How We're F***ing Up Our Planet: And What We Can Do About It

by Tony Juniper

Using powerful, easy-to-grasp graphics, this book cuts through the noise and gets straight to the facts on climate change, overpopulation, pollution, over-consumption, and much more.

In How We're F***ing Up Our Planet Tony Juniper distills wide-ranging, heart-stopping research into one reliable and eye-opening book. He charts the dramatic explosion of human population and consumption and its impact on planet Earth, revealing how increasing pressures on our world affect factors such as climate, sea levels, and pollution, and what that means for our future.

Global warming has led to sea levels rising by around 18cm (7in) over the past 100 years, and the Arctic ice sheet is shrinking at a rate never seen before. 10 million people each year are affected by coastal flooding. One third of all land is at risk of turning to desert, with huge implications for food supplies. Deaths due to air pollution rise every year, and more plastic pollution of the oceans threatens marine life and fishing stocks.

As well as explaining global trends and showing how they are connected, How We are F***ing Up Our Planet explores how we can live more sustainably into the future, with positive ideas of how we can mitigate damaging trends.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Environment, Climate Change

223 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 7, 2019

Reviews

[Oana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, clear and concise information and great visual aids.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in sustainability.

[Olga Zimina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately can’t push myself to continue reading the book due to sad feelings it gives me. There are so many facts, graphs and upsetting information that I can’t help but thinking “we are actually f*ed up”. I personally try my best and do what I can to help Earth not to drown in plastic, but still it’s hard to enjoy life when you constantly live in such strong and depressing feelings which this book gives. Well of course that’s just my perspective.

Definitely interesting to read at first and the book is very informative, but unfortunately I didn’t come across any practical solutions of how to help our planet. It’s really just the book of sadness, as I see it.

What’s more interesting, it was translated to Russian as “how to save our planet”, but in English it’s simply “how we’re f**king up our planet”. So maybe I was too impressed by the title in Russian, but in reality is just full of vividly presented and depressing facts…

[Chan Fry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps a 2.4. I thought I would enjoy this more than I did, due to my sometimes singleminded focus on environmentalism. But it was simply too difficult to read. The text itself is simply and clearly written, and is divided into easily digestible blocks of 100 or so words per block. But the design of the pages was disastrous — at least for the way I read. Large colorful infographics dominate each page, and little blocks of text are haphazardly scattered around them (different pattern for each page).

There is actually a lot of useful information in this book. Juniper’s research was impressively thorough. For someone who is (1) kind of on the fence about environmentalism and (2) has a knack for reading comic-book-style hardcover nonfiction books, I think this tome would be perfect.

(I have published a longer review on my website.)

[P Roberge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that's a pretty accurate title

[Bivisyani Questibrilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple months ago I bought this book as a research material for my potential thesis project. Although it ended up not to be used for its original purpose, this book was deeply educational and it taught me a lot about how the world works. There are so many elements of this book that I adore, but mostly the fact that it is fully presented in infographics—they're somewhere between formal and playful, but incredibly easy to understand. The book covers numerous topics, including the economy, climate change, inequality, and so on. The data is pretty thorough—whether or not it's biased is not something I have cross checked—and I adore the visualisation of it all.

Writing-wise, it is done immaculately. The author manages to explain every terminology really well—there's also a whole list of vocab at the back. However, this is still a somewhat academic book, to be sure, so I wouldn't use it to educate children and teenager on these topics. To be fair, the topics being discussed are also rather complex, so it would take a lot to explain them to the young ones. Aside from data, the author also includes numerous tips of what formal institutions, such as the government and companies, and we as individuals can do.

Visually, I absolutely love the style of illustrations and graphs in this book. The colour palette is easy on the eyes, the details are just enough to depict a point but not too much to distract from the data. Some of the parts are labelled wrong, though it is still easy to understand and place in its supposedly original position.

The only thing I wish to improve from this book—if it's an improvement at all—is to have an updated version from 2020 or at least 2019. A lot has changed since 2016-2017 and, of course, it will affect a lot of what this book contains.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost was turned off from this book because of the reviews on here, but I'm happy I read this. Yes, the infographic format is a bit tiresome and makes the book hard to just sit down and read through at a clip, but if you take the time to digest each page and move through the book slowly like I did, I think it is really informative and easy to grasp. This book covers almost everything that affects our planet. It's a hell of a depressing read during most parts because it only really shows the negative effects (hence the title) and leaves a comparatively small part for the "what can we do" and positive aspects. That's another good reason to take this one slowly. After reading it I really had to revamp the way I think about every action I take and its effect on the environment ( for example, yeah, biking emits fewer greenhouse gases because it doesn't emit exhaust, but to power the bike, I have to eat more and that has a carbon footprint of its own to consider).

This might not be a perfect book, but it is a great introduction to a topic that needs to be introduced to everyone NOW!

[Tamsin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice idea and there are useful explanations of processes such as the greenhouse gas effect, but a lot of the data is very out of date - despite being published in 2019 it has data from 2003-2005, when much newer data is available. The recycling figures for the UK have quadrupled since 2009, which is when the figures in the book are from. Also, the solutions boxes are incredibly short and simplistic, not allowing for nuances.

I'd recommend How Bad are Bananas? and There is No Planet B instead.

[Matthew Marcinowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent visual primer for, well, how we’re fucking up the planet and what we can do to change the course of our actions since the Industrial Revolution. This would be a perfect gift for the family climate change denier - we all seem to have one now. But, um, gift the Kindle version instead!

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel so educated now.

[Lime · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for the TPL challenge. I found this book inconsistent. Some interesting info, but the graphics got tiresome after a while. Some of the charts need editing as the numbers given just don't add up (pp50-51) and others have lightweight references. On the other hand there are some revelations in this book (if they are indeed accurate).
Here's an example of this book's inconsistent nature; pp 74-75 "Threats to Food Security" tells us that the US has lost 1/3 of its topsoil since settled agriculture began. A world map illustrates that the threats to food security are primarily agricultural practices (bad ones I'm assuming) and overgrazing, with relatively little due to industrialization. Ok, so far so good. When I check the references for this information however, one is from 2015, the other from 1995. Hmm, wondering which part of this is based on a source from 24 years ago...

[Megan Rosenkranz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read that shows all the ways our planet has changed because of human impacts. With high-quality visuals and clear descriptions of the workings of our planet, Tony Juniper creates an inescapable, easy to read guide to climate change. While I could not use this actual book in my future classroom, I could use some of the visuals and have also included a review of one that I bought for my classroom without the language. Some of the visuals are different though which is why I also reviewed this book.

[MKF · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know how we can solve climate change and all the problems destroying Earth at once. After reading this I think the extinction of humans will probably be the only way we can save our planet. Yes, we can take the right steps but we would need way more then a handful of people to make even a small dent in fixing the issues.

[Clare Kirwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fact-filled overview of the urgent need for our planet to live more sustainably, this book is largely a series of fascinating, alarming and largely quite accessible graphs, charts and info graphics. This makes it difficult to read much of at a time and overwhelmingly depressing, but it's stuff we all need to know.

[Andre Siregar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good primer and it does its job well. This book does not give you in-depth scientific explanations. But if you want a quick read and a reference about the many ways we are f***ing up the planet, this is an informative book for you.

You should also know that all the pages are infographics. To me, this is a strength, but this format may put some people off.

[Sheila Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has very cleverly drawn graphics to explain many aspects of the current global environment. It’s pitched at an audience who might rarely pick up a science book and uses illustrations to engage and possibly shock.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone whose interested with the latest update and datas of what's going on in the planet right now, I really LOVE this book. It made me understand more about what is good or bad for our earth and what could we do about it 👍

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent graphs and charts! This is a great book to have on hand.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another middle aged white male that thinks that using vulgarity is all that youngsters need to start paying attention. Smart.

[Noemie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pas finit au complet, à relire.

[Kloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should’ve read this before I even started my course

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations and easy to understand graphics. A little depressing, but that’s the state the world is in.

[Olga Taratuta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful book with many intriguing and colourful pages of graphs and images that illustrate human stupidity...

[Nithya De · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly enlightening and informative. Love the way the graphics made it an absolutely colourful and engaging read too.