Road to Survival

Road to Survival is a 1948 book by William Vogt. It was a major inspiration for the modern environmentalist movement.

“THE COST OF MODERN WAR, AS WELL AS THE COST OF peaceful living, has risen so sharply that we have built a structure of indebtedness that is a danger to our entire economic structure. Our outstanding bills comprise national, state, and municipal debts, including legal obligations to veterans, and implied promises to pay for growing, government-sponsored social responsibilities. Since our real wealth—as opposed to the product of government printing presses—is drawn from the earth, in always limited quantities, as minerals, food, wood, water, and wildlife, destruction of the earth’s surface, and waste of its products have a cogent meaning that touches the life, today and tomorrow, of every human being.

Because of the great abundance of the earth’s resources we have taken them for granted. But now, over most of the globe, as this book shows, we are face to face with a serious depletion of “resource capital.” More than one country is already bankrupt. Such bankruptcy has wiped out civilizations in the past; there is no reason for thinking we can escape the same fate, unless we change our ways.”—Introduction