All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Plague, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, and Poverty Book

His subtitles to the chapters are excellent. Overpopulation: Just enough of me, way too much of you. He helps you realize it's not population density that's a problem, it's lack of freedom and rule of law. And people who claim to worry about overpopulation are really just disguising their racism (Too many brown people).

Famine: All guns, no butter. Somalia is the case study for how you can actually have a lot of food around and people will still starve due to political repression. It was so absurd it was sad. One of his colleagues said,"Men in skirts killing each other about matters of clan. People call it barbaric savagery, add bag pipes and a golf course, and they call it Scotland."

Environment: The outdoors and how they got there. "Until very recently ordinary people spent most of their time outdoors--farming, hunting, gathering nuts and berries, pillaging the countryside in armed bands. The more contact people actually have with nature, the less likely they are to "appreciate" it in a big mushy, ecumenical way. And the more likely they are to get chiggers." His description of the chiggers he got while visiting the rain forest is awesome.

And so on. He super funny. Or I could just be hormonal. I wish I could write like him. He stares right in the face of all sorts of hideous disasters and after pointing out the absurd human errors that caused them, he gives you some hope of how a solution could come.