Brave Green World How Science Can Save Our Planet

How we can harness cutting-edge biology and manufacturing to fight waste and pollution.

In Nature, there is little chemical waste; nearly every atom is a resource to be utilized by organisms, ensuring that all the available matter remains in a perpetual cycle. By contrast, human systems of energy production and manufacturing are linear; the end product is waste. In Brave Green World, Chris Forman and Claire Asher show what our linear systems can learn from the efficient circularity of ecosystems. They offer an unblinkered yet realistic and positive vision of a future in which we can combine biology and manufacturing to solve our central problems of waste and pollution.

Chris Forman is a physicist with a PhD in protein engineering, conducting research at Northwestern University into the organization of soft matter using experimental, theoretical, and computational approaches. Claire Asher is a biologist with a PhD in evolution and genetics, specializing in the behavior of ants. A widely published science writer, she has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Bloomsbury Theatre and appeared on BBC 4 and BBC Radio 4.

Foreword by Dame Ellen MacArthur
Chapter One: Planet Energy
Where does planet earth find its energy?
Chapter Two: Circular Ecology
Solutions found by nature
Chapter Three: Humanity's Linear Systems
Where the end product is waste
Chapter Four: The 3D Printer
The game-changer of additive manufacturing
Chapter Five: Synthetic Biology
Creating a new kind of biologies
Chapter Six: Emergence
-When what's made is more than the sum of its parts
Chapter Seven: Artificial Intelligence Algorithms
-The magic ingredient
 Chapter Eight: The Digital Process
-Smart materials
Chapter Nine: The Cities of the Future
-Log on and print out your shopping
Chapter Ten: Taking It Further
-Space travel and the bottleneck