Mark Lynas

Mark Lynas is the author of The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, published by Fourth Estate in July 2011. The UK paperback was published in February 2012 by HarperPerennial, whilst the US edition – The God Species – Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans – is published by National Geographic. Swedish, Dutch and other language versions are also available. He has previous written two major books on climate change – High Tide: News from a warming world (2004) and Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet (2007).

High Tide was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Award for Non-Fiction, and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. Six Degrees was long-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2008, and won the prestigious Royal Society Prize for Science Books in the same year. Six Degrees became a TV hit for National Geographic, whose Six Degrees Could Change the World – voiced by Alec Baldwin – has been watched by tens of millions around the globe on the National Geographic Channel. The book has now been translated into 22 languages around the world.

In November 2009 he was appointed advisor on climate change to the President of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, and was involved in the Maldives’ effort to be the first carbon neutral country on Earth by 2020, and its role in the international climate change process, until Nasheed was deposed in a military coup on 7 February 2012.

He is a frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, focusing in particular on how carbon neutral targets can break the international logjam on climate mitigation, and how emissions reduction should be seen as an opportunity not a sacrifice. He is also a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment.

Mark lives in Oxford with his wife Maria and two children, Tom and Rosa.