If you think the question is scary, wait till you hear the answer

Peter Seidel's answers to the highly pertinent questions contained in his subtitle "Why we ignore the damage we inflict on the planet... and ourselves", fall into three parts, each describing our limitations.

In "Our ancient brains", Seidel proposes that our brains evolved to enable us to survive in the here and now: that they are fundamentally short-termist. Our brains also model the world imperfectly. Surprisingly for an architect, Seidel suggests that the human brain can work only sequentially. However, it is easy to recognise his frustration at modern-day absurdities such as keeping alive, at vast cost, a permanently brain-damaged woman, against her family's wishes (as a Missouri court insisted), when 23,000 children die each day from hunger.

"Interacting" examines the consequences of the complexity of modern society, and Seidel is pessimistic about its deeply flawed character. He points out problems such as information overload and the narrowing of horizons caused by nation states. He also exposes the dangers of belief systems that lead to unquestioning faith in technology and unlimited growth.

In "Our organisations", the author examines "Leadership and followship" and how these habits inhibit independent judgements. Seidel describes the workings of government, the dangers of glorifying war and the undue influence of business on life. He ranges widely in his cataloguing of these "walls" that he argues are separating us from rational action. He goes on to propose potential solutions that will enable us to break down these barriers.

But who is "us"? Seidel continuously appears to be referring to right-thinking people (though he points out that "right" is not necessarily "correct"), sometimes specifically North American city dwellers and sometimes all of humanity. However, Seidel has signed up to evolutionary psychology and genetic determinism, and humanity is not an embracing concept - so: "Our humanitarian efforts may have turned bio-evolution to work against us. With the worldwide diffusion of means of controlling disease, clean water supplies, and our policy of helping the infirm, we are saving the lives of many genetically unhealthy people who formerly would not have lived to reproduce."

Scared? Just wait: "Some of these people have harmful mutant genes that are now being incorporated into the human gene pool." What is the solution? Seidel states: "We do not want children to go unfed and uneducated, but if we are to care for the offspring of these people, we can ask them to practise some form of birth control and attend classes in parenting. If these steps do not work, for the sake of future generations we have to look to sterner measures." Seidel criticises those who object to China's policies on birth control because voluntarism shows little promise of working in most "undeveloped nations". Does he know that female infanticide has been one of the consequences of mandatory birth control? Surely it is the more educated and successful people, equipped, by Seidel's logic, with the classiest genes, who are responsible for the greatest damage to the environment.

Perhaps it is a little unfair to pick on this aspect of Seidel's argument. However, it indicates an analytical failure, which is surely like another of his walls.

The book is a list of factors with no structure. Economics is only touched on and there is no recognition, for example, that high population growth is strongly linked to poverty and material insecurity. Sheer greed, exploited so unrelentingly by the modern consumer society and the staggering inequalities of wealth within and between nations are surely somewhere at the heart of the planet's troubles.

There are a number of interesting observations in the book and it is at heart a humane project. If only the answers were as good as the questions.

Sunand Prasad is an architect practising in London.