Deforestation. Desertification. Species extinction. Global warming. Growing threats to food and water. The driving issues of our times are the result of one huge problem: Us.   As the population continues to grow, our problems will increase. And this means that every way we look at it, a planet of ten billion people is likely to be a nightmare.   Stephen Emmott, a scientist whose lab is at the forefront of research into complex natural systems, sounds the alarm. TEN BILLION is a snapshot of our planet, and our species, approaching a crisis, and a stark analysis of where this leaves us. TEN BILLION is not another climate book. TEN BILLION is a book about us. “A rallying call to arms. . . . Succinct and righteously pessimistic. . . . [with] an indispensible message to galvanize a world in potential crisis.”     — Kirkus Reviews   Praise from the U.K. for TEN BILLION “The cumulative effect of [Emmott’s] uncluttered, unadorned prose, buttressed with graphs and illustrations, is significant. . . . A spine-chilling warning of the environmental disaster that awaits the Earth.”     — The Daily Telegraph (4 stars)   “Powerful. . . . Compelling. . . . The shift in thinking that will be needed if we are to prepare ourselves for living in a different world begins with reading Emmott's indispensable book.”     -- The Guardian    "A stark, simple and short warning about the coming catastrophe, which [Emmott] feels is inevitable, resulting from human overpopulation and over-exploitation of the world’s resources. . . . A valuable contribution to rekindling a discussion on global population that has waxed and waned in the two centuries since Thomas Robert Malthus first brought the issue to public attention."       -- Financial Times Acclaim for the theater production of TEN BILLION, performed by Stephen Emmott at London's Royal Court Theatre: "This an hour of Matrix moments, of reminders of what underlies our daily lives. It's freeing to face the facts as well as alarming. . . . It informs, unsettles, provokes. Job done." -- The Times (London) "Professor Emmott argues his case with an implacable logic. He is quiet, humane and deeply concerned and when he says . . . 'I think we're fucked,' you have to believe him." -- The Guardian (London) "A new kind of talk . . . a daring one-man show in which Emmott desperately strives to pull together into one grand and devastating portrait the many ways we are impacting the planet." -- New Scientist Stephen Emmott is head of Computational Science at Microsoft Research. He leads a broad scientific research program, at the center of which is an interdisciplinary team of new kinds of scientists, and a new kind of laboratory, in Cambridge, England, pioneering new approaches to tackle fundamental problems in science. His lab’s research spans from molecular biology, immunology, and neuroscience, to plant biology, climatology, biogeochemistry, terrestrial and marine ecology, and conversation biology, as well as the new fields of programming life and artificial photosynthesis. Stephen is also Visiting Professor of Computational Science, University of Oxford; Visiting Professor of Biological Computation, University College London; and Distinguished Fellow of the UK National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts. This is a book about us.   It’s a book about you, your children, your parents, your friends. It’s about every one of us. It’s about our failure: failure as individuals, the failure of business, and the failure of our politicians.   It’s about the unprecedented planetary emergency we’ve created.   It’s about the future of us.   Earth is home to millions of species.   Just one dominates it. Us.   Our cleverness, our inventiveness, and our activities have modified almost every part of our planet. In fact, we are having a profound impact on it.   Indeed, our cleverness, our inventiveness, and our activities are now the drivers of every global problem we face.   And every one of these problems is accelerating as we continue to grow toward a population of ten billion.   In fact, I believe we can rightly call the situation we’re in right now an emergency—an unprecedented planetary emergency.   This is the reason I have written this book.   I am a scientist.   I lead a lab, in Cambridge, England, which is home to a unique collection of amazing young scientists. We conduct research into complex systems, including the climate system and ecosystems, as well as the impact of us humans on the earth.   Science is ultimately about understanding . And this is what we try to do: to understand the earth’s climate, and the behavior of the earth’s terrestrial and marine ecosystems—from its microbial communities to its forests—and to predict how these vital planetary systems will respond to change.   Change caused by us.   We humans emerged as a species about 200,000 years ago. In geological time, that is really incredibly recent.   Just over 10,000