Virtual Light (Gibson)
Snow Crash and The Diamond Age (Stephenson) -- the man's an optimist!
Heavy Weather and Distraction (Stirling)
all reflect on the interaction between population growth, inequality, capitalism (as religion and as economic system) and environment... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Inside
The World Inside is a science fiction novel written by Robert Silverberg and published in 1971. Plot introduction The novel is set on Earth in the year 2381, when the population of the planet has reached 75 billion people. Population growth has skyrocketed due to a quasi-religious belief in human reproduction as the highest possible good. Most of the action occurs in a massive three-kilometer high city-tower called Urban Monad 116. It is similar to the design of the Sky City 1000 project proposed in 1989 by Takenaka Corporation. [...]
Plot introduction
The novel is set on Earth in the year 2381, when the population of the planet has reached 75 billion people. Population growth has skyrocketed due to a quasi-religious belief in human reproduction as the highest possible good. Most of the action occurs in a massive three-kilometer high city-tower called Urban Monad 116. It is similar to the design of the Sky City 1000 project proposed in 1989 by Takenaka Corporation. [...]
and of course we can't omit mention of John Brunner whose classic The Sheep Look Up and Stand on Zanzibar could almost have been written yesterday. Sheep is the better book imho, though Zanzibar was the bigger hit. both dwell on population and ecology (thus the title of Zanzibar which refers to the moment when the human race standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a tight mass will no longer fit on the island of Zanzibar).
James Tiptree (really Alice Sheldon) wrote a number of thoughtful explorations of the consequences of overenthusiastic reproduction, environmental crime etc. -- notably "The Time-Sharing Angel".
James Schmitz' quirky fiction often explored the conflict between rapacious commerce and a sustainable, equitable culture or lifeway (his most famous short story was probably "Balanced Ecology", a fable about resisting corporate predation, and his most famous novel was probably The Witches of Karres in which the eponymous witches are a very modest sized population living in a very ecologically responsible way on an obscure backwater planet).
but I'm wandering off into far-future science fantasy here (and I cast Dune into that category also, despite its strong ecological themes) rather than imminent futurology... among the futurological cautionary pieces we might include Atwood's Oryx and Crake... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
