Mark Lynas was born in Fiji in 1973 and grew up in Peru, Spain and the UK. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in history and politics. As an author, journalist and environmental activist and has contributed articles to Ecologist, Granta and Geographical magazines as well as The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer. He currently writes a fortnightly environmental column for the New Statesman and recently contributed to an eye-opening book, Fragile Earth: Views of a Changing World, which presents dramatic before and after images of the natural changes that have occurred around the globe in recent years.