He received his BA in political science from Carleton University in 1980 and his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] in international relations and defense and arms control policy in 1989. He then moved to the University of Toronto to lead several international research projects studying the links between environmental stress and violence in developing countries. He directed the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and in 1999 received the Northrop Frye Award for Teaching and Research. He moved to the University of Waterloo in 2008. His research focuses on threats to global security in the 21st century and on how societies adapt to complex economic, ecological, and technological change.
His writings have appeared in leading scholarly journals, popular magazines, and newspapers, including International Studies Quarterly, International Security, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times. His books include The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Knopf, Island Press, 2006; Souvenir, Text, 2007), which won the 2006 National Business Book Award and was listed as a Best Book in Politics & Religion by The Financial Times; The Ingenuity Gap (Knopf, Jonathan Cape, 2000), which won the 2001 Governor General’s Non-fiction Award; and Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (Princeton University Press, 1999), which won the 2000 Caldwell Prize of the American Political Science Association.