The Covid-19 pandemic is not the last surprise that awaits present generations. In 2020 people across the globe have realized that governments have failed to prepare for important challenges, even highly probable ones predicted by experts for decades. Greta Thunberg has scolded world leaders for not doing more to stop global warming. Greta and other experts seem to believe that there are plans for the transformation to sustainability waiting in the drawers of heads of state to become implemented, but there are no such plans. Sustainability experts have focused on climate change — nobody has developed the large-scale solutions that Greta asks for. Instead, politicians, business leaders, and sustainability experts have assumed that market forces will drive the transformation to e-mobility, the circular economy, and a sustainable society. In fact, very little has been done to develop the large-scale systems that are needed to replace the present production and distribution systems of the global economy. There are 6 million electric cars, 0.5 per cent of global car fleets. At the present rate it would take 500 years to replace existing car fleets and there is no solution for long-distance transportation ready to be implemented. In the case of resource efficient production and distribution systems, countries have made even less progress. Very large investments will be necessary to build sustainable and resilient societies. Covid-19 shows that conscious measures, driven by governments, are needed to prepare for large-scale challenges. The transformation to sustainability involves large investments and management of large-scale transformation programmes, reminiscent of the largest development programmes ever performed by mankind. Few decision makers are aware of the measures that need to be taken to make the global economy sustainable and resilient. Countries need to prepare for a challenging future. Can globalization continue or do countries need to build an entirely new type of economy?

The Covid-19 pandemic is not the last surprise that awaits present generations. In 2020 people across the globe have realized that governments have failed to prepare for important challenges, even highly probable ones predicted by experts for decades. Greta Thunberg has scolded world leaders for not doing more to stop global warming. Greta and other experts seem to believe that there are plans for the transformation to sustainability waiting in the drawers of heads of state to become implemented, but there are no such plans. Sustainability experts have focused on climate change — nobody has developed the large-scale solutions that Greta asks for. Instead, politicians, business leaders, and sustainability experts have assumed that market forces will drive the transformation to e-mobility, the circular economy, and a sustainable society. In fact, very little has been done to develop the large-scale systems that are needed to replace the present production and distribution systems of the global economy. There are 6 million electric cars, 0.5 per cent of global car fleets. At the present rate it would take 500 years to replace existing car fleets and there is no solution for long-distance transportation ready to be implemented. In the case of resource efficient production and distribution systems, countries have made even less progress. Very large investments will be necessary to build sustainable and resilient societies. Covid-19 shows that conscious measures, driven by governments, are needed to prepare for large-scale challenges. The transformation to sustainability involves large investments and management of large-scale transformation programmes, reminiscent of the largest development programmes ever performed by mankind. Few decision makers are aware of the measures that need to be taken to make the global economy sustainable and resilient. Countries need to prepare for a challenging future. Can globalization continue or do countries need to build an entirely new type of economy?

The Top Ten Bestseller Black holes. DNA. The Large Hadron Collider. Ever had that sneaking feeling that you are missing out on some truly spectacular science? You do? Well, fear not, for help is at hand. Ben Miller was working on his Physics PhD at Cambridge when he accidentally became a comedian. But first love runs deep, and he has returned to his roots to share with you all his favourite bits of science. This is the stuff you really need to know, not only because it matters but because it will quite simply amaze and delight you. 'Let me show you another, perhaps less familiar side of Science; her beauty, her seductiveness and her passion. And let's do it quickly, while Maths isn't looking' - Ben Miller 'This book makes climate change actually seem interesting. Not just important - it's obviously important - but interesting. As a result I bought lots of other books about climate change, something I now regret' - David Mitchell Ben Miller is, like you, a mutant ape living through an Ice Age on a ball of molten iron, orbiting a supermassive black hole. He is also an actor, comedian and approximately one half of Armstrong & Miller. He's presented a BBC Horizon documentary on temperature and a Radio 4 series about the history of particle physics, and has written a science column for The Times. He is slowly coming to terms with the idea that he may never be an astronaut.

New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • An Oprah's Book Club Selection “Powerful . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review The Poisonwood Bible, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, it is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in Africa. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the teenaged Rachel; adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.