'Beard sank into a gloom of inattention, not because the planet was in peril - that moronic word again - but because someone was telling him it was with such enthusiasm' Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. He now spends his days speaking for enormous fees and half-heartedly heading a government-backed initiative tackling global warming. A compulsive womaniser, Beard finds his fifth marriage floundering. But this time, she's having the affair. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity arises for Beard to simultaneously save his marriage and the world from environmental disaster.