Fostering hope and inspiration. Award-winning journalist and internationally acclaimed author of two literary non-fiction books on earth science and human behavior.

Alanna Mitchell is an associate and strategic communications expert at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD) where she specializes in writing about Earth Science, sustainability, environmentalism as well as social statistics and education. Alanna Mitchell has been lauded for her ability to decode the complicated language of scientific theory and translate it into the emotional narrative of everyday life. She is the author of two non-fiction books on popular science; Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots and the international bestseller Sea Sick: The Hidden Crisis in the Global Ocean.

Alanna started her career working as a journalist for The Financial Post where she covered stories on the Canadian real estate market and the banking industry - she was awarded two national awards for her coverage of the collapse of the Campeau empire. After three years at The Financial Post Alanna moved to The Globe & Mail - Canada's national Newspaper - where she spent fourteen years writing on social trends, education and science. Alanna won four major national and international awards during her time at The Globe & Mail, and in 2000 The World Conservation Union and the Reuters Foundation named her the World's best environmental journalist. This award lead to a fellowship at Green College, Oxford University where Alanna studied alongside the eminent ecologist Norman Myers. From this experience came her first book Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots.

During the 4.5 billion year history of planet Earth there have been no fewer than five mass extinctions when all life on the planet was nearly wiped out. As the climate continues to warm scientists are witnessing the rate of species extinction increase at a dangerously rapid pace. Today science is beginning to reveal the distinct possibility that we are on the verge of a sixth mass extinction brought on at the hands of the human species. Dancing at the Dead Sea: Tracking the World's Environmental Hotspots provides an insightful look at the science and research gauging the condition of nine of the globe's environmental hotspots. Alanna traverses the world - from the receding shoreline of the Dead Sea in Jordan, to the vanishing forests of Madagascar, to the melting permafrost of Banks Island in the High Arctic - all the while tracking the impact of climate change and other human actions on the pace of species extinction. Going beyond just the research and striking at the heart of the matter Alanna writes about how the human species has arrived at this point and why there is still hope for recovery.

It is no secret our planet has reached a crisis point. While the world's focus is on rising carbon emissions in the atmosphere and the warming of the climate there is another, potentially more fatal, environmental issue that has not garnered the attention it deserves. Alanna Mitchell's second book, Sea Sick: The Hidden Crisis in the Global Ocean is the first and only book to examine the state and condition of the global ocean. More than seventy percent of Earth's surface is covered with water. Half of the Earth's oxygen is produced by phytoplankton in the sea, and these microscopic organisms produce more oxygen then the rain forests; they are the true lungs of our planet. Alanna interviews leading scientists around the world as they study the unsettling fact that we are altering everything about the ocean's chemistry including its temperature, salinity, acidity, ice cover, volume and circulation. This is having a devastating effect on the balance of life of our planet's most vital resource. Whether it is the effects of wide spread coral bleaching, or the impact of the oxygen-deprived dead zones like the one in the Gulf of Mexico, Alanna Mitchell brings to light the cutting-edge scientific findings on the global ocean and highlights what needs to be done to save it.

Alanna Mitchell is a popular, passionate, and sought after speaker who delivers laughs and inspiration. She has been invited to give talks and speeches all over the world on environmental science, conservation and sustainability. She always leaves her audiences with hope that healing the planet is within reach.

In 2008 Alanna Mitchell won the Atkinson Fellowship in Journalism award, a $100 000.00 prize to conduct a new course of study on the intersection of neuroscience and education.

• How I Travelled the World Looking At Environmental Disaster and Found Hope.
  
  
• Why the Sea is Sick and What It Means for Life on Earth.
  
  
• Can We Turn the Environmental Crisis Around? Why Smart Civilizations Do Dumb Things.
  
  
• Darwin's Lessons for Today's Environmental Crisis.
  
  
• Despair, Hope, Forgiveness: Three Emotions We Need to Get Out of Our Environmental Mess.
  
  
• A Primer on Climate and Ocean Change: The Numbers that Threaten Us With Extinction.
  
  
• Dissolving Coral Reefs: A Primer on Ocean Acidification and Why It Matters.
  
  
• Mass Extinction Coming Up! How We're Pushing the Planet's Creatures Toward the Biggest Extinction
  Spasm Since the Dinosaurs Died Out.
  
  
• The Great Arctic Melt: Why it's Happening and Why it Matters so Much.
  
  
• Canada the Carbon Dinosuar: A Case Study in Folly.

"A riveting book of revelations about Earth's largest and most important habitat."
- Tim Flannery, author of The Weathermakers

"Sea Sick is the most comprehensive book to date on the state of our oceans. With a writer's eye for detail and a reporter's expertise in pulling in disparate information, Mitchell has woven a powerful and deeply unsettling story about our collective abuse of the cradle of all life. Fortunately, she also gives us hope and a path forward if we have the wisdom to act."
- Maude Barlow

"Alanna Mitchell's talk about oceans in crisis was delivered in a professional yet endearing manner. Mingling facts with personal anecdotes, Alanna inspired her audience to think about the importance of preserving what lies beneath."
- Dale McEwen, Women's Canadian Club

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