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Hannah Ritchie
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Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet Hardcover – January 9, 2024

by Hannah Ritchie (Author)
Editors' pick Best History

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This "eye-opening and essential" book (Bill Gates) will transform how you see our biggest environmental problems—and explains how we can solve them.

It’s become common to tell kids that they’re going to die from climate change. We are constantly bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won’t be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, and that we should reconsider having children.

But in this bold, radically hopeful book, data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges. In fact, the data shows we’ve made so much progress on these problems that we could be on track to achieve true sustainability for the first time in human history. Did you know that:
  • Carbon emissions per capita are actually down
  • Deforestation peaked back in the 1980s
  • The air we breathe now is vastly improved from centuries ago
  • And more people died from natural disasters a hundred years ago?

Packed with the latest research, practical guidance, and enlightening graphics, this book will make you rethink almost everything you’ve been told about the environment. Not the End of the World will give you the tools to understand our current crisis and make lifestyle changes that actually have an impact. Hannah cuts through the noise by outlining what works, what doesn’t, and what we urgently need to focus on so we can leave a sustainable planet for future generations.      

These problems are big. But they are solvable. We are not doomed. We can build a better future for everyone. Let’s turn that opportunity into reality.
 
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  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Little, Brown Spark
  4. Publication date
    January 9, 2024
  5. Dimensions
    6.4 x 1.19 x 9.65 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    031653675X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0316536752
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  1. Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it’s having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference.
    Highlighted by 411 Kindle readers
  2. In 1987, the UN defined sustainable development as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
    Highlighted by 325 Kindle readers
  3. Many changes that do profoundly shape the world are not rare, exciting or headline-grabbing. They are persistent things that happen day by day and year by year until decades pass and the world has been altered beyond recognition.
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From the brand

From the Publisher

The problems are big. But they are solvable.

Ecopragmatism at its best

Truly essential

Hannah Ritchie does for the environment what Hans Rosling did for health

An unmissable myth-busting book to save our planet

A refreshingly upbeat guide to achieving sustainability

This book will banish your feeling of doom

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Not the End of the World is eye-opening and essential. With comprehensive data and sometimes counterintuitive conclusions, Hannah Ritchie does for the environment what Hans Rosling did for health. She argues that we shouldn’t be nostalgic for a time when half the global population died before adulthood, and she makes a convincing case that things are getting better—even though there’s so much more to do. I hope people around the world read this book, understand our planet isn’t a lost cause, and get inspired to help fix it."―Bill Gates, author of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

"The climate and environmental crisis now has its Hans Rosling. Hannah Ritchie has charted an invigorating, inspiring, often surprising tour of recent human history and the many marks of progress it contains. Will the world make good on that optimism in the future? That is up to the rest of us."―David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

"I find it hard to express how much I love this book. Hannah Ritchie brilliantly picks up where Hans Rosling left off. Her book shines with practicality and positivity. It will banish your feelings of doom, help you focus on what’s really important, and make you want to be a part of the most effective solutions to our greatest challenges. Let's get this book into the hands of as many policy makers, politicians and fellow citizens as possible."―Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind

“An unmissable myth-busting book to save our planet— read it.”―Tim Spector, author of Food For Life

“Data is a superpower. Let Hannah Ritchie show you the world as it really is. Then go out and change it for the better.”―Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees

"An inspiring data-mine which gives us not only real guidance, but the most necessary ingredient of all: hope . . . truly essential"

―Margaret Atwood, TED2023

“Ecopragmatism at its best shines throughout this book... The surprising message in the data is that human civilization is far along toward solving planetary problems. Hannah Ritchie shows how building on the successful trends can finish the job.”―Stewart Brand, founder of Whole Earth Catalog and author of Whole Earth Discipline

“Such a clear-eyed view of the state we're in, giving a sharp picture of the challenges ahead, and an inspiring vision of the problems we've already solved. Everyone who reads it will learn a lot – I did.”―Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up

“A refreshingly upbeat guide to achieving sustainability. Ritchie attacks cynicism, doomerism and apathy with a barrage of data revealing the extent of our progress and illuminating the best paths ahead.”―Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century

“A refreshing perspective on the problems that the world faces, providing plenty of optimism while not sugar-coating the deep structural challenges at the root of it all.”―Helen Czerski, author of Blue Machine

“Some deny there are environmental problems, others deny that we can solve them. Hannah Ritchie reveals that they are both wrong.”―Johan Norberg, author of In Defense of Global Capitalism and Progress

"Combining scientific expertise with convincing statistics, an Oxford researcher offers an antidote to do-nothing doomsayers...This book is a refreshing change and, as a call to further action, puts forward a sensible, equitable agenda."―Kirkus Reviews

“Every policymaker on the Left and the Right should read the new book Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan.”―Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner

About the Author

Dr. Hannah Ritchie is Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford. She is also Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at the highly influential online publication Our World in Data. In 2022, Ritchie was named Scotland’s Youth Climate Champion and New Scientist called her “The woman who gave COVID-19 data to the world.”   

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Hannah Ritchie

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