Geoff Russell qualified in philosophy and history, before undertaking a second degree in mathematics.  He wrote software for a living until he retired in 2016.  He lives with partner Suzanne Pope and a collection of animals in Adelaide,  Australia.

 

Even when working, Geoff often worked part time and devoted considerable time to animal protection activities; both at a political and practical level.  Currently he and Suzanne are active in bat rescue, having taken part in the rescue of over 400 bats during the four day heat wave in South Australia in December 2019.  Thousands of bats (grey headed flying foxes to be precise) died during the event, included many of the juveniles of the colony in Botanic Park.  

 

During the past 15 years he's devoted increasing time to writing ... non-fiction.  Many of the pressing issues of our time require a deeper technical understanding than many journalists can bring to their work. Even when they have the training, journalists are faced with deadlines, word limits and editors that make depth and detail impossible.  But often they don't have the background. During the current Covid-19 crisis, we find journalists more used to covering politics being pulled into covering something way outside their comfort zone. Geoff first wrote about new zoonotic diseases back in 2009 and has been reading about them for even longer. 

 

A three decade vegan and member of the Animal Justice Party, his first book in 2009 was 'CSIRO Perfidy', a critique of the high-red-meat CSIRO 'Total Wellbeing diet'; the most environmentally destructive diet on the planet. His concerns about climate change and the ineffectiveness of renewables led to a re-examination of his lifelong opposition to nuclear power. After considerable research he realised that the reasons people fear nuclear are built on obsolete knowledge about DNA and cancer. His second book 'GreenJacked! Derailing environmental action on climate change' is an e-book available on Amazon. He was  a regular contributor to Barry Brook's BraveNewClimate.com since and has had pieces published in The Monthly, Australasian Science and a number of Australian newspapers. He has recently been  a regular contributor to New Matilda.