Not the End of the World
Book

Not the End of the World

How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

Hannah Ritchie
Little, Brown Spark, 2024

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Visionary
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

By now everyone knows human activity has harmed Earth’s air, water, and land. However, humanity now is making progress in reversing past damage and adopting strategies for living in ways that meet people’s current needs and help preserve the planet. Misperceptions have led to ineffective action and even a sense of doom.​To spur positive change and provide a real basis for hope, global development researcher Hannah Ritchie offers detailed research and analysis illustrated with data-rich graphs and charts. She provides robust hope that wears work gloves – specific advice on how people can thrive while protecting the basic ecological systems that sustain the Earth and enable life to flourish.

Summary

People can take real steps to repair environmental damage.

Earth’s environment is in grave danger. People must – and can – help repair the planet. Now is the time to embrace “urgent optimism.” Society already has made huge strides with effective movements to increase lifespans; boost food security; educate children; reduce child and maternal deaths; meet local needs for energy, clean water, and sanitation; and enable many more people to earn a livable income.

But human action has also disrupted Earth’s ability to meet the needs of future generations by polluting the air, altering the climate, destroying forests, producing food wastefully, endangering other species, polluting the oceans with plastics, and harming ocean life. Reducing the human population is not the answer. Trends now indicate that the population will peak in the 2080s. 

While the world doesn’t hold enough wealth to end poverty, overall economic growth enables the development of new technologies that can help impoverished people and the environment. Several countries have grown richer while reducing environmental harm.

Climate-related...

About the Author

Hannah Ritchie, the lead researcher and editor of Our World in Data, is a senior researcher in global development at the University of Oxford.

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