“It’s not the end of the world” is the title of a book about the book of the same name by the Scottish artist. The column aroused my curiosity, despite the initial suspicion provoked by its first sentence: “When God created humanity, he divided people into optimists and pessimists and condemned them to never understand each other. Hannah Ritchie…definitely belongs to the first tribe” . Let me explain: I always have a certain reservation regarding the “optimistic” and “pessimistic” classifications. Especially when it comes to the issue of , no matter how far apart they are on the ideological spectrum, optimists and pessimists end up joining hands in inaction. Some do not act because they consider it unnecessary and others because they believe it is useless.
I did well to overcome my prejudice.
Ritchie’s thesis is that her generation (she was born in 1993) is the first to have the opportunity to leave the environment in a better state than it received it. Data scientist and researcher at the renowned website, at the University of Oxford, she supports her vision objectively, based on clearly presented scientific data.
The book is organized into eight chapters, the first being on sustainability, and the following seven on major environmental problems of our time: air pollution, global warming, deforestation, food, loss of biodiversity, plastics in the oceans and predatory fishing. For each of these themes, it seeks to answer three basic questions: where we are, how we got here and what we should do next.
Adopting the necessary distance from a long-term vision, the author seeks to show that progress has been made on all these fronts and the measures necessary to overcome the problems are known. “If we take several steps back, we can see something truly radical, transformative and revitalizing: humanity is in a truly unique position to build a sustainable world.”
We are presented with evidence of human capacity to overcome serious environmental problems, such as acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer, and with data that point to a downward trend in the per capita carbon footprint. But these facts do not induce the author to take a complacent stance in relation to the need to act decisively in confronting problems. Each chapter brings a series of recommendations for actions necessary to achieve sustainability, with reasoned justifications.
At the same time, and always through concrete data, Ritchie deconstructs widespread beliefs, such as the environmental advantages of organic agriculture (it requires much more area), the preference given to local suppliers (transport emissions are normally not very relevant in the footprint of food carbon) or even the importance attributed to them (much less important than fishing nets abandoned in the oceans).
Promoting the accelerated replacement of fossil fuels as an energy source is a recommendation that is repeated throughout the reading, always emphatically. “We just need to put a price on carbon (emissions) and ensure that the rich pay most of it”, says the author in one of the few passages with a political nature, as if this were easy.
In general, Ritchie deliberately avoids dealing with the conflicting aspects of the topic, focusing the discussion on technical issues. She does not ignore them completely, making it clear that “it is necessary to change political and economic incentives” without, however, going deeper into the subject. In this sense, his argument is very reminiscent of the stance taken in the episode on the climate crisis of his series “What’s Next”, on Netflix: the entire discussion centered on technology, ignoring the political and economic obstacles that limit the implementation of large-scale technological solutions. Their technocentric stance is reminiscent of the joke “for those who only have a hammer, every problem is a nail”. Not surprisingly, Gates writes a very glowing review of “Not The End of The World.”
It would be a mistake, however, to believe that the “optimistic” vision that results from the omission of the most complex political aspects is a way of alleviating the expectations placed by Ritchie on his generation. While this approach allows the topic to be treated in a more favorable light, it also places demands on those entrusted with the task for superior results.
By clearly showing that we have the necessary technological means to face the climate challenge and that we have already reversed the deterioration trend on several of the relevant fronts, Ritchie implicitly proposes replacing fear with optimism as a motivating element for action. I associate this stance with the reflection of the philosopher André Comte-Sponville in his beautiful speech “Happiness, Desperately”. For him, happiness cannot be based on favorable hopes, because over each of these expectations there is always the shadow of the fear of its non-occurrence. Happiness, therefore, can only be sustained by the feeling of power that derives from the confidence of being able to face the challenges that reality holds for us. It is this feeling of power that “Not The End of The World” seeks to convey to its readers.
Ritchie lists three ways in which we can individually contribute: 1) take political action and elect leaders who promote sustainability; 2) give preference to sustainable products in our consumption habits, even if their price is still higher and 3) align ourselves with the field of sustainability and try not to fight those who are on the same side due to marginal differences of opinion.
The —perfect opposite of the first recommendation above— brutally exposes the risk of betting all your chips on technology. The victory of a denialist candidate supported ostensibly by the sector sets the fight against global warming back in several quarters, suggesting that optimism cannot do without fear as an ally and a vital warning motivating urgency in action.
As Ritchie concludes, “A sustainable future is not a guarantee — if we want it, we need to build it together.” Now it has become more difficult.
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