How has humankind survived for millions of years? Luck has played a part of course but evolution too has been key.

And among our evolutionary advantages (opposable thumbs, imagination, faith, pattern recognition ) we can count an additional survival strategy that up till now has been highly effective: greed.

If we like something enough, we will go all out to get more of it. Once upon a time, it was sex, power, food and warmth. And today? Well it's still sex, power, food and warmth; but we can add other things – information, cigarette cards, classic cars.

Being greedy is how we have survived and dominated the planet. But is this strategy finally going to kill us all off?

Greed is great when there isn't much of anything around. But in an age of superabundance, greed can be a problem.

There is no shortage of food – and so we eat ourselves obese; there is no shortage of energy and so we heat our houses until we constantly get colds; there is no shortage of cleaning products, and so we are all developing allergies.

Greed can be bad for us. But the trouble is we are 'hard wired' for it. We urgently need to develop a sense of 'enough'. We need to over -ride our brains, which tell use we need more to be happy. We need to develop a new skill - to recognise enough when we see it, and evolve a 'stop button'.

John Naish explores the problems created by our lack of a stop button and, importantly suggests practical ways of working round this problem. This is a book for anyone interested in their own health...and the health of our planet.

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Published by Hodder £16.99 Hardback