Hannah Ritchie is a scottish data scientist working at Our World in Data, which is my favorite data-spreading organization.
So when I discovered she wrote a book about climate change, pollution, and the other problems affecting our dear planet, I was quite happy to read it.
Well, to listen to the audiobook. I think non-fiction pop-sciencey books work great as audiobooks, as the authors tend to repeat the same thing over and over and over, otherwise the book would be summed up in an blog post. In this case, I think the author herself is reading the book, which I appreciate from a philosophical point of view, but I found the accent a bit hard to understand at times.
In short, the book talks of a lot of issues currently affecting the planet, but unlike many of this kind, it has a positive look at them, because things are bad, but they’re better than they were, and they can improve more. A desperate look at things, is just as bad as one that trivializes issues. We can do better, and humankind we already managed to fix some large issues.
See, I’m from the ’80s, I grew up with the perspective of losing the ozone layer, and having to apply a pint of sunblock 5000 to stay in the sun. Also, do you remember when acid rains were a constant threat? Or actually seeing the exhaust smoke while in a line of cars? Those are things of the past, in most places! You would be crazy if you looked at things and didn’t see that we can improve and we did it in the past.
Anyway, The book is split in chapters, but the theme is basically the same on all of them, things are bad, but getting better, and there’s things you can do which matter quite a bit and things that matter very little. The chapters are:
- Sustainability
- Air Pollution
- Climate Change
- Deforestation
- Food
- Biodiversity Loss
- Ocean Plastics
- Overfishing
Most of the things she says I was already familiar with, but may be shocking the first time you hear of them. For example the fact that we already produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet (if we could convince everyone to eat vegetables, and stop using a lot of it as fuel).
The book is pretty pragmatic in suggestions too. A major root cause for many problems is, for example, beef production. The author knows she won’t convince the world to go vegan, so she just points out that, if you can choose, reducing your beef intake is probably the best thing you can do to help with a bunch of issues. If you want to eat meat, just cut a. bit, or prefer smaller animals (chicken is better than pork which is better than beef).
She also tries to slay some misconception, such as the idea that locally produced things are strictly better. They may be from a social standpoint, but they may not from a sustainability point of view. A box of avocados from south america are still better for the environment than a locally sourced steak in Europe.
And I appreciate how she points out that many of the things we consider green cosplay, such as avoiding single use plastic bottles or bags, are actually.. well, not that important. Yes, prefer a reusable tote bag for groceries, but the actual impact of a plastic bag is not that terrible, you shouldn’t feel guilty if you occasionally buy one, or if you get a bottle of soda from a vending machine.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. I think the author lets a few things through without actually explaining them. For example, she is in favor of building new nuclear plants, and while I’m 100% in favor of keeping old plants running and investing in new research, I am not sure the numbers come out in favor of new plants at this point in time. I may be wrong, but I would like to see her preference argued for with numbers, rather than background “bias”.
Vote 7/10: great book if you never heard these arguments, good book otherwise.