Paul Raskin is the founding president of the Tellus Institute, which has conducted over 3,500 research and policy projects throughout the world on environmental issues, resource planning, scenario analysis, and sustainable development.

In 1976, he co-founded the Tellus Institute, a non-profit research ad policy organization, where he has directed an interdisciplinary team working on environmental, resource, and development issues throughout the world.

Dr. Raskin's research has evolved through several phases: energy and environmental planning, integrated freshwater assessment, climate change mitigation strategies, and sustainable development studies.

[5] Since the Brundtland Commission's seminal Our Common Future in 1987, for which he was a contributing author, Raskin's work has centered on developing comprehensive long-range scenarios of socio-ecological systems at different spatial scales: river-basin, nation, region, and globe.

[6] This essay describes the historic roots of the contemporary global challenge and considers alternative pathways for world development, advancing a Great Transition path as the preferred route.