Brave New Wild

Can Technoscience Save the Planet?

Richard King

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English

Monash University Publishing
01 October 2025

Politics & government; Mathematics & Sciences; Global warming; Environmental science, engineering & technology

Amid a climate emergency, bad news comes fast: the last decade has been the hottest on record. Venezuela is the first modern country to see its glaciers disappear. One in five migratory species faces extinction.

A band of technoscience enthusiasts – politicians, scientists and tech billionaires like Musk, Bezos, Gates and Thiel – are rushing to solutions. There are promises to resurrect the dire wolf and the Tasmanian tiger, to remake the world at the atomic level. Ideas once the stuff of science fiction are on the agenda: brightening marine clouds to reflect sunlight back into space; shooting sulphur into the stratosphere to mimic the cooling effect of a volcanic eruption. New forms of nuclear power are hyped as ‘clean’ despite uranium having a half-life of thousands of years.

The rulers in Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World sought to engineer humans to fit the world they wanted to see, rather than create a society based on human needs. Technoscience enthusiasts today evince the same perilous logic: instead of developing ways to protect nature, they are investing in ways to remake it. In line with the motives of power and profit, hubris has come to define the fight against climate change.

Only a form of environmentalism that puts human justice, equity and posterity at its centre can create the conditions to truly avert our disastrous course. Insightful and urgent, Brave New Wild calls for a radical rethink to bring about a richer and more humane future.

By: Richard King
Imprint: Monash University Publishing
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781923192249
ISBN 10: 1923192248
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 01 October 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Richard King is an author and critic based in Fremantle. Raised in the United Kingdom, he gained an MA in Literary History and Cultural Discourse and worked in publishing before moving to Australia. His work appears widely, including in The Australian, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Monthly, Griffith Review, Sydney Review of Books, Meanjin, Overland and Australian Book Review, and in The Best Australian Poems and The Best Australian Science Writing. His most recent book, Here Be Monsters: Is Technology Reducing Our Humanity? (2023), was shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Award for Nonfiction in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. King writes regularly for Arena, focusing on the relationship between culture and technology. His website is bloodycrossroads.com.