Before It Is Too Late

By Daisaku Ikeda and Aurelio Peccei

Book Overview

Long before it became fashionable to talk of climate change, drought and water shortages, the authors of this lucid and trenchant dialogue were warning that planet earth was heading for uninhabitability. They exchange viewpoints and insights that have matured over many years of thought, study and reflection. One of the authors is a Westerner - a man of many parts, both wartime resistance fighter and leading industrialist, who founded one of the first think tanks to address seriously the human prospects for global survival. The other represents the philosophical and ethical perspectives of the East - a Buddhist leader who has visited country after country, campaigning tirelessly for the abolition of nuclear weapons and war in all its forms.Engaging constructively and imaginatively with such seemingly intractable problems as population growth, the decline of natural resources, desertification, pollution and deforestation, Ikeda and Peccei show that many of these problems are interrelated. Only by addressing them as part of a web of complex but combined issues, and by working together for peace and justice, can human beings expect to find lasting solutions.
The best prospect for the future lies in an ethical revolution whereby humanity can find a fresh understanding of itself in holistic connection with, rather than separation and alienation from, the planet itself.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 184511888X
• ISBN13: 9781845118884
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Before It Is Too Late

Mr. Peccei is the late wartime resistence hero, successful businessman and founder of the first think tank to severely assess humanity's chances for survival, The Club of Rome. He and the Soka Gakkai International president, Daisaku Ikeda, present their views as individual statements and in discussions on the complex web of natural and human-made problems threatening humanity's future.

Brilliant Commentary on Powerful Issues

Aurelio Peccei, founder of the Club of Rome, was a wartime resistance fighter, leading industrialist, and the founding president of one of the world's most renowned think tanks. Daisaku Ikeda leads Soka Gakkai International, one of the largest nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) affiliated with the United Nations. During the past four decades he has visited over 50 nations, working non-stop for the total abolition of violence and war. He also founded Soka Education Systems and Soka University in 1971 to promote humanistic education throughout the world.This book, developed through years of thinking, study, and reflection on the parts of both authors, brings to bear the complex web of problems threatening the habitability of the planet Earth. Presenting their comments alternately, they discuss how we have ended up on a collision course with Mother Nature. They also talk of ways to meet the challenges of the future with optimism: through an internal, personal revolution of the spirit on the individual level, and through a grass-roots, participatory approach to problem-solving on the social level. Humanity's best hope for the future, they agree, is an ethical revolution that will enable people to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their roles in the inter-relatedness of problems that threaten our future.