The environmental emergency is the greatest threat we face. Preventing it will require an unprecedented political and social response. And yet, there is still hope. Academic, physicist, environmental expert and award-winning science communicator Paul Behrens presents a radical analysis of a civilization on the brink of catastrophe. Setting out the pressing existential threats we face, he writes, in alternating chapters, of what the future could look like at its most pessimistic and hopeful. In lucid prose, Behrens argues that structural problems need structural solutions, and examines critical areas in which political will is required, including women's education, food and energy security, biodiversity and economics.
Paul Behrens is a British author and academic in environmental change at Leiden University. His popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press 2021) describes humanity's current trajectory and possible futures in paired chapters of pessimism and hope, on topics including the economy, energy, land and population. He is editor and author of Food and Sustainability (Oxford University Press, 2019). His research on food and energy systems, land use and climate change has appeared in scientific journals and media outlets such as The New York Times, Scientific American, Nature Sustainability, Nature Energy, PNAS and the BBC. Trained as a physicist at the University of Auckland where he completed his PhD, Paul Behrens' work focuses on the impact of human consumption and the changes society must make in order to survive within environmental constraints.