★★★★☆ (4 / 5)
I first heard about Hannah Ritchie through Bill Gates’ blog. Her 15-minute TED talk convinced me that I should read her book, and I was not disappointed. We hear so much bad news about the environment every day that it can really skew our perspective on reality. Ritchie’s approach is simple: correct the skew by presenting actual real-world data in a very easy-to-understand format.
There is no bullshit here. The book is painstakingly supported by correct citations on every page. There’s a few graphs here and there lacking scales on some axes (shame!), but these graphs are usually to clarify a point rather than presenting new data.
The later chapters deal with topics that are less appealing to me (wildlife conservation and over-fishing), but the book is definitely worth reading overall. Its hopeful message has really reset my expectations about the future of this planet.
- Title: Not the End of the World
- Author: Hannah Ritchie
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 9780316536752
- Date finished: 2025-02-14