World Climate

It's the mid-'90s, and rebellion is in the air. Skylark is an activist, a raver, a tree-dweller, a world-changer. Handsome, dependable Dan appears on the scene, offering her the security she has never had. When they fall in love, she shows him a new way to live; he will never be the same. But Dan has a secret, which Skylark must never, ever know. A secret so powerful that its fault-lines run from their ordinary council flat right up to the highest echelons of the state.

In End Times, Walsh provides a stunning panoramic analysis of the catastrophic dangers of human extinction that emerge from nature and those of our own making: the rising danger of a nuclear war, and the shockingly weak government protocols in place to prevent it; the climate change that threatens to burn the future even as our politicians deny and delay; groundbreaking emerging technologies like gene editing, tools that could save the world - or destroy it.

What does it feel like to be passionate about your daily work? How do people find their way into fascinating, unusually fulfilling careers, even against the odds? Space lawyers and bibliotherapists; euthanasia activists and women's rugby champions; shark experts and solar power visionaries; a master perfumer and a moon dust maven, among many others. What all of these people have in common is the courage to pursue their dreams and obsessions, no matter how niche or particular, and transform them into their life's work.

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new myth, a new narrative that restores the connections between humanity and the Earth. We are being confronted by a daily barrage of geographical stories on climate change, geopolitics, population growth, migration, dwindling resources, polluted oceans and natural hazards. These are planetary concerns affecting all people and all places.