After hearing author Hannah Ritchie on Ezra Klein’s podcast, I immediately sought out her recent book. Ritchie serves as the Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, a non-profit dedicated to using data to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. And in Not the End of World, she uses that data for two important purposes.
It’s getting better and better
First, the work is effectively a spiritual sequel to Hans Rosling’s Factfulness. If you’re unfamiliar, you’ll get the gist from Rosling’s Ted Talk in 2006.
In essence, Rosling found that most people’s perception of the world doesn’t match the data, and when you look at many long-term trends, there’s actually a lot of good news. Across the globe, violence has declined, incomes have risen, and life spans have gotten longer. The average person may lament how “things used to be better”, but in many ways, it simply isn’t true.
Rosling’s Ted Talk in 2006 and 2018’s Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World were a radical breath of optimistic air in a world of nearly endemic fatalism. Rosling reframed our problems into a historical context to show that many areas of life have been steadily improving around the world for decades.
Hannah Ritchie takes up this mantle to address a new area of fatalism – the environment. Using data, Ritchie shows that many areas of client doom (air pollution, population growth, carbon emissions, etc.) are either already improving or are on track to peak soon.
On the flip side, technology is also driving cheaper alternatives to fossil fuels, better production methods for batteries used for electrification, and lower per capita carbon footprints. There is still plenty left to do, but the data suggests that the end is, in fact, not nigh, which sets up the book’s important second aim.
The only way out is through
Climate change offers plenty of physical threats, from rising sea levels to severe storms, but a growing body of research has begun to highlight the mental and emotional toll of climate change, too. In Ritchie’s telling, believing that climate change represents a lost cause is not only untrue, but it’s exactly what we don’t need if we’re going to make things better.
Ritchie shows several promising signs that humans are beginning the kinds of radical realignment to our food, transportation, energy, and economic systems that are necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. Whether or not it will be enough (and fast enough) may rely on whether we lean into the change. If people feel defeated by the size of the challenge and lose faith, we definitely won’t have the political or cultural will to create the innovation necessary to change the world.
Ritchie uses data to look at a range of environmental concerns. Many are poorly understood, and often, individual actions aren’t enough to address the core problem. For instance, recycling is a good thing to do, but it won’t address the real drivers of ocean plastic pollution, specifically fishing industry waste and poorly organized waste management procedures in developing countries.
Sometimes, the best solutions even run counter to the common narrative. For instance, eating “local” may create a higher carbon footprint if a hothouse is used or the farm relies on nitrate fertilizers. Food shipped using relatively low carbon emission methods, like slow ocean freighter shipping, may come from countries where the food is easier to grow because it’s better suited to the climate, resulting in an overall lower carbon footprint.
Taken together, Ritchie’s advice provides a practical and hopeful plan for anyone concerned about humanity’s future. Eat less meat (especially beef), drive electric, and support infrastructure development around the world. These practical steps, along with continued technological innovation, will help us lower global carbon emissions and begin to address some of the greatest dangers of climate change. But to do it, we have to have hope that it can be done.
The First Generation
The entirety of Not the End of the World is a reality shift, and Ritchie positions the core premise of the book in a radical simple change of mind. Climate catastrophists would have us believe that we are humanity’s last generation, but Ritchie challenges us to be the first generation of a new era of humanity.
We can be the generation that invests in the technology and cultural shifts that will accelerate the adoption of alternative energy, green infrastructure, and carbon capture, but we won’t be if we lose heart. The individuals, corporations, and cultural agents that prioritize short-term profits or comfort over long-term well-being won’t lose their motivation, so we mustn’t either. Ritchie’s work in an important and inspiring reminder that humanity is capable of incredible things, and many bright days still lie ahead.