Killing Juggernaut

Ecologist Edward O. Wilson has famously stated that he doesn’t want to be pessimistic about the future of the world, but he can’t ignore scientific evidence. Ecologists are now predicting that up to half of life on Earth will go extinct by the end of the century based on current rates of extinction. In the late 21st century, the no-nonsense ecologist Zara Dimitrov can never understand or forgive her father, a director for a national park, for dying when she was in high school. So she runs away from home to begin a life of solitude while at the same time trying to carry on his legacy of conservation. Early in the 22nd century, eighteen-year-old Mashechka McGuigan lives in a suppressed society whose sole purpose is to fulfill the so-called Mission for Humanity, the monumental endeavor to evacuate ecologically-devastated Earth. And she absolutely must replace her father as the mission’s leader. As the time to do so draws near, her uncertainties are exposed when she discovers the dark truth about her mother. Approaching the mid-23rd century, a bitter scientist named Patrick Nelson, whose profession has vaporized, works to help as many people as possible survive famine and disease. Then he uncovers that the one key to survival is lost. How their lives are entwined will take the reader on an odyssey that includes the heart of Africa, the eastern seaboard of North America, the mountains of Eastern Europe, the wetlands of Australia, the agricultural expanses of Latin America, and the political turmoil of Southeast Asia. With an arsenal of scientific evidence and societal trends, Killing Juggernaut plunges the reader into the future to reveal the consequences of creating a world with virtually no basis for survival.

Jared Bernard has a B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolution Biology from the University of Hawaii. For many different ecological research initiatives, he has worked in boreal forests, deserts, and tropical forests, but also in labs he has participated on taxonomic and genetic projects. His articles have been published by Natural History, American Forests, and History Today among others.