This week, I sat down to have a chat with Thomas Homer-Dixon, professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and author of The Upside of Down. In his book, Homer-Dixon argues that the world is under pressure from five big stresses:

Energy stress, with the diminishing supply of conventional oil; global economic instability and widening income gaps between rich and poor; differentials in population growth rates between rich and poor societies and from expansion of megacities in poor societies; worsening damage to land, water forests, and fisheries; and climate change.

And history shows that societies fall apart when all these stresses come at once. Despite this gloomy picture, he believes there is hope and that we can come up with creative solutions.

Here is the interview:

SOX FIRST: Your arguments would suggest that businesses need to stop being so focused on growth and start thinking more creatively. Is that right?

HOMER-DIXON: I know if I were a CEO or a president, then I would be trying to maximize shareholder value and that means adopting the best technology and adopting the philosophy of growing the company in the best way possible. The larger consequence of increasing carbon dioxide output is going to be a disaster. Thinking of what the alternative is a really difficult challenge. Part of it is not being so fixated on efficiency and productivity and more fixated on resilience and innovation. And this is not about the end of innovation. The issue is not so much about growth in terms of nominal value. It's about growth in terms of energy and materials. And there is also a recognition that all this extra wealth we are piling on the table is not actually making anyone any happier. We've doubled our consumption of stuff over the last 50 years , and we're no happier.

SOX FIRST: What are the implications of these five stresses for democratic systems?

HOMER-DIXON: The problem is that underlying force, the dynamic, is something that is generating the growth focus and it's something we haven't come to terms with. The standard economic projections are that the global economy will triple or quadruple its size in the next 50 years. That's just not sustainable, it's not going to work. But growth is regarded as sacrosanct.

SOX FIRST:There is a fascinating trend of salaries of bankers, traders and CEOs racing way ahead of the rest of the population. You talk about the growing gap between rich and poor as one of the five stresses. Do you have any observations on that trend?

HOMER-DIXON: I don't begrudge people getting the money. The problem is you are getting a huge number of these very smart people who could be helping us solve these problems who have no connection to the rest of humanity because they are so wealthy. You have a collection of some of the smartest people in the world who are not engaged in the biggest challenges that we face.

SOX FIRST: You talk about the open source movement, and movements like Wikipedia being our salvation.

HOMER-DIXON: I'm a big believer in self-equilibrating systems and the market is a good example of that. Let's get beyond the Left-Right struggle here. I see a new ideological position here. Markets are amazing problem-solving institutions because they have the same systems as ecosystems, and it's all about getting as many heads together working on a problem. So it just dissolves the left-right fight.