This book addresses the question: "If the development of the quarter of the world's people who are now rich has brought us all so close to the limits of sustainable living on Earth, how is the development of the three-quarters who are poor to be accommodated?"

For Ramphal, president of the World Conservation Union and a native of Guyana, that challenge is more than academic - it is a matter of ethics, of maintaining a decent quality of living for people in developed countries, of ensuring that people in developing countries have opportunities for economic growth.

Among the topics he covers are global warming, ozone depletion, fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, water contamination, biodiversity, and disposal of nuclear materials. Ramphal incorporates scientific information from many sources to underscore a correlative theme, that developed countries must lower their own natural resource consumption levels while enabling developing countries to achieve higher growth levels.