How Are We Going to Explain This?: Our Future on a Hot Earth

Description

Over five years covering climate change, Jelmer Mommers has learned that the subject is a great way to ruin a conversation. Most people prefer to look away, which is understandable when we discuss climate change as an apocalypse. But the crisis does not offer a definitive end. There are always ways we can mitigate, prevent, and reverse the damage. Drawing on the latest climate science, Jelmer Mommers describes the current state of the climate and how we got here, sketches possible futures if we act and if we don't, and explains common misconceptions about the crisis - from outright denial to fatalism. He then shows what we can do - individually and collectively - to address the crisis , from taking trains rather than flying short distances to ensuring our pensions aren't invested in fossil fuels to pushing governments via activism and elections to build renewable power plants. No-one is too small to help. This is a book is for everyone who is looking away or is resigned to an imagined fate. And, unlike so many other 'climate change books', it promises to make the reader laugh and leave them with both hope and a plan. Because there will be future generations who we will have to explain ourselves to, and if we make the wrong choices they may be very very angry.

Jelmer Mommers is a climate journalist based in Amsterdam. He made world headlines when he uncovered an alarmist climate documentary made by Shell in 1991, and again when he released internal Shell documents showing the company's internal research into global warming. Those documents are now being used in court cases against the oil giant worldwide.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most important books I've read this year.' -- Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists Breezy, easy to read, perky, full of good stories and all done with a brisk summary of the history of ideas * Sunday Times * As a journalist, Jelmer Mommers has broken important stories about how we got in our current climate mess; as a thinker, he shows us there may still be some ways out, if we move with grace and speed. A fine account of where we stand, and where we could go if we wanted to!' -- Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, and activist As more of humanity adjusts to living with crises - we need books like this, which tell us what we can do - from small steps to big ones - to find our way to a new normal. -- May Boeve, Executive Director 350.org and 350 Action Fund Jelmer Mommer's How Are We Going to Explain This provides a unique take on challenge to avert a climate crisis. It provides important insights into our dire situation, but it also sketches out a persuasive path forward. A must-read if you want to know where we stand and what we can and must still do! -- Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor, Penn State University and author of The Hockey Stick, the Climate Wars. and The Madhouse Effect Clear-eyed and compelling, this book is a much-needed antidote to despair; an inspiration to create the narrative our (grand)children will tell about how we forged a genuinely sustainable world. Read it and make it so! -- Peter C. Frumhoff PhD, Director of Science and Policy and Chief Climate Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists A very interesting and important book, and it's nice that it doesn't depress you -- Georgina Verbaan, actress and writer Explaining the climate story clearly and convincingly: Jelmer Mommers can do it like no other. -- David Van Reybrouck, author of Congo This climate book is not only great to read, it also outlines a future that you want to be a part of. Inspiring! -- Philip Huff The first book on climate that doesn't make you feel like it's too late. There's something we can do, let's see this wonderfully fluently written book. -- Jill Peters, weather forecaster This is the book that needed to be written. -- Marjan Minnesma, Director of Urgenda Climate change is a story so often told in the future tense. But Mommers roots it firmly in the present. The problem, the consequences and the solution - right here, right now." -- Leo Hickman, editor of * Carbon Brief * At a time when despair, malign fabrication and partisanship are combining to prevent vital action, How Are We Going To Explain This is a much-needed, joyful, clear and practical companion. Read this - it could save your planet. Give it to your friends and colleagues - it's their planet, too. -- A.L. Kennedy If there is a silver lining to the Covid crisis, it is surely that from governments to citizens, we have demonstrated that we can work together for the common good. Jelmer Mommers brilliantly captures the essence of this spirit of the possible and applies it to the elephant in the room - the climate crisis, for which we are rapidly reaching an inflection point. This must-read beautifully argues why we must all act together - and act now - dispelling feelings of lethargy and hopelessness on the way. This is a wonderful and prescient stimulus for all those (the majority) who yearn for a more equitable and sustainable future. -- Simon Taylor, Co-founder of Global Witness Jelmer Mommers' How Are We Going to Explain This is an important contribution to the most existential threat of our day: climate change and environmental collapse. What sets this book apart from others is that the author combines hard science with the narratives necessary to save us. We are taken on a trip from gut bacteria and dancing bees to agricultural practices and CO2 sequestering - the micro and the macro beautifully linked to provide us with the big picture with all its hope and horror. -- Joanna Pocock How Are We Going to Explain This is an important contribution to the most existential threat of our day: climate change and environmental collapse. What sets this book apart from others is that the author combines hard science with the narratives necessary to save us. We are taken on a trip from gut bacteria and dancing bees to agricultural practices and CO2 sequestering - the micro and the macro beautifully linked to provide us with the big picture with all its hope and horror. -- Joanna Pockock Another great book on climate change: how we got here but most importantly how we get out of the mess we have created. Shines a light on the path forward with clarity and determination. -- Christiana Figueres Architect of the Paris climate agreement, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016 "We have to dream bigger, as Jelmer Mommers does. The likely warming of the next few decades can make the future look practically unlivable. But we will find ways to live in it, perhaps even thrive. Mommers helps us see how-how we might remake the world, secure that future, and above all stop seeing the present as a conceptual cage constricting our hopes rather than a husk to leave behind." -- David Wallace-Wells, author of * The Uninhabitable Earth * A welcome reminder that there are things we can do to heal the planet that go beyond useless half-measures. * Kirkus *