Surviving the 21st Century ― Humanity's Ten Great Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them

This book explores the central question facing humanity today: how can we best survive the ten great existential challenges that are now coming together to confront us? Besides describing these challenges from the latest scientific perspectives, it also outlines and integrates the solutions, both at global and individual level and concludes optimistically. This book brings together in one easy-to-read work the principal issues facing humanity. It is written for the two next generations who will have to deal with the compounding risks they inherit, and which flow from overpopulation, resource pressures and human nature.

The author examines ten intersecting areas of activity (mass extinction, resource depletion, WMD, climate change, universal toxicity, food crises, population and urban expansion, pandemic disease, dangerous new technologies and self-delusion) which pose manifest risks to civilization and, potentially, to our species’ long-term future. This isn’t a book just about problems. It is also about solutions. Every chapter concludes with clear conclusions and consensus advice on what needs to be done at global level - but it also empowers individuals with what they can do for themselves to make a difference. Unlike other books, it offers integrated solutions across the areas of greatest risk. It explains why Homo sapiens is no longer an appropriate name for our species, and what should be done about it. 

Julian Cribb is an Australian science writer and author. He is the principal of Julian Cribb & Associates, specialists in science communication, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.

From 1996-2002, Julian was Director, National Awareness, for Australia's national science agency, CSIRO. A journalist since 1969, he was editor of the "National Farmer" and "Sunday Independent" newspapers, editor-in-chief of the "Australian Rural Times", and chief of the Australian Agricultural News Bureau. For ten years he was agriculture correspondent and scientific editor for the national daily, "The Australian". He was a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery for 21 years reporting on national affairs related to agriculture and science.

He has received 32 awards for journalism including the Order of Australia Association Media Prize, the inaugural Eureka Prize for environmental journalism, the inaugural AUSTRADE award for international business journalism, the Dalgety Award for rural journalism, two MBF Awards for medical journalism and five Michael Daley Awards for science journalism. He was the first western journalist to visit Chernobyl.

Julian was national foundation president of the Australian Science Communicators (ASC), president of the National Rural and Resources Press Club, a member of CSIRO advisory committees for agriculture, fisheries and entomology. He has served on the boards of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Crawford Fund for International Agricultural Research, the Secretariat for International Landcare, CSIRO Publishing, the National Science and Technology Centre, and the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation. He was an adviser to the CGIAR on public awareness and resource mobilisation. From 2002-09 he was Adjunct Professor of Science Communication at the University of Technology Sydney and is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and of the Australian National University Emeritus Faculty. He is the founding editor of National Farmer, ScienceAlert and SciNews.

His published work includes more than 8,000 print articles, more than 2000 speeches and broadcasts, and 3000 science media releases as well as "The Forgotten Country", six editions of "Australian Agriculture", "The White Death" and “Sharing Knowledge”. Recent books are “Dry Times” (2009), with Mark Stafford-Smith, which explores how desert knowledge has immense relevance in a world of increasing uncertainty and resource scarcity and “Open Science” (CSIRO 2010) about how science communication can address the six great challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. His book “The Coming Famine: the global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it” (University of California Press, 2011) explores the looming mid-century global food security crisis and has sparked interest in food security issues all over the world. His latest book?Poisoned Planet (Allen & Unwin, 2014), looks at the risks and impact of man-made chemical saturation of the Earth, the human population, and all life.

Julian was born in the UK and educated at Radley College. He migrated to Australia in 1966 and obtained a degree in Homeric Greek from the University of Western Australia. Since 1977 he has lived in the Australian national capital, Canberra. He has three adult children. He writes, fishes, photographs, gardens and cooks.