“Not the End of the World”

Hannah Ritchie

Quite an enjoyable read! The general gist of this is “forget about what you think is true, let’s look at the data,” which is applied to two different things: the current state of affairs and their rate of change; and what we, as individuals, can do to make things better. Which was, I think, a great way to do it. It keeps the focus on reality, instead of the “what sells papers” aspect, which will always favor the New Exciting Bad Stuff over the boring everyday improvements we’re making. And having each chapter wrap up with a section on “what you don’t actually need to worry about” was great; something of a call-to-action, in that it pushes for focusing on useful changes we actually can make as individuals, but without feeling like it’s pushing for self-flagellation about our failures as a species. Check it out.1