The New North

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

The New North is a book that turns the world literally upside down. Analysing four key 'megatrends' - population growth and migration, natural resource demand, climate change and globalisation - UCLA professor Larry Smith projects a world that by mid-century will have shifted its political and economic axes radically to the north.

The beneficiaries of this new order, based on a bonanza of oil, natural gas, minerals and plentiful water will be the Arctic regions of Russia, Alaska and Canada, and Scandinavia. Meanwhile countries closer to the equator will face water shortages, aging populations, crowded megacities and coastal flooding. Smith draws on geography, economics, history, earth and climate science, but what makes his arguments so compelling is that he has spent many months exploring the region, talking to people in once-inaccessible Arctic towns, noting their economies, politics and stories.

Reviews

A charismatic rising star vividly relates the big challenges facing the world -- Jared Diamond
Smith's planetary palm-reading would be impressive enough but he also manages to pull it off with literary gusto. He combines a wide-angle-lens analysis reminiscent of Jared Diamond with a knack for narrative, including tales of numerous visits to the Arctic. * New Scientist *
The best new geography book of the year -- Fred Pearce
a lively and impressive book * Wall Street Journal *
'One of the most head-turning books I've ever come across recently.' * World Politics Review *
It's refreshing to read a book that avoids the twin dangers of exaggeration and wishful thinking. The New North is such a book, and it's wonderful. [...] This is an outstanding book. -- Jonathan Wright * Geographical Review *
Smith spent many months exploring and talking to residents in remote Arctic towns and writing their personal stories, and the result is this fascinating book. * Press Association *
Let those who disagree come forward and make a different case. There is a lot for us to do in the meantime. -- Sir Crispin Tickell * Financial Times *
[Smith's] new book The New North: The World in 2050, demonstrates a remarkable knack for divining global megatrends from the stuff of daily life. It seems this is a man to whom the world whispers its secrets. -- Jake Wallis Simons * The Times *
[The New North] raise[s] urgent questions about the type of world we want to live in. -- PD Smith * Guardian *
A consistently challenging and mind-opening exercise in futurology -- John Gray * New Statesman *
As a geophysicist concerned with the responses of Arctic water, soil and ice to changing climates, Smith has extensive personal and academic knowledge of these regions. He seems to have travelled all over the Arctic world, and here he offers a vivid portrayal of the physical, economic and cultural upheavals the whole Norc region is undergoing. He is as good on the developments in First Peoples' politics as he is on the practicalities of ice roads and natural gas trans-shipment. He documents his accounts very informatively and his footnotes are a treat: comprehensive and thoroughly interdisciplinary. * THES *
For a geographer whose career is dedicated to finding out how massive population growth, and depletion of mineral and water resources will transform the planet, Lawrence Smith comes across as a remarkably chirpy guy. Partly it's his engaging prose. Partly it's his quirky anecdotes of everyday life as a popular scientist: getting chatted up by an oceanographer on a Canadian ice breaker or, while interviewing Sami reindeer herders, falling for the Finnish interpreter he later married. * Evening Standard *
Rather than contribute yet another volume to the already bloated genre of Eskimo-Woe, [Smith] set out to construct a more three-dimensional overview of what the future might hold for the countries of the north - which, by his definition, means everything above the line of 45 degrees North. The result is a thoughtful, plausible and entirely unmelodramatic read. * Scotland on Sunday *
This is "an informed thought experiment" rather than a proper prediction. But for anyone curious about the new north-let alone anyone thinking of investing in Arctic derivatives-it is an intrinsic exercise. * Economist *

Author Bio

Laurence C. Smith is professor and vice-chairman of geography and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published in journals such as Science and Nature and in 2006 he briefed Congress on the likely impacts of northern climate change.