Instead, have some real life terror. Read Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, a book that chronicles a future that is, well, terrifying.
The New York Times columnist has spent years traveling the globe, observing the economies of the world and now has come to the conclusion that global warming, the exponential growth of the earth's population and the flattening of the world are combining to deliver a catastrophe.
No, make that a series of catastrophes.
Book jacket
I am only half-way through the book and already I am convinced we made a mistake by not paying more attention to Paul Ehlich's The Population Bomb, written decades ago. His predictions of famine and other problems were averted thanks to a green revolution and advances in technology.
It won't happened again, he says.
Friedman's contention isn't just that the world is already overpopulated and headed to more crowding. He says that the biggest problem we face is that most of the world is working towards - and well on its way - to becoming just like Americans, in energy consumption and in attitudes about the environment.
Polar bear on his personal ice floe
Friedman's scariest passages relate to global warming, and, as the movie The Day After Tomorrow predicted, climate change is happening faster than even the most gloomy of doomsters predicted just a few years ago.
Let's hope it doesn't happen as fast as it did in that film.
Hot, Flat and Crowded is recommended reading.
At least I think so.
Scene from The Day After Tomorrow
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