The Optimist's Telescope offers practical solutions for making better long-term decisions for individuals, businesses, and society as a whole. Venkataraman draws from her experience as a former climate adviser to the Obama administration and shares stories from around the world to showcase how we can adopt practices that benefit us over time. She highlights the importance of thinking ahead and dispels the myth that human nature is impossibly reckless. This book is recommended for anyone looking to make positive changes for themselves and the world around them.

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• Nautilus Book Award for Science & Cosmology (Gold) (2019)

A trailblazing exploration of how we can think more strategically about the future--and make smarter choices in our own lives and in society.Many of us never learned--or have forgotten--how to make good decisions for the long run. In a world where immediate satisfaction is the norm, it's easy to avoid thinking ahead. Whether it's decisions about our health (our chronic overuse of antibiotics has triggered a shocking rise in superbugs that are resistant to them), our finances (20% of Americans save nothing for retirement), or our jobs (we slash R and D budgets to improve short-term profit and then can't keep pace with competitors), we lack the tools we need to choose what's best for the future. Today more than ever, we need to know how to make better long-term decisions--for ourselves, our families, and the world.Bina Venkataraman understands this. As a former journalist and senior advisor in the Obama administration, she forged partnerships between government and business to combat climate change, and she learned firsthand why people don't think ahead. Drawing from her own experience, the stories she has reported from around the world, and new research in biology, psychology, archaeology, economics, and beyond, she identifies the best ways to make decisions that benefit us over time. She dispels the myth that human nature is impossibly reckless, and explains the role that culture and environment play in our behavior. She highlights the surprising and successful practices that each of us can adopt to make smarter, more thoughtful choices.The result is The Optimist's Telescope, a book brimming with useful ideas and insights to help us think clearly about the future and make better decisions.

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