AUTHOR'S NOTES

CONTENTS

Behind the book

Today’s media brings us an endless stream of articles about social and environmental matters, however these publications usually view single issues in isolation which is like focusing on a single instrument in a symphony; it distracts from the totality of sound, masking the overall effect of complex, and compounding inter-relationships. Whether or not it’s been successful, pachacuti attempts to draw attention back to the totality, hopefully as a resonant chord helping to make practical sense of the un-orchestrated noisy commotion that modern civilization has become.

In all honesty, the book is little more than the chance product of a mostly undirected process, beginning with a youth’s naïve aspiration to write something 'meaningful' and ending after a predictably long wait for the appropriate subjects and skills to manifest. During fifty years of reading, observation and not a little introspection, the various topics emerged, progressively gathering like a basket of loose threads by the loom of a novice weaver. The crude fabric those threads eventually became is the substance of this book. Whether its colours are depressingly dour or reassuringly bright depends upon how it's held up to the light.

The environmental and demographic data cited within are all drawn from widely recognized, authoritative sources, most attracting the respect and reliance of the United Nations Environmental Program as well as many governments and large corporations. The story's forecast environmental events are all within the range of potential outcomes defined by that body of scientific publications.

All of the story's characters and depictions of past events are purely fictitious and the foretelling of future social events is obviously mere speculation. Further recommended reading »»

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