Life in 2030 is a ground-breaking, practical, and, above all, positive vision of life in twenty-first-century Canada. As we move into the next century, the development of sustainable and environmentally benign patterns of resource utilization and socioeconomic development is an essential priority. In this book, John Robinson and his co-authors investigate the possibility and impacts of a sustainable future for Canada.

Based on research initiated by the Sustainable Society Project in 1988, Life in 2030 is unique in that it uses backcasting instead of forecasting to trace the path of Canada forty years into the future to the year 2030. Instead of predicting the most likely future based on current trends, the authors set out a desirable future and discuss the changes that would need to occur between 1990 and 2030 to arrive at this future vision. This vision, derived from ethical, political, and ecological principles, is not viewed as definitive, for the authors hope to inspire others to conceive of, and work towards, their own visions of a sustainable future.

Life in 2030 makes a significant contribution to interdisciplinary studies on the environment and sustainability because it develops a scenario that allows for an evaluation of the changes required to achieve a sustainable society. This book is required reading for anyone interested in a sustainable future environment. It also provides an original and provocative look at life in Canada in the twenty-first century.