Ben Rawlence

Black Mountains College (BMC)

Biography

Ben is an award winning writer, activist, former speech writer to Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy and co-founder of BMC, a new university located in the Brecon Beacons dedicated to addressing the unfolding climate and ecological crisis. Ben wrote two books about the human consequences of environmental catastrophe in Africa: Radio Congo and City of Thorns.  After moving to Wales and beginning to research the coming impacts of climate change closer to home, his attention turned to the Arctic Circle and the boreal forest. What he discovered led to his third book: The Treeline and to a dawning realisation that we needed to prepare – and soon – for major changes to our ways of life. And to do that, we need new institutions that promote new ways of thinking and learning, new ways of seeing ourselves and new ways of interacting with the non-human world. Black Mountains College is committed to that task.