Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In Not the End of the World , Dr Ritchie does a great job at dispelling misconceptions through data and at highlighting the advances of environmental regulation since the 1990s. It was an enjoyable read and it's refreshing to find a book accessible to all with an appeal to multiple generations. The only point on which I part ways with the author is ideological. The epistemic scope of the book is pretty classical in terms of economic theory, which I believe leads to a lack of ambition regarding some of the solutions. Why do industrialising countries have to experience inequality when industrialising? Why is degrowth portrayed as so unrealistic? Could multinational corporations not finance a sustainable transition rather than solely governments? Further, the flip side of relying so much on environmental regulation and technology is that it requires a lot of willpower on behalf of regulators at local, national and international scales, which in the current climate (pardon the pun), is not a guarantee like it was at the time of the Paris Agreement (2015). That said, Ritchie is still sensitive to social issues and as she says in her very last point, everyone working on the matter, regardless of their political stance, are vying for the same thing: a more sustainable planet. Perhaps the solutions in this book are compatible with others.



View all my reviews