The Post-American World: Release 2.0 by Fareed Zakaria Read Free Book Online Page A

slow. Agricultural productivity, for example, is rising. But feeding a global population of eight billion, which we will get to by 2025, will require crop yields to reach four tons per hectare from only three tons today. Similarly, our ability to manage and conserve water is not growing nearly as fast as our consumption of it. World population tripled in the twentieth century, but water consumption increased sixfold. Americans use more than four hundred liters of water a day to drink, cook, and clean themselves. People in poorer countries today are lucky to get forty, but as they get richer, their rising demands will cause greater stress. 5 Violent clashes over water have already broken out in Africa and the Middle East. Historically, populations have moved to find water; if water sources dry up in the future, tens of millions of people will be forced to start moving.
    Over the last decade, many predictions about the effects of climate change have proven to be underestimates because global growth exceeded all projections. The most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released in mid-2007. By the year’s end, scientists had shown that the polar ice caps are melting twice as fast as the report expected. 6 There is greater demand for electricity, more cars, and more planes than anyone imagined fifteen years ago. And it keeps growing. The McKinsey Global Institute projects that, from 2003 to 2020, the number of vehicles in China will rise from 26 million to 120 million. And then there’s India, Russia, the Middle East—the rest.
    Demand for electricity is projected to rise over 4 percent a year for decades. And that electricity will come mostly from the dirtiest fuel available—coal. Coal is cheap and plentiful, so the world relies on it to produce most of its electricity. To understand the impact on global warming, consider this fact. Between 2006 and 2012, China and India will build eight hundred new coal-fired power plants—with combined CO2 emissions five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords.
    The Rise of Nationalism

    In a globalized world, almost all problems spill over borders. Whether it’s terrorism, nuclear proliferation, disease, environmental degradation, economic crisis, or water scarcity, no issue can be addressed without significant coordination and cooperation among many countries. But while economics, information, and even culture might have become globalized, formal political power remains firmly tethered to the nation-state, even as the nation-state has become less able to solve most of these problems unilaterally. And increasingly, nation-states are becoming less willing to come together to solve common problems. As the number of players—governmental and nongovernmental—increases and each one’s power and confidence grows, the prospects for agreement and common action diminish. This is the central challenge of the rise of the rest—to stop the forces of global growth from turning into the forces of global disorder and disintegration.
    The rise of pride and confidence among other nations, particularly the largest and most successful ones, is readily apparent. For me, it was vividly illustrated a few years ago in an Internet café in Shanghai, where I was chatting with a young Chinese executive. He was describing the extraordinary growth that was taking place in his country and a future in which China would be modern and prosperous. He was thoroughly Westernized in dress and demeanor, spoke excellent English, and could comfortably discuss the latest business trends or gossip about American pop culture. He seemed the consummate product of globalization, the person who bridges cultures and makes the world a smaller, more cosmopolitan place. But when we began talking about Taiwan, Japan, and the United States, his responses were filled with bile. He explained in furious tones that were Taiwan to dare to declare independence, China should instantly invade it. He