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  • Published: 26 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529931242
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99

Not the End of the World

How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet




THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER which will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about climate change

This book will transform how you see our biggest environmental problems – and shows how together we can solve them.

** THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER **

'Truly essential' MARGARET ATWOOD
‘Inspiring' DAVID WALLACE-WELLS
‘Shines with positivity’ RUTGER BREGMAN
‘Unmissable' TIM SPECTOR

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We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won't be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, 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. The data shows we've made so much progress on these problems, and so fast, that we could be on track to achieve true sustainability for the first time in history.

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, from the virtues of eating locally and living in the countryside, to the evils of overpopulation, plastic straws and palm oil. It will give you the tools to understand 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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‘A book for anyone who finds it difficult to believe in a better future’ THE TIMES

‘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

A STYLIST BEST NON-FICTION 2024 * A GUARDIAN BIGGEST FICTION AND NON-FICTION FOR 2024 * A WATERSTONES ‘BOOK YOU NEED TO READ IN 2024’

  • Published: 26 November 2024
  • ISBN: 9781529931242
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99

About the author

Hannah Ritchie

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, which brings together the latest data and research on the world's largest problems and makes it accessible for a general audience. Her research appears regularly in the New York Times, Economist, Financial Times, BBC, WIRED, New Scientist and Vox and in bestselling books including Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, Hans Rosling's Factfulness and Bill Gates's How to Prevent a Climate Disaster. 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'.

Praise for Not the End of the World

An unmissable myth-busting book to save our planet read it

TIM SPECTOR

It shines with practicality and positivity . . . Let's get it into the hands of as many policy makers, politicians and fellow citizens as possible

RUTGER BREGMAN

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

MARGARET ATWOOD, TED2023

Such a clear-eyed view of the state we're in

TIM HARFORD, author of How to Make the World Add Up

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

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

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

A refreshingly upbeat guide to achieving sustainability

GAIA VINCE, author of Nomad Century

The surprising message in the data is that human civilization is far along toward solving planetary problems

STEWART BRAND, founder of Whole Earth Catalog and author of Whole Earth Discipline

I love Hannah Ritchie... I love this book. I emerged from it feeling hopeful, which is a high-priced commodity these days

JOHN GREEN

Full of pragmatic, hopeful solutions . . . We urgently need her and people like her – optimists who’ll say: you know what, we can turn this around; look at these numbers, look at these solutions

Bibi van der Zee, Guardian

This is a book for anyone who finds it difficult to believe in a better future. It’s the most uplifting book I’ve read all year

Ben Cooke, The Times

Full of "radical hope" digging behind the doomsday predictions to find out ways we can and will make the world a better place

Stylist

There is real peril in our widespread failure to understand just how much human lives have been improved through societal efforts . . . As Ritchie demonstrates, a better future for both people and planet is possible and even achievable

Earl C Ellis, Science

Is there any room for hope amid the doomladen headlines about the environment? Emphatically yes, argues data scientist Ritchie

Guardian

The perfect book to start your new year reading on a hopeful footing

The Earthbound Report

It is rare to find a book covering climate change with such an optimistic message . . . An admirable feat . . . a highly readable guide to fixing the planet

Madeleine Cuff, New Scientist

Ritchie dismantles many of the worst predictions of ecological doomism, lays out clearly what is already happening, and what tools we have available to us to halt the worst environmental destruction

Emma Gatten, Telegraph

Invigorating, inspiring, often surprising

DAVID WALLACE-WELLS

That all is not lost and that there is hope is the main message to take away from this well-argued, well-evidenced book

Nick Renninson, Daily Mail

Ritchie makes it clear that progress is already happening... Now, we must keep that momentum going

Megan Kenyon, New Statesman

Ritchie has learned well from Rosling and [her book is] among the most accessible I have read. She faces down the doom-mongers by assessing the evidence on seven distinct but overlapping crises

Colin Murphy, Irish Independent

An antidote to the hyper-pessimism that pervades climate discourse

Martha Muir, Financial Times

Useful, timely and inspiring

Literary Review

A magnificent, data-rich report on the climate crisis and its economic impact in 2024. It has a place in every conversation about environmentalism and how people, companies and countries should plan for the future

Kirsten Levermore, Dialogue

A refreshing antidote to the onslaught of negative climate news

Alex Martin, Actuary

This book will transform how you see our biggest environmental issues and how we can solve them

IEMA

Inspiring and conversation-starting in equal measure

Emma Hughes, Waitrose Weekend

A book everyone should read if they think it is all doom and gloom

Bird Watching
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