The lecture will summarize the findings of his latest book that examines all harvests (from prehistoric man’s hunting of megafauna to modern crop production) and all uses of harvested biomass, including energy, food, and raw materials. As he points out, these harvests were the foundation of human evolution and remain the foundation of modern civilization; at the same time, the increasing extent and intensity of present-day biomass harvests are changing the very nature of civilization’s well- being.

The New York Times calls him “one of the world’s great minds.” He has written more than 30 books and 400 papers, and in 2010, Foreign Policy magazine ranked him 49th in their top 100 global thinkers index.