Mark Lynas

Blog
Mark Lynas is the author of several books on the environment, including High Tide, Six Degrees, The God Species, Nuclear 2.0 and Seeds of Science. His most recent major publication, in June 2020, was ‘Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency’. This is an entirely new update of the original 2007 Six Degrees which won the prestigious Royal Society science books prize. The original Six Degrees was translated into 22 languages and was also adapted into a documentary broadcast on the National Geographic Channel. He also received the Breakthrough Paradigm Award in 2012. He advises former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed on climate, and works with the 55-member Climate Vulnerable Forum in this capacity. Mark is research lead at the Alliance for Science at the Boyce Thompson Institute, an affiliate of Cornell University, and has co-authored peer-reviewed papers on vaccines, climate and GMOs. He has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and CNN.com. He is co-founder of the pro-science environmental campaign network RePlanet, launched in 2021 and now active in 12 countries. Source

Actions

Share this page

Media Outlet details

Scope National
Language English
Country United Kingdom
Similarweb UVMSimilarweb UVM Request pricing
Comscore UVMComscore UVM Request pricing

Recent Articles

Search

FAQ on ‘Clean Energy Shift’ – what it is and why it matters

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
Recently I and two co-authors – Kwesi Quagraine and Erle Ellis – proposed a new metric for how to measure and track the progress of the clean energy transition worldwide. This was published as a Commentary in Nature on 26 January 2026 under the title: ‘As we breach 1.5 °C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets’. We’ve had a lot of interest in the Clean Energy Shift, and lots of questions to field via email and social media.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Why is the Marine Stewardship Council giving this Norwegian trawler company ‘license to krill’?

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
Back in the 19th century, people used to boil penguins (sometimes alive) for theiroil. Millions of seals were driven inland from the beaches of sub-Antarctic islands like South Georgia and clubbed – pups, juveniles and adults – before being stabbed through the heart so their pelts could make fur coats. Whales were cruelly harpooned in their hundreds of thousands for their blubber and driven to the brink of extinction.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

To help the climate, we need to get positive about energy

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
Key messages from our new paper in Nature – by Mark Lynas, Erle Ellis and Kwesi Quagraine. Want to solve climate change? Then stop with the negativity. Yes, global warming is undeniably real and demands urgent reductions in the use of fossil fuels globally.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

As we breach 1.5 °C, we must replace temperature limits with clean-energy targets

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
Posted on 4 February 2026 Written by Mark Lynas Our paper in Nature, published 26 January 2026. In it we propose replacing the central focus on 1.5C – a goal which is being missed – with a new metric based on the rapidity of the clean energy transition. Post navigation
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Why we should protect the high seas from all extraction, forever

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
International waters, also known as the high seas, make up 61% of the ocean and cover 43% of Earth’s surface — amounting to two-thirds of the biosphere by volume. They have been exploited since the seventeenth century for whales, and from the mid-twentieth century for fish, sharks and squid, depleting wildlife. Now, climate change is reducing the productivity of the high seas through warming and through depletion of nutrients and oxygen.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Hope and memory in Hiroshima: A journey from Mount Fuji to global zero

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
Posted on 3 June 2025 Written by Mark Lynas This is actually the epilogue from my book, extracted in Geographical magazine. A trip to Hiroshima past Mount Fuji, some karaoke and oysters, memories of 6 August 1945, and a dream of a world without nuclear weapons. For the whole thing, see Geographical magazine. Post navigation
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

This is how to avoid annihilating ourselves in a nuclear war – NewScientist - Mark Lynas

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
The good news is that we might be about to solve the Fermi paradox. Many have long suspected that the reason why there don’t seem to be millions of talkative aliens out there in space is because when an intelligent civilisation develops the technology to enable interstellar communication it also develops weapons that enable it to quickly destroy itself. So far, we’re matching exactly this trajectory.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

One Nuclear War Can Ruin the Whole Climate

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
By Mark Lynas and Ted Nordhaus First published in the Wall Street Journal, 15 May 2025 The world is on the brink of a climate apocalypse—not one caused by gradual greenhouse emissions but by a sudden exchange of nuclear weapons, a possibility made more salient by the current conflict between India and Pakistan. While the long-term effects of emissions are uncertain, we know that a nuclear war would result in an immediate nuclear winter.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

Trump wins – but don’t despair - Mark Lynas

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
At least the hoping is over. This morning the United States of America, the most advanced and successful nation our world has ever seen, has re-elected an authoritarian demagogue who admires dictators, demonises minorities, promotes fear and hate, and already once tried to overthrow democracy in an election he lost. And not just by a small margin. Trump won handily, in almost all the so-called ‘swing’ states.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?

International scientific community gears up to fight Greenpeace in court in effort to defend Golden Rice

|
By Mark Lynas
| Mark Lynas
News is coming in that the scientific community and government institutions in the Philippines are prepared to fight Greenpeace all the way back to the Supreme Court in order to defend Golden Rice. Motions for reconsideration were filed in early May at the court of appeals in Manila asking the court to reconsider its decision, and pointing out that the justification for the verdict was a misapplication of the precautionary principle not a reasoned examination of the scientific evidence.
Open in Who Shared Issue with article?