How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. “Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie delivers a refreshing perspective on global challenges, emphasizing positive change and human resilience. In this insightful book, Ritchie debunks common misconceptions about the world’s problems, offering an optimistic yet realistic view that encourages readers to reconsider their outlook on the future.
Dive into our comprehensive summary and review of “Not the End of the World” to discover how Hannah Ritchie shifts the narrative on global issues and why this book is essential for understanding today’s world.
Table of Contents
Genres
Science, Education, Nature and the Environment, Society, Culture, Non-fiction, Environmental, Social Commentary, Political, Economics, Self-Help, History, Philosophy, Current Affairs
“Not the End of the World” by Hannah Ritchie explores the prevailing pessimism about the state of the world and challenges it with data-driven analysis and a hopeful outlook. Ritchie argues that while significant global issues persist, there have been substantial improvements in various areas such as poverty, health, and education.
The book delves into the power of human ingenuity and cooperation in addressing environmental and social challenges, emphasizing the importance of basing our worldview on facts rather than fear. Through detailed chapters, Ritchie provides evidence of progress and encourages readers to adopt a more balanced and constructive perspective on global problems.
Review
Hannah Ritchie’s “Not the End of the World” is a compelling read that effectively balances realism with optimism. Her extensive use of data and historical context makes a strong case for the potential of humanity to overcome current and future challenges. Ritchie’s writing is clear and engaging, making complex issues accessible to a broad audience.
Her ability to counteract the prevalent negativity with well-substantiated arguments provides a refreshing change in the discourse on global issues. While the book acknowledges the significant work still needed, it leaves readers with a sense of hope and a call to action to contribute positively to the world’s future. For anyone feeling overwhelmed by the barrage of negative news, “Not the End of the World” offers a much-needed reminder of human progress and potential.
Introduction: Become a climate optimist
Not the End of the World (2024) argues for radical hope amid environmental crisis. Recent data show that, contrary to the usual gloom and doom, tremendous progress towards sustainability is being made. By focusing on well-defined and tractable issues, we can shift our collective behavior and avert climate disaster.
Do you ever catch yourself thinking the world is doomed? That humanity has ruined the planet beyond repair? You’re not alone. Surveys show that a majority of young people believe climate change has put their future in peril. But what if the gloomy popular narratives we have about these issues were false? And not just false, actively harmful?
In this Blink, we’ll flip the script on conventional environmental doomsaying. We’ll see that, while the challenges we face are indeed unprecedented, humanity is, for the first time in history, uniquely poised to transition to an ecologically sustainable world. And if that sounds far-fetched, we’ll back it up with numbers and hard data.
If we seize this moment, we can be the first generation to pass on a healthier planet than the one we inherited.
We can’t cover every aspect of this positive environmental future. So we’re going to focus on issues specifically relating to climate change.
Urgent optimism
What does it mean to be afraid of the future?
The author knows firsthand the paralyzing effects of climate anxiety. As an environmental science student, she internalized a narrative of inexorable decline on the planet. Every lecture seemed to be yet another reminder of ecological catastrophe. She became despondent and considered leaving the field altogether.
All that changed when the author discovered the work of Swedish statistician and physician Hans Rosling. Rosling’s work upended many popular assumptions about global development. On metric after metric, from the number of people living in poverty to the number of girls receiving education, the statistics showed an overall trajectory in global development that is remarkably positive.
Take a moment to imagine a world where clean water is a luxury. Imagine knowing that half of your children will most likely die before reaching adulthood. Imagine a world where living past 40 makes you an elder. For most people, for most of human history, this was the norm.
In a shockingly brief period, global fortunes have changed course. In the last century alone, thanks to medical advances, child mortality plummeted 90 percent. Access to electricity went from a rare privilege to near-universal. Extreme poverty has rapidly declined too – from over 75 percent of all people in 1820, to under 10 percent now. And for the first time in history, humanity now produces enough food to feed everyone on earth.
The point? Transformative change isn’t just a possibility – it’s an undeniable reality. Daily headlines provide a distorted picture. To see the bigger trends, you need to zoom out beyond the day-to-day and take in the long view. And the way you do that is with data.
For the author, applying this approach to the environment has yielded a clear picture. While substantial work remains, humanity has made significant progress. Take renewable energy, for instance – twenty years ago, almost no one thought wind or solar stood a chance against fossil fuels. They were simply too expensive, it was thought. Today, renewables are the cheapest form of new electricity across most major markets.
If we’re to build on our current momentum, it’s imperative that we develop a new mindset – a mindset of urgent optimism. Narratives of doom typically backfire. While such fear-mongering may have positive intentions, scaring people typically leads to paralysis rather than action. Instead, we should try to inspire hope – pragmatic, realistic hope – that’s grounded in an understanding, both of what is working and where we still need to improve.
Energy and transportation
You step into a time machine and set the dial to 2050. Emerging into the future, you wake up in a world transformed. Glancing out your window you see rows of sleek, quiet electric cars gliding down solar-paneled streets. The smog that once choked the morning air has disappeared. Hopping on your bike, you weave through bustling city streets filled with cyclists and trams.
You step into an office building and learn that the cement walls around you were made with zero-carbon innovations, and the computers run on electricity from offshore wind farms. For lunch you eat a plant-based burger, made from protein meat alternatives – it’s delicious. You video chat with a friend who is on a high-speed, hydrogen-powered train visiting family across the country.
Sound utopian? It’s not. It’s a future we can build if we tackle climate change now. Let’s see how.
The main driver of climate change is, of course, greenhouse gas emissions. To have a chance of keeping global warming below dangerous levels, we need to radically transform our energy, transport, materials, and food systems. Let’s look at energy first.
The underpinning of this transformation is rapidly switching from coal, oil, and gas to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear – across all sectors. We must electrify everything we can – vehicles, heating systems, industry – and power it from these clean sources.
This renewable transition is already underway. Take the UK, the original birthplace of the fossil fuel revolution. Just 30 years ago the country got nearly two-thirds of its electricity from coal. Today that figure is less than two percent – with coal on track to be phased out completely by 2025. Denmark has seen an equally dramatic shift: it relied on coal for 90 percent of power in the early 1990s. Soon that number will be less than ten percent.
Renewable energy has grown at astounding speed – across the globe. Consider South America: Chile had no solar power until 2014 – now solar supplies 13 percent of the country’s electricity needs. Neighboring Uruguay transformed even faster, from five percent wind power in 2014 to nearly 50 percent by 2019. Renewables are also spreading in lower-income countries like India and across sub-Saharan Africa.
What made this possible? The phenomenal drop in renewable prices, which are now at par or even cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. Since 2009 the cost of solar energy has declined by an astonishing 89 percent, and onshore wind by 70 percent. Just as important are the batteries used to store renewable power. These are a full 98 percent cheaper than they were 30 years ago. An electric vehicle battery that cost up to $1 million in the 1990s can now be manufactured for $6,000.
Does all of this renewable energy come at the expense of land use? On the contrary: low-carbon energy actually needs less land than fossil fuels. Nuclear is the most efficient, requiring two percent of the land of coal, per unit of electricity. And carefully sited wind and solar farms can be dual-purpose as grazing pasture or farmland. In cities, we can even use rooftops for solar panels.
In transport, electric vehicles or EVs can replace most gasoline-powered cars and buses – as well as trucks used for short- and medium-distance hauling. Prices have dropped radically, with EV battery packs 98 percent cheaper than in the 1990s. Sales are exploding as a result: electric vehicles comprised 14 percent of global car sales in 2022, up from just two percent three years earlier. Growth has been particularly remarkable in Europe, led spectacularly by Norway, where nearly nine out of ten new car sales are now electric.
Improving public transport and urban design will enable people to drive less overall. Urban planners are giving pedestrians, cyclists, and mass transit higher priority over private cars. This is creating cleaner and more livable cities – those with better public transit have lower transport emissions. However, personal vehicle ownership is still likely to increase globally as incomes rise. Ride-sharing services can ensure these emerging middle classes enjoy the benefits of mobility while avoiding high emissions.
What about long-distance freight trucking and aviation? These are tougher to decarbonize.
The issue comes down to the sheer size and weight of long-haul vehicles. Batteries work well for electric cars, as they can provide adequate driving range when sized appropriately to the vehicle. But a long-distance freight truck, cargo ship, or passenger airplane is massively bigger and heavier. The batteries needed to power them for long distances would have to store immense amounts of energy, making the vehicles too heavy to operate.
Though currently too costly, a promising avenue is that of hydrogen fuel cells powered by renewable electricity. Other technologies are in their early research phases. Fundamental physical constraints could mean that decarbonizing heavy transport is likely to remain an ongoing challenge for some time. In the meantime, setting stricter efficiency standards for conventional engines will reduce emissions until these technologies mature.
But energy and transportation aren’t the only sources of greenhouse gasses that we are poised to change.
Material world
When it comes to tackling climate emissions, one often underlooked source is that of materials.
Concrete, steel, aluminum, and plastics are essential for modern societies to build infrastructure, machinery, and consumer products. Yet producing them emits around 15 percent of industrial CO2 emissions globally. Concrete manufacturing alone contributes five percent.
Here, part of the challenge in providing green alternatives is the immense volumes needed, especially in rapidly developing countries. China, for example, used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the US consumed over the entire 20th century! Such enormous demand makes it hard to replace concrete and steel with cost-effective green alternatives like timber or bamboo, all on the global scale that is needed.
Another obstacle is that carbon dioxide is released from chemical reactions that are core to the production of cement, steel, and other materials. For cement production, limestone is heated to form calcium oxide and CO2 as byproducts. And for producing steel, impurities like carbon are oxidized out of iron ore, once again emitting CO2.
Some efficiency gains in these processes are possible. But the only way to fully decarbonize them is likely through carbon capture and storage. As the name suggests, this technique involves capturing CO2 released during manufacturing, and then putting it someplace where it can be stored permanently – such as underground. Alternatively, the CO2 can be put back into concrete or other materials, incorporating it into the material’s molecular structure so that it can’t escape into the atmosphere.
Feeding the future
Our food systems account for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Meat and dairy alone contribute 18 to 20 percent. So while transforming energy systems quite correctly receives a lot of emphasis, the importance of food reform shouldn’t be underestimated.
Industrialized meat production requires vast inputs of resources, like feed grains and fertilizers, as well as cleared land – a major driver of deforestation. It also yields potent methane and nitrogen emissions. Ruminant livestock like cows and sheep have particularly high climate footprints due to the fermentation that occurs during their digestion processes. Compare the amount of CO2 that’s released to create 100 grams of protein. On average, beef requires 50kg of CO2 emissions, dairy products like milk and cheese require 25kg. But peas, for example, require less than one kilogram. The worst offender? Lamb, for which 100g of protein produced requires 400kg of emitted CO2.
Reform is particularly warranted. In most wealthy countries, people consume roughly twice as much daily protein intake as recommended by dietitians, with animal products supplying the lion’s share. For both health and environmental reasons, this overconsumption should be reined in. As China and several African countries urbanize and increase average incomes, shifting away from the Western dietary pattern of hyper-meat consumption will be essential to keep global food emissions in check.
Innovations in agricultural practices like precision fertilization, methane capture, and improving pasture land management can certainly help. However, reducing lamb and beef consumption is the single most impactful way that individuals can lower their food carbon footprint. Luckily, vitamin- and protein-rich substitutes are scaling up to meet this high demand – from lupin beans to pea protein burgers to mycoprotein-based mince and shrimp.
New meat substitutes like those from Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are engineering plant-based burgers and sausages that mimic the taste, texture, and even “bleeding” qualities of real meat. These products match meat so closely that even hardcore meat-eaters struggle to tell the difference in blind taste tests. Yet their environmental footprint is vastly smaller, with around 90-96 percent less emissions compared to beef. Widespread adoption of these substitutes could reshape and shrink demand for traditional meat, allowing us to consume animal products more sustainably as part of blended diets and occasional treats rather than daily staples. Their success hinges on becoming as tasty, cheap, and convenient as meat. If they succeed, these plant-based doppelgängers could transform our food system.
The urgency for food reform is indeed real. And yet some fear-mongering voices go too far, making apocalyptic warnings about the imminent collapse of the global food system. One such claim? That the world only has “60 harvests left” before approximately 2074 – when soils will be so depleted they can no longer support agriculture. Indeed, some have even claimed that we have just thirty harvests left.
However, the author investigates these claims and finds no scientific evidence to support them. She traces the “60 harvests” statement back to an unsourced comment at a 2014 UN conference, while the “30 harvests” prediction seems to originate from a misrepresented study of one garden in Leicester. No original sources definitively state these timelines.
The author consulted soil scientists who confirmed these predictions are meaningless. Soils across the world are highly varied, with some degrading, some improving, and others remaining stable. The concept of a sudden hard stop to all farming by some specific future date is simply without factual basis. While soil degradation is concerning, it manifests gradually in different ways based on local conditions rather than uniformly wiping out global agriculture simultaneously in a few decades.
The dramatic headline warnings, the author concludes, are unfounded claims made to generate media attention rather than communicate scientific reality.
To conclude, let’s look at a hopeful vision of our food future – one the author insists is possible. It’s the year 2060 and we’ve done it – we’re feeding 10 billion people sustainably and abundantly. Fields that were once barren or overworked now produce bountiful harvests using climate-resilient supercrops. Robust yields mean more land spared for nature, and so forests have reclaimed ground and now teem with wildlife.
Meals aren’t so focused on meat anymore. Vegetables and fruits fill plates with color and nourishment, with new meat alternatives giving all the sizzle and satisfaction of beef or chicken without the environmental hoofprint. Globally, food waste has been cut in half. Supply chains deploy food-preservation tweaks while public awareness curbed needless household scraps.
It will take time and conscious effort across sectors to reshape our food system – and our relationship with the land that sustains us. But we’ve demonstrated resilience and inventiveness before. We can do it again.
Conclusion
There’s an antidote that can counter the narratives of climate doom and despair. Grounded in data, we’ve seen some remarkable progress humanity has already made.
Clean technologies like solar and wind have advanced further and faster than anyone predicted. Countries are rapidly decarbonizing electricity and much of transport. And transformations in materials and food production are increasingly within reach.
It won’t be easy. The challenges are enormous. But so are our collective power and creativity. A sustainable world is within reach, but this future rests on us having the courage to believe it’s possible in the first place.
If we can envision the world we want, then we can seize this moment – and create it.
Hannah Ritchie is a Scottish data scientist and researcher at Oxford University’s Martin School. Ritchie examines issues of sustainability including climate change, energy, and public health. She also serves as Deputy Editor at the online publication Our World in Data.