide insufficient energy to power U.S. cars and trucks even if we use all of the food in the world to produce motive power. Jackson's previous article, “Conceptual Revolutions: Who Needs Them? Why?” was published in Public Library Quarterly 24‐3 (2005). The two articles form an intertwined statement on world resource limitations and opportunities. These articles were selected for inclusion in PLQ for the fundamentally different view they offer library professionals on the biofuels‐and‐ecology debate, in the hopes of balancing competing points of view in library collections. A shorter version of this paper was delivered by the author as a commencement address at Washington College. Chestertown, Maryland, on May 20, 2007. The current version of the paper, except for a few changes, appeared as an occasional paper, “The Next Fourty‐Nine Years,” in The Land Report, A Publication of the Land Institute No. 88 (September 2007), pp.18‐20. Jackson is President of The Land Institute. The article is reprinted with permission of the author.