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In The God Species, Mark Lynas shows us how we must use our technological mastery over nature to protect the planet from ourselves. Building on recent scientific discoveries, Mark Lynas explains that there are nine 'planetary boundaries' that humanity must not cross if the Earth is to continue to support life and our civilisation. Climate change is one, but others – like ocean acidification, nitrogen use and biodiversity loss – are less well-known, though equally crucial. These boundaries all interact, and we can only hope to manage the planet successfully if we understand how they affect one another. But this is no depressing lamentation of eco-doom. Instead, Lynas presents a radical manifesto that calls for the increased use of controversial but environmentally-friendly technologies, such as genetic engineering and nuclear power, as part of a global effort to protect and nurture the biosphere. Ripping up years of 'green' orthodoxy, he reveals how the prescriptions of the current environmental movement are likely to hinder as much as help our vitally-needed effort to use science and technology to play God and save the planet.
Mark Lynas is an activist, journalist and traveller. He was editor of the website www.oneworld.net and has made many appearances in the press and TV as a commentator on environmental issues. He is the author of High Tide and Six Degrees.
"Radical. Will outrage many readers"
– Independent
"Wonderfully sane and cogent"
– Guardian
"Mark Lynas is one of a growing band of influential figures, along with James Lovelock, Stewart Brand and George Monbiot, who now argue that the approach of most Greens to climate change needs to change [...] He is wonderfully sane and cogent on difficult issues [...] He has written the clearest exposition so far of the choices facing us. We may wince at the book's title (it derives from Stewart Brand's remark: \"We are as gods and have to get good at it\"), but Lynas is not playing God, simply making a passionate pitch for good global resource management."
– Peter Forbes, Guardian
"An intriguing thesis and Lynas outlines it with clarity and panache"
– Observer
"Planetary boundaries richly merit a popular treatment, and The God Species taps their potential to offer a sharply focused vision of planetary dynamics that goes beyond warming and extinctions."
– Financial Times
"The power of Lynas's voice comes not just from his deep research but also his authority as a campaigner"
– Sunday Times
"This is a clear-eyed, hard-headed assessment of the ecological challenges facing us – and all the more bracing for it"
– Evening Standard
"Before reading this book, worrying about biodiversity had seemed a chattering class luxury to me."
– Independent, Book of the Week
"A redemptive manifesto for humanity"
– New Scientist
