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qls's review
5.0
maybe the most important book of our generation?
should be required reading for *everyone*.
should be required reading for *everyone*.
spyralnode's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
'The Climate Book' should be mandatory reading for everyone, wherever you are, whatever you do, whoever you are. It should be part of our school curriculums, of our education systems. Greta Thunberg has created a remarkable compendium of essays, photos and data on climate change that come not only from her, but from many other subjects matter experts, from scientists, activists, authors and world leaders.
It's structured in chronological parts:
1/ How Climate Works
2/ How Our Planet Is Changing
3/ How It Affects Us
4/ What We've Done About It
5/ What We Must Do Now
These essays are fairly short, ranging between 2 and 5 pages, accessible, informative and engaging. Interspersed between them are also Greta's opinion pieces, which I read as more of a call to action as you process the data you have been presented with. She brings you back to the reality of today and reiterates in simply terms the constraints our systems presents and what is still in our power. And that is one of the main things I really loved about this book: it is genuinely for everyone. There is nothing fancy about it that would make it unapproachable. The natural phenomena, the political and economical systems, the correlations and consequences are well explained.
My response to the read was angry: Am I surrounded by idiots? Why are people not taking action? How can people around me be so complacent and selfish, not see the forest through the trees? The urgency is here, it's now, it's not going anywhere. On the contrary: warming of over 2C will have devastating consequences. The change in our environmental damages today has already caused irreparable damage in people being displaced, vulnerable food production, an increase in natural disasters, yet the actions that governments take are abysmal. Not only that, but they don't even report on the whole picture. International flights and shipping, as well as military costs, are not part of how they calculate the emissions of countries. Waste management is outsourced to countries with less regulation (for example the UK sending their waste to Turkey), where plastic sits on beaches, in forests, or has been burned to create more CO2. People revel in their beef steaks and burgers, with a forest the size of a football field disappearing every second due to the resources that beef needs: 50 calories for every calorie produced. Biodiversity has suffered immensely, and with oceans increasing in temperature and therefore acidity, it's sending fish to the poles and threatens their ability to birth.
The contributors place blame especially on the media and governments and I couldn't agree more. Our structures are built with people in power, yet they are ridiculously uninformed or choose to ignore the urgency of our planet falling apart and no longer able to sustain us. Media has long served as the loudspeakers of companies in the oil and gas industry, with BP for example placing the responsibility on the individuals by popularising the term of 'carbon footprint' and urging people to calculate their own in order to address it. But we cannot be sustainable in unsustainable systems.
The book does maintain a hopeful outlook - realistic but hopeful. There is a myriad of advice on what we can do, even if we are limited without the enforcement of laws that helds those responsible for ecocide accountable. Eating more plants, limiting our consumables, keeping our politicians accountable, travelling less by plane, educating ourselves, becoming activists, these are all things we can do today. Humans are social creatures, and history have shown protests turning things around with a 2.5% participation from the people.
I couldn't recommend this book more. I read it continuously, I know others choose to read an essay a day. But even though I was deeply affected and angry, I wanted to keep going. I wanted to know more, understand better, fuel my anger towards education and consequently action. I want to do more, I want to be better in living in harmony with the world around me.
Last but certainly not least, I admire the honesty of this book immensely. It raises the alarm effectively, and also addresses intersectional areas, such as how the poorest are the most impacted by climate change, yet it is caused primarily by the top 1%. They continue to act irresponsibly and also take advantage of the Global South, while no longer under the colony model, by hiring cheap labor in countries like Bangladesh, for further use of resources, production of unneeded goods that will soon be discarded, and of course exploitation of people.
We must take action now.
It's structured in chronological parts:
1/ How Climate Works
2/ How Our Planet Is Changing
3/ How It Affects Us
4/ What We've Done About It
5/ What We Must Do Now
These essays are fairly short, ranging between 2 and 5 pages, accessible, informative and engaging. Interspersed between them are also Greta's opinion pieces, which I read as more of a call to action as you process the data you have been presented with. She brings you back to the reality of today and reiterates in simply terms the constraints our systems presents and what is still in our power. And that is one of the main things I really loved about this book: it is genuinely for everyone. There is nothing fancy about it that would make it unapproachable. The natural phenomena, the political and economical systems, the correlations and consequences are well explained.
My response to the read was angry: Am I surrounded by idiots? Why are people not taking action? How can people around me be so complacent and selfish, not see the forest through the trees? The urgency is here, it's now, it's not going anywhere. On the contrary: warming of over 2C will have devastating consequences. The change in our environmental damages today has already caused irreparable damage in people being displaced, vulnerable food production, an increase in natural disasters, yet the actions that governments take are abysmal. Not only that, but they don't even report on the whole picture. International flights and shipping, as well as military costs, are not part of how they calculate the emissions of countries. Waste management is outsourced to countries with less regulation (for example the UK sending their waste to Turkey), where plastic sits on beaches, in forests, or has been burned to create more CO2. People revel in their beef steaks and burgers, with a forest the size of a football field disappearing every second due to the resources that beef needs: 50 calories for every calorie produced. Biodiversity has suffered immensely, and with oceans increasing in temperature and therefore acidity, it's sending fish to the poles and threatens their ability to birth.
The contributors place blame especially on the media and governments and I couldn't agree more. Our structures are built with people in power, yet they are ridiculously uninformed or choose to ignore the urgency of our planet falling apart and no longer able to sustain us. Media has long served as the loudspeakers of companies in the oil and gas industry, with BP for example placing the responsibility on the individuals by popularising the term of 'carbon footprint' and urging people to calculate their own in order to address it. But we cannot be sustainable in unsustainable systems.
The book does maintain a hopeful outlook - realistic but hopeful. There is a myriad of advice on what we can do, even if we are limited without the enforcement of laws that helds those responsible for ecocide accountable. Eating more plants, limiting our consumables, keeping our politicians accountable, travelling less by plane, educating ourselves, becoming activists, these are all things we can do today. Humans are social creatures, and history have shown protests turning things around with a 2.5% participation from the people.
I couldn't recommend this book more. I read it continuously, I know others choose to read an essay a day. But even though I was deeply affected and angry, I wanted to keep going. I wanted to know more, understand better, fuel my anger towards education and consequently action. I want to do more, I want to be better in living in harmony with the world around me.
Last but certainly not least, I admire the honesty of this book immensely. It raises the alarm effectively, and also addresses intersectional areas, such as how the poorest are the most impacted by climate change, yet it is caused primarily by the top 1%. They continue to act irresponsibly and also take advantage of the Global South, while no longer under the colony model, by hiring cheap labor in countries like Bangladesh, for further use of resources, production of unneeded goods that will soon be discarded, and of course exploitation of people.
We must take action now.
tigercub58's review
4.0
Had to finish this quicker than expected as my library loan is in high demand so I can't renew it. Happy to see it IS in demand though Not a comfortable read but an essential one to get the real facts from a wide range of experts on the subject - scientists mainly.
izzyisreading's review against another edition
4.5
"For me, my acts of love for the land are teaching and writing and science and voting, raising good children, raising a garden and raising a ruckus when needed. This is how love calls to me: I will do the big things and the small things, even though I don't know which is which." Robin Wall Kimmerer
This book was a really comprehensive look at the climate crisis- it had writing from climate activists, physicists, ecologists, geologists, and even marginalized voices who are being impacted the most by climate change. It was a super informative book including a variety of perspectives that all come to the same conclusion- action is needed now. I liked how the book concluded by giving the reader actionable steps, both individually but also at a systems level, to keep moving progress forward. I learned a lot from this book, but it was also very long. It took me the course of many months to finally finish it, as it is a little repetitive at times. However, I think it is the most comprehensible and powerful nonfiction book I have read thus far. And one of the reasons I found it to be very successful is it perfectly combined the science, the facts of what we know, with a social justice lens. The reality is that the climate crisis is not threatening the white and the wealthy Western nations. It is currently tearing apart underprivileged countries- those who have historically been the victims of colonization. To view the climate crisis as another form of colonization was incredibly fascinating to me. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in climate change- it is both comprehensive of everything we know while providing a new perspective on those facts.
This book was a really comprehensive look at the climate crisis- it had writing from climate activists, physicists, ecologists, geologists, and even marginalized voices who are being impacted the most by climate change. It was a super informative book including a variety of perspectives that all come to the same conclusion- action is needed now. I liked how the book concluded by giving the reader actionable steps, both individually but also at a systems level, to keep moving progress forward. I learned a lot from this book, but it was also very long. It took me the course of many months to finally finish it, as it is a little repetitive at times. However, I think it is the most comprehensible and powerful nonfiction book I have read thus far. And one of the reasons I found it to be very successful is it perfectly combined the science, the facts of what we know, with a social justice lens. The reality is that the climate crisis is not threatening the white and the wealthy Western nations. It is currently tearing apart underprivileged countries- those who have historically been the victims of colonization. To view the climate crisis as another form of colonization was incredibly fascinating to me. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in climate change- it is both comprehensive of everything we know while providing a new perspective on those facts.