According to Mayan mythology a cataclysmic or transformative event will occur on 21^st December, 2012. Exactly what is open to some debate but interpretations range from mankind undergoing ‘a positive physical or spiritual transformation’(whatever that is!), through to Earth’s collision with a black hole or passing asteroid, or with a planet called “Nibiru.” Continue Reading

After recently watching the final instalment of Frozen Planet, I wrote a post about the impact of rising sea levels and how the melting of the sea-ice in the Poles will eventually come to affect each and every one of us.

We are already seeing the perils of rising sea levels, with natural disasters including the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami becoming ever more commonplace. Put simply, if we continue to contribute towards an ever-increasing global carbon footprint, these natural disasters will soon become ‘manmade.’ Continue Reading

Last night saw the final instalment of Frozen Planet air on BBC One here in the UK.

This final episode has caused controversy across the world because of its moving visualisation of the rising temperatures of the North and South Poles – and what this means for everyone and everything on our planet. Continue Reading

My fellow writers Damien G Walter and Mark Charan Newton recently published excellent posts on a topic that has been swirling around my own head for some weeks: the future for science fiction. As both point out, China is now the largest market for science fiction writing. The reason for this is quite astounding. According to Damien:

“China is the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But it doesn’t invent or design the things it manufactures… China wants to capture the creativity and imagination of the culture that has produced companies like Google and Apple. So researchers talked to people involved with those and other companies to see what factors they had in common. Guess what the answer was? They all read Science Fiction.” Continue Reading

The idea of a techno-fix as a way to cool the planet caught my attention last week, after reading a story in the Guardian about geo-engineering.

The title of that Guardian piece, Geo-engineering: green versus greed in the race to cool the planet, took me back to 2009, when I was deciding what to call my first novel. My publisher and I settled upon The Human Race, but two of the main contenders for the title were Greed and Greed V Green. Why? Because the central themes of the book are mankind’s greed, the impact this greed has had on the human race and planet Earth, and the question, can we successfully remain on the planet in spite of our poor green credentials? Continue Reading

Have you heard of the Anthropocene? It is a recent term, which serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities and their effects on the environment and our planet. I hadn’t heard of it until recently and truthfully, I really should have. In fact, so should anybody who has even a passing interest in climate change and living a greener life.

Taken at its most literal, the term means “the recent age of man”. It was coined in 2000 by Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist. His argument is that we have entered another age, shaped primarily by people. I think we have all known for quite some time that mankind has had a colossal impact on our planet. Continue Reading

It’s been a strange four months. Natural disasters have unfurled across the globe with a frightening regularity. The earthquake in Japan is, rightly, uppermost in everyone’s minds but there have been other disasters too. Between November and February, Australia suffered its costliest natural disaster ever as Queensland and Victoria were flooded. In January, Brazil experienced its worst natural disaster in several decades as torrential rainstorms triggered mudslides in the mountainous Serrana region. Christchurch in New Zealand was hit by a 6.3 earthquake, while some flooded areas of Sri Lanka received a year’s supply of rain in one month. The list goes on. The earthquake in Burma. More flooding in the Philippines… Continue Reading

Apparently Arnie has gone green and is going to save us from the ravages of global warming. I’m not kidding: it’s true!

Just look at the image again. Can you see him delivering us from global climate change? When someone mentions his name, I tend to think of consumption on a large and somewhat unnatural scale. Remember his fleet of Hummers. The huge explosions. The big muscles. He doesn’t immediately spring to mind when one thinks of a green hero, does he?

What it does show, when someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger decides to jump on the bandwagon, is that green really has gone mainstream.

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For a long time I was depressed and guilt-ridden by the thought that mankind was responsible for global warming and that we had set in motion an unstoppable chain of events that would result in Armageddon: rising sea levels, one half of the world covered in desert and a permanent downpour in the other half.

Over the past year, however, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve done a complete 360.

In fact I am rather optimistic about the future, at least with regard to global warming.  Whether you believe we are responsible for it or not, I am comforted by the realisation that we humans are finally doing what we do best:

Solving problems using technology.

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