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THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright © 2020 by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac All rights

reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of

Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin

Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin

Random House LLC.

LCCN: 2019047560

ISBN (hardcover) 9780525658351

ISBN (ebook) 9780525658368

Cover image: NASA/Getty Images

Cover design by John Gall

v5.4

ep

We dedicate this book to Christiana’s daughters,

NAIMA AND YIHANA,

and Tom’s daughter and son,

ZOË AND ARTHUR,

and to the generations who will inhabit the future we

choose.

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers,

but to be fearless when facing them.

—RABINDRANATH TAGORE

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Authors’ Note

Introduction: The Critical Decade

PART I TWO WORLDS

1. Choosing Our Future

2. The World We Are Creating

3. The World We Must Create

PART II THREE MINDSETS

4. Who We Choose to Be

5. Stubborn Optimism

6. Endless Abundance

7. Radical Regeneration

PART III TEN ACTIONS

8. Doing What Is Necessary

Let Go of the Old World

Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future

Defend the Truth

See Yourself as a Citizen—Not as a Consumer

Move Beyond Fossil Fuels

Reforest the Earth

Invest in a Clean Economy

Use Technology Responsibly

Build Gender Equality

Engage in Politics

Conclusion: A New Story

What You Can Do Now

Appendix

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography and Further Reading

AUTHORS’ NOTE

We are good friends and fellow travelers on this planet, but

we differ in many ways. We were born in two different

geological periods. Christiana was born in 1956, at the end

of the twelve-thousand-year Holocene epoch, when a stable

climate allowed humanity to flourish, and Tom in 1977,

when the Anthropocene epoch—characterized by

humanity’s destruction of the very conditions that allowed

us to thrive—began.

We come from opposite sides of the geopolitical map;

Christiana from Costa Rica, a small developing country that

has long been a model of economic growth in harmony with

nature, and Tom from the UK, the world’s fifth-largest

economy and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution

and its reliance on coal.

Christiana comes from a deeply political family,

immigrants to Costa Rica on both sides. Her father was

three times president of the country and is considered the

father of modern Costa Rica. Not only did he initiate some

of the most far-reaching environmental policies in the

world, he remains the only head of state ever to have

abolished a national army. Tom stems from a family steeped

in British history and rooted in the private sector. He is a

direct descendant of the founding chairman of the East

India Company when it was the only company in history to

have a private army. Tom’s earliest memories are of looking

for oil with his petroleum geologist father.

Christiana is the mother of two adult daughters, and

Tom is the father of a daughter and a son, both under age

ten.

We could have had nothing in common, but we deeply

share that which is most important: concern for the future

of our children and yours. In 2013, we decided to work

together to forge a better world for all children.

From 2010 to 2016, Christiana was Executive Secretary

of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, the organization tasked with guiding the response

of all governments to climate change. Assuming the highest

responsibility for negotiations right after the dramatic

debacle of the 2009 Copenhagen climate change

conference, Christiana refused to accept that a global

agreement was impossible.

In 2013, she heard about Tom, who was then president

and CEO of the Carbon Disclosure Project U.S.A. and a

former Buddhist monk. Intrigued by his unusual

combination of experiences, Christiana asked him to join

her in New York City to discuss his becoming her Senior

Political Adviser.

At the end of a walk around Manhattan that took the

better part of the day, Christiana turned to Tom and said,

“It’s clear to me that you have none of the experience

necessary for this job. But you have something far more

important: the humility to foster collective wisdom, and the

courage to work within a complexity that is beyond any

mapping.”

With that, she invited him to join the UN effort to

advance the negotiations for the Paris Agreement as her

chief political strategist. He designed and led the largely

covert Groundswell Initiative, which mobilized support for

the ambition of the agreement from a wide range of

stakeholders outside of national governments. A few years

later the most far-reaching international agreement on

climate change ever attempted was finally achieved.

When the green gavel came down at 7:25 p.m. on

December 12, 2015, adopting the Paris Agreement, five

thousand delegates who had been holding their breath for

hours jumped out of their seats in ecstatic delight, in

celebration of the historical breakthrough. One hundred

and ninety-five nations had just unanimously adopted an

agreement to guide their economies for the next four

decades. A new global pathway had been charted.

But pathways are valuable only if they are used.

Humanity has procrastinated for far too long on climate

change—now we have to walk the path, or rather we have

to run it. This book maps the route of that run, and we hope

you will run alongside us.

Join us at www.GlobalOptimism.com

INTRODUCTION

The Critical Decade

The world is on fire, from the Amazon to California, from

Australia to the Siberian Arctic. The hour is late, and the

moment of consequence, so long delayed, is now upon us.

Do we watch the world burn, or do we choose to do what is

necessary to achieve a different future?

Who we understand ourselves to be determines the

choice we will make. That choice determines what will

become of us. The choice is both simple and complex, but

above all it is urgent.

In Washington, D.C., at ten a.m. on a Friday, a twelve-

year-old girl marches with her friends, holding up a hand-

painted sign of the Earth enveloped by red flames. In

London, grown-up demonstrators dressed in black, wearing

riot police headgear, form a human chain blocking traffic at

Piccadilly Circus, as others glue themselves to the

pavement in front of the headquarters of BP. In Seoul,

South Korea, the streets teem with elementary

schoolchildren sporting multicolored backpacks and

carrying banners that say CLIMATE STRIKE—in English, for the

benefit of the media. In Bangkok, hundreds of teenage

students take to the streets. With firm resolve and heavy

hearts, they walk behind their defiant leader, an eleven-

year-old girl carrying a sign: THE OCEANS ARE RISING AND SO

ARE WE.

All over the world, millions of young people—inspired by

Greta Thunberg, the teenage girl who began a lone protest

in front of the Swedish parliament—are engaging in civil

disobedience to draw attention to climate change. Students

understand the scientific projections and are terrified about

the diminished quality of life on their horizon. They demand

decisive action now. They are helping to raise the level of

outrage about the insufficiency of our efforts to address the

crisis, and they have been joined by scientists, parents, and

teachers. From the quest for independence in India to the

civil rights movement in the United States, civil

disobedience has erupted when a reigning injustice became

intolerable, as we are now seeing with climate change.

Unacceptable generational injustice and a deplorable lack

of solidarity with the vulnerable have opened the floodgates

of protest. Those who will be most affected have taken to

the streets. Their anger is energy that we desperately need.

It can propel a wave of defiance against the status quo and

catalyze the ingenuity needed to realize new possibilities.

These protests should come as no surprise. We have

known about the possibility of climate change since at least

the 1930s and have been certain since 1960, when

geochemist Charles Keeling measured CO2 in the Earth’s

atmosphere and detected an annual rise.1

Since then we have done little to counter climate

change, the result being that greenhouse gas emissions,

the cause of climate change, are increasing. We continue to

pursue economic growth through the unbridled extraction

and burning of fossil fuels, with a fatal impact on our

forests, oceans and rivers, soil, and air. We have failed to

manage wisely the very ecosystems that sustain us. We

have wreaked havoc on them, unintentionally perhaps, but

relentlessly and decisively.

Our negligence has catapulted climate change from an

existential challenge to the dire crisis it is now, as we

rapidly approach limits beyond which Earth as we know it

will cease to be. And yet for many, these depredations are

invisible. Despite the increasing frequency and intensity of

natural disasters, we have still not connected the dots

between the ongoing destruction of our natural habitat and

our future ability to ensure our children’s safety, feed

ourselves, inhabit coastlines, and uphold the integrity of

our homes.

Governments have taken incremental steps to address

the issue. The farthest-reaching effort is the Paris

Agreement, which delineates a unified strategy for

combating climate change. All governments of the world

unanimously adopted it in December 2015, and most

ratified it into law in record time. Since then many

corporations, large and small, have set laudable emissions-

reduction goals for themselves; many local governments

have enacted effective policies; and numerous financial

institutions have shifted significant capital from fossil fuels

to alternative clean technologies. However, some

governments have started to declare a climate emergency

because as essential as the current corrective actions are,

taken together they still fall far short of what is necessary

to stop the rise—and start the reduction—of emissions

worldwide. Every day that passes is one day less that we

have to stabilize our increasingly fragile planet, by now on

its way to becoming uninhabitable for humans. We are

running out of time. Once we hit critical thresholds, the

damage to the environment, and consequently to our future

on this planet, will be irreparable.

Over the years, public reactions to climate change have

run the gamut. At one extreme are the climate deniers who

say they don’t “believe” in climate change. President

Donald Trump is the most prominent example. Denying

climate change is tantamount to saying you don’t believe in

gravity. The science of climate change is not a belief, a

religion, or a political ideology. It presents facts that are

measurable and verifiable. Just as gravity exerts its force

on all of us whether we believe in it or not, climate change

is already affecting us all no matter where we were born or

where we live. The irresponsibility of not “believing in

climate change” is becoming more apparent with every

new catastrophic event. Climate deniers are shamelessly

protecting the short-term financial interests of the fossil

fuel industry to the detriment of the long-term interests of

their own descendants.

At the other extreme are those who acknowledge the

validity of the science but are beginning to lose confidence

that we can do anything to address climate change. People

feel real grief over the unspeakable loss of ecosystems and

biodiversity, over how much more we are about to lose,

including the future of human life as we know it. Those who

are enveloped by this grief may have lost all faith in our

collective capacity to challenge the course of human

history. Every new documentary, every new scientific study,

every report of disaster deepens the pain. Grief can be a

powerful, transformative experience for some, and

arguably a major reason climate change has continued

largely unchecked for so long is that we have failed to truly

feel what it will mean. It is important that we all allow

ourselves adequate time and space to deeply feel our grief

and to openly express it. As we tune in to the raw emotion,

many of us will undergo a dark, unsettling period of

despair, but we cannot allow it to erode our capacity to

courageously mobilize for transformation.

Anger that sinks into despair is powerless to make a

change. Anger that evolves into conviction is unstoppable.

A larger group of people, between these two extremes,

understand the science and acknowledge the evidence but

take no action because they don’t know what to do, or

because it is far easier not to think about climate change.

It’s scary and overwhelming. To a large extent, many of us

stick our heads in the sand. Every time we see a report on

extreme weather—hurricanes that used to occur once every

five hundred years in a region now occur twice in a month,

droughts that shrivel entire villages off the face of the

Earth, heat waves that break record upon record, disasters

that illustrate what is really going on—we feel a knot in our

stomach. But then we turn off the news and distract

ourselves with something likely to make us feel less

hypocritical. Better to act as if nothing were happening, or

as if there were no way to stop it. That way we can delude

ourselves that life will continue unimpeded. While this

reaction is understandable, it is also a colossal mistake.

Complacency now will lock us into a future of guaranteed

scarcity, instability, and strife.

We are already too far down the road of destruction to

be able to “solve” climate change. The atmosphere is by

now too loaded with greenhouse gases and the biosphere

too altered for us to be able to turn the clock back on

global warming and its effects. We, and all our

descendants, will live in a world with environmental

conditions that are permanently altered. We cannot bring

back the extinct species, the melted glaciers, the dead

coral reefs, or the destroyed primary forests. The best we

can do is keep the changes within a manageable range,

staving off total calamity, preventing the disaster that will

result from the unchecked rise of emissions. This, at least,

might usher us out of the crisis mode. It is the bare

minimum that we must do.

But we can also do much more.

By addressing the causes of climate change now, we can

at once minimize risks and emerge stronger. Today we have

the unique chance to create a future where things not only

stabilize but actually get better. We can have more efficient

and cheaper transportation resulting in less traffic; we can

have cleaner air, supporting better health and enhancing

the enjoyment of city life; and we can practice smarter use

of natural resources, resulting in less pollution of land and

water. Achieving the mindset needed to attain this

improved environment would signal a maturation of

humanity.

Without diminishing the enormity of what we are facing

with climate change, we are capable of changing course,

and no objective evidence says otherwise. Our societies

have faced daunting challenges before—institutionalized

slavery and racism, the oppression and exclusion of

women, the rise of fascism. To be sure, none of these

challenges have been definitively solved, but addressed

collectively, we know they are surmountable. Climate

change is even more complex because of the finality it

portends for the human species, but we are well prepared

to deal with it. We have already achieved a host of social

and political successes; we have most, if not all, of the

technologies we will need; we have the necessary capital,

and we know which policies are most effective. We can do

this.

But we are far from doing what is needed.

Whether you are complacent about climate change, or in

pain, or angry, this book is an invitation for you to take part

in creating the future of humanity, confident that despite

the seemingly daunting nature of the challenge, collectively

we have what it takes to address climate change now.

This invitation requires your immediate response.

Two dates should now be seared in everyone’s mind:

2030 and 2050.

By 2050 at the latest, and ideally by 2040, we must have

stopped emitting more greenhouse gases into the

atmosphere than Earth can naturally absorb through its

ecosystems (a balance known as net-zero emissions or

carbon neutrality). In order to get to this scientifically

established goal, our global greenhouse gas emissions must

be clearly on the decline by the early 2020s and reduced by

at least 50 percent by 2030.

The goal of halving global emissions by 2030 represents

the absolute minimum we must achieve if we are to have at

least a 50 percent chance of safeguarding humanity from

the worst impacts. We are in the critical decade. It is no

exaggeration to say that what we do regarding emissions

reductions between now and 2030 will determine the

quality of human life on this planet for hundreds of years to

come, if not more. If we do not halve our emissions by

2030, we are highly unlikely to be able to halve emissions

every decade until we reach net zero by 2050.

That is our final limit. We cannot exceed it.

Why?

The effects of climate change do not proceed along a

straight line. A bit more doesn’t equate to a bit worse.

Several parts of our planet are critically sensitive, such as

the Arctic summer sea ice, the ice cover of Greenland, the

boreal forests of Canada and Russia, and the tropical forest

cover of the Amazon. They have been maintaining a stable

temperature on Earth for millennia.2 If those ecosystems

were to go up in flames or be otherwise compromised,

global temperature would rise precipitously, leading to

irreparable worldwide damage. Think of this as an

uncontrollable domino effect of devastation.3

Today’s decisions on energy, transportation, and land use

will all have direct and long-term effects on climate change

because they lock in their respective emissions levels for

decades, and cumulative emissions could push us over

tipping points permanently and catastrophically.4 (See the

graph in the appendix, this page.) There will be no putting

the genie back into the bottle. The milestones of 2030 and

2050 are rooted in the latest science that tells us just how

long we can go on doing little or nothing before disaster

sets in.

Here’s the good news.

We are still just barely inside a zone where we can stave

off the worst and manage the remaining long-term effects.

But only if we do what is required of us in the short term.

This is the last time in history when we will be able to do

this.

Soon it will be too late.

We know what to do, and we have everything we need.

Concern about climate change varies by country, but an

increasing majority of people want their governments to

address the issue.5 So as not to put our children’s future in

jeopardy, we must connect the urgency of now to the reality

of that future.

—

We tend to think of “saving the planet” as salvaging certain

iconic ecological features: polar bears, humpback whales,

or mountain glaciers. The prevailing logic is that nature is

suffering, and humans are complicit, therefore we should

act. While that sentiment is worthy in many ways, it can

also leave us feeling that the problem is “out there”

unrelated to our daily life.

Climate change has long been misunderstood as an

environmental issue affecting the survival of the planet.

The truth is, the planet will continue to evolve. It has done

so for 4.5 billion years, going through dramatic

transformations that for the most part did not support the

existence of humankind. We currently enjoy unique

environmental conditions that do support human life, but

we forget that modern civilization as we know it is only

about six thousand years old.6

The planet will survive, in changed form no doubt, but it

will survive.

The question is whether we will be here to witness it.

That’s why climate change is the mother of all issues.

This crisis both dwarfs and encompasses any other issue

we may care about. Climate change should be of concern to

all who care about social justice. It affects the poor in every

country disproportionately—not only because they are

often more exposed and invariably more vulnerable to

climate-related shocks, but also because they have fewer

resources with which to respond to disaster.

Climate change should be of concern to all who care

about health. The burning of fossil fuels releases the

greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for climate

change. But the burning of the very same fossil fuels (coal

for industrial heat or electricity generation and diesel or

gasoline for transportation) also pollutes the local ambient

air with particulate matter. Microscopic pollutants in the

air slip past our body’s defenses, penetrating deep into our

respiratory and circulatory systems, damaging our lungs,

hearts, and brains. They are so pernicious to human health

that more than 7 million people die from air pollution each

year.

Climate change should be of concern to all who care

about economic stability and investment value.7 It is no

secret that coal has lost its financial viability in most parts

of the world because it can no longer compete with cheaper

and cleaner renewable energy options such as solar.8 Coal

mines and coal plants are closing, and there is increasing

momentum in the coal divestment movement, likely to be

followed by divestment from other fossil fuels.9 Central

banks around the world are assessing the macroeconomic

risk of trillions of dollars invested in those high-carbon

assets. The consensus is growing that we need to shift

smoothly but decisively into clean energy assets that will

more safely keep their value over the long term.10

Finally, and fundamentally, climate change should be of

concern to all who care about intergenerational justice—

which should be every one of us. If we fail to act as we

should, future generations will be powerless to undo the

inexorable consequences of our failure. Hence our

profound moral responsibility to them. Failure to make

hard choices now will rob our children and grandchildren

of their rightful future.

Some believe we are hardwired to react to threats only if

they are immediate. The threats from climate change are

now immediate. Superstorms, cyclones, wildfires, droughts,

and floods everywhere give us ample evidence of climate

change, and those disasters will increase in frequency,

scale, and location. We cannot deny or ignore climate

change any longer. We now need to let go of half-hearted

attempts and instead act in proportion to the magnitude of

the challenge.

PART I

TWO WORLDS

CHAPTER 1

Choosing Our Future

Geological time is long and slow. Or at least it used to be.

Ice ages, during which vast glaciers covered much of the

northern continents, have sluggishly come and gone

throughout the history of our planet. The last ice age lasted

about 2.6 million years. With very gradual warming

resulting from natural influences on Earth’s climate, we

slowly left that ice age and entered the Holocene epoch,

which stretched out over twelve thousand years—until the

twentieth century—under relatively stable temperatures,

fluctuating only 1 degree Celsius above or below the

average.1

Throughout that geological period, temperatures,

precipitation patterns, and terrestrial and ocean

ecosystems settled into a “sweet spot” of natural conditions

conducive to human propagation and well-being. That

environmental stability allowed the human species of

approximately ten thousand people living in small tribes to

start a sedentary life, evolve into agricultural farmers and

settlers, and eventually develop cities, supported by

industry and machine manufacturing. It allowed humans to

thrive and the population to grow to the current 7.7

billion.2

During the Holocene, “life created the conditions

conducive to life.”3 And we could have continued in that

geological era. But we didn’t.4

Over the past fifty years, we have severely undermined

the environmental integrity of our Blue Marble and

threatened our continued life here. Our post–Industrial

Revolution lifestyles have caused massive damage to all our

natural systems. Mainly because of the unbridled use of

fossil fuels and vast deforestation, the concentration of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today exceeds

anything we have had since well before the last ice age,5

resulting in extreme weather events of increasing

frequency and intensity all over the world: floods, heat

waves, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes. Half the world’s

tropical forests have been cleared, and every year about 12

million more hectares are lost. In about forty years, at the

current rate, 1 billion hectares could be gone—a land mass

equivalent to Europe.6 In the last fifty years, the

populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and

amphibians have, on average, declined by 60 percent.

Some suggest we are already living through the sixth mass

extinction.7 According to the latest research, 12 percent of

all surviving species are currently threatened, and climate

breakdown will significantly amplify that threat.8 Oceans

have absorbed more than 90 percent of the extra heat we

have produced over the last fifty years.9 As a result, half

the world’s coral reefs are already dead,10 and the Arctic

summer sea ice, whose reflective capacity helps to regulate

temperatures all over the world, is shrinking rapidly.11 The

melt from land glaciers has already caused sea levels to

rise more than twenty centimeters, leading to major salt

intrusion in many aquifers, worsening storm surges and

existential threats to low-lying islands.12 In short, in just

the last fifty years we have catapulted humanity and the

planet out of the previous benevolent Holocene epoch and

into the Anthropocene, a new geological period where

biogeochemical conditions are dominated not by natural

processes but by the palpable impact of human activity.

Humans are for the first time ever the prime driver of

large-scale climate change on the planet.13

All studies you may read about the Anthropocene epoch

point to the unprecedented levels of destruction that we

have caused in just five decades.14 The underlying

assumption in those analyses is that we have irretrievably

cast our die and that increasing destruction will be the

leitmotif of the entire geological era.

We take a radically different view.

We argue that devastation is admittedly a growing

possibility but not yet our inevitable fate. While the

beginning of this period of human history has been

indelibly and painfully marked, the full story has not been

written. We still hold the pen. In fact, we hold it more firmly

now than ever before. And we can choose to write a story

of regeneration of both nature and the human spirit. But

we have to choose.

In deciding what kind of world we and future

generations will live in, we don’t have many options; we

have in fact only two, both of which are set out in the Paris

Agreement, and both of which we present here for your

consideration. Keep in mind that we have already warmed

the planet by 0.9 degrees Celsius more than the average

temperature before the Industrial Revolution. Under the

Paris Agreement, all nations committed to collectively limit

warming to “well under 2 degrees Celsius,” and ideally no

more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit),

through national emissions-reduction efforts that

substantially increase every five years. To start the process,

in 2015, 184 countries registered details of what they

would do in the first five years and agreed to come back

every five years to make stronger commitments, since the

first round of commitments was only the first step toward

achieving the long-term goal of net-zero emissions.

We present two scenarios. One or the other will become

our reality.

—

The world we are now creating, leading to warming of more than 3 degrees.15 The

first scenario we set out illustrates the very dangerous

trajectory we are on right now. If governments,

corporations, and individuals make no further efforts than

those registered in 2015, we will go to a warming of at

least 3.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. Worse yet, if they do not

fulfill even the registered commitments, we can expect

warming of 4 or 5 degrees. (See the appendix, page 172.)

Be forewarned, this picture is dark. Even though many of

the worst-case scenarios might not be realized until the

second half of the century, it is clear that by midcentury

human misery would be high, biodiversity would be

decimated, and that we and our children would live in a

world that is constantly deteriorating with no possible

recuperation.

—

The world we must create, limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.16

We cannot turn back the clock on past emissions. However,

even at this late stage, we can strive for and achieve a

better world in which nature and the human family will not

only survive but thrive together. Scientists have been

extremely clear that the 1.5-degree-Celsius-warmer

scenario is still attainable but that the window is rapidly

closing. To have at least a 50 percent chance of success

(which in itself is an unacceptably high level of risk), we

must cut global emissions to half their current levels by

2030, half again by 2040, and finally to net zero by 2050 at

the very latest.17 A change of this magnitude would require

major transformations in almost every area of life and

work, from massive reforestation to new agricultural

practices; from the cessation of coal production by 2020

and of oil and gas extraction soon thereafter to the

abandonment of fossil fuels and even the internal

combustion engine.

Precisely what we need to do is detailed later in the

book, but for now, we have to wake up to the fact that we

can choose our future and collectively create it. Our

collective responsibility is to ensure that a better future is

not only possible but probable, and then not only probable

but foreseeable.

The great baseball player Yogi Berra famously said that

predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.

In constructing these scenarios, we are aware that making

predictions about the world in thirty years’ time is to some

degree an imaginative enterprise. However, everything we

set out in these scenarios is predicted or expected by the

best science.18 Indeed, much of what science has foretold is

already happening. Read each scenario not as a prediction

of the future but as a warning of what may come and what

we still have a chance to change.

CHAPTER 2

The World We Are Creating

It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in

2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions.

We are heading for a world that will be more than 3

degrees warmer by 2100.

—

The first thing that hits you is the air.

In many places around the world, the air is hot, heavy,

and depending on the day, clogged with particulate

pollution. Your eyes often water. Your cough never seems to

disappear. You think about some countries in Asia, where

out of consideration sick people used to wear white masks

to protect others from airborne infection. Now you often

wear a mask to protect yourself from air pollution. You can

no longer simply walk out your front door and breathe

fresh air: there might not be any. Instead, before opening

doors or windows in the morning, you check your phone to

see what the air quality will be. Everything might look fine

—sunny and clear—but you know better. When storms and

heat waves overlap and cluster, the air pollution and

intensified surface ozone levels can make it dangerous to

go outside without a specially designed face mask (which

only some can afford).1

Southeast Asia and Central Africa lose more lives to

filthy air than do Europe or the United States.2 There fewer

people work outdoors, and even indoors the air can taste

slightly acidic, sometimes making you feel nauseated. The

last coal furnaces closed ten years ago, but that hasn’t

made much difference in air quality around the world

because you are still breathing dangerous exhaust fumes

from millions of cars and buses everywhere. Some

countries have experimented with seeding rain clouds—the

process of artificially inducing rain—hoping to wash

pollution out of the sky, but results are mixed. Seeding

clouds to artificially create more rain is difficult and

unreliable, and even the wealthiest countries cannot

achieve consistent results.3 In Europe and Asia, the

practice has triggered international incidents because even

the most skilled experts can’t control where the rain will

fall, never mind that acid rain is deleterious to crops,

wreaking havoc on food supply.4 As a result, crops are

increasingly grown under cover, a trend that will only

increase.5

Our world is getting hotter. Over the next two decades,

projections tell us that temperatures in some areas of the

globe will rise even higher, an irreversible development

now utterly beyond our control. Oceans, forests, plants,

trees, and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon

dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left,

most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and

the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an

already overburdened atmosphere.6

The increasing heat of the Earth is suffocating us, and in

five to ten years, vast swaths of the planet will be

increasingly inhospitable to humans. We don’t know how

habitable the regions of Australia, North Africa, and the

western United States will be by 2100. No one knows what

the future holds for their children and grandchildren:

tipping point after tipping point is being reached, casting

doubt on the form of future civilization. Some say that

humans will be cast to the winds again, gathering in small

tribes, hunkered down and living on whatever patch of land

might sustain them.7

Passing tipping points has already been painful. First

was the vanishing of coral reefs. Some of us still remember

diving amid majestic coral reefs, brimming with

multicolored fish of all shapes and sizes. Corals are now

almost gone. The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the

largest aquatic cemetery in the world. Efforts have been

made to grow artificial corals farther north and south from

the equator where the water is a bit cooler, but these

efforts have largely failed, and marine life has not returned.

Soon there will be no reefs anywhere—it is only a matter of

a few years before the last 10 percent dies off.8

The second tipping point was the melting of the ice

sheets in the Arctic. There is no summer Arctic sea ice

anymore because warming is worse at the poles—between

6 and 8 degrees higher than other areas. The melting

happened silently in that cold place far north of most of the

inhabited world, but its effects were soon noticed. The

Great Melting was an accelerant of further global warming.

The white ice used to reflect the sun’s heat, but now it’s

gone, so the dark sea water absorbs more heat, expanding

the mass of water and pushing sea levels even higher.9

More moisture in the air and higher sea surface

temperatures have caused a surge in extreme hurricanes

and tropical storms. Recently, coastal cities in Bangladesh,

Mexico, the United States, and elsewhere have suffered

brutal infrastructure destruction and extreme flooding,

killing many thousands and displacing millions. This

happens with increasing frequency now.10 Every day,

because of rising water levels, some part of the world must

evacuate to higher ground. Every day the news shows

images of mothers with babies strapped to their backs,

wading through floodwaters, and homes ripped apart by

vicious currents that resemble mountain rivers. News

stories tell of people living in houses with water up to their

ankles because they have nowhere else to go, their children

coughing and wheezing because of the mold growing in

their beds, insurance companies declaring bankruptcy

leaving survivors without resources to rebuild their lives.

Contaminated water supplies, sea salt intrusions, and

agricultural runoff are the order of the day. Because

multiple disasters are often happening simultaneously, it

can take weeks or even months for basic food and water

relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases

such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses, and

malnutrition are rampant.11

Now all eyes are on the western Antarctic ice sheet.12 If

it did ever disappear, it would release a deluge of fresh

water into the oceans, potentially raising sea levels by over

five meters. If that were to happen, cities like Miami,

Shanghai, and Dhaka would be uninhabitable—ghostly

Atlantises dotting the coasts of each continent, their

skyscrapers jutting out of the water, their people evacuated

or dead.

Those around the world who chose to remain on the

coast because it had always been their home have more to

deal with than rising water and floods—they must now

witness the demise of a way of life based on fishing. As

oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide, the water has

become more acidic, and the pH levels are now so hostile

to marine life that all but a few countries have banned

fishing, even in international waters.13 Many people insist

that the few fish that are left should be enjoyed while they

last—an argument, hard to fault in many parts of the world,

that applies to so much that is vanishing.

As devastating as rising oceans have been, droughts and

heat waves inland have created a special hell. Vast regions

have succumbed to severe aridification sometimes followed

by desertification,14 and wildlife there has become a distant

memory.15 These places can barely support human life;

their aquifers have dried up. Cities such as Marrakech and

Volgograd are on the verge of becoming deserts. Hong

Kong, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, and many others have been

desalinating seawater for years, desperately trying to keep

up with the constant wave of immigration from areas that

have gone completely dry.

Extreme heat is on the march. If you live in Paris, you

endure summer temperatures that regularly rise to 44

degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit). This is no longer

the headline-grabbing event it would have been thirty years

ago. Everyone stays inside, drinks water, and dreams of air-

conditioning. You lie on your couch, a cold, wet towel over

your face, and try to rest without dwelling on the poor

farmers on the outskirts of town who, despite recurrent

droughts and wildfires, are still trying to grow grapes,

olives, or soy—luxuries for the rich, not for you.

You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in

the hottest parts of the world, where, for upward of forty-

five days per year, temperatures skyrocket to 60 degrees

Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit)—a point at which the

human body cannot be outside for longer than about six

hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down. Places

such as central India are becoming increasingly

challenging to inhabit. For a while people tried to carry on,

but when you can’t work outside, when you can fall asleep

only at four a.m. for a couple of hours because that’s the

coolest part of the day, there’s not much you can do but

leave. Mass migrations to less hot rural areas are beset by

a host of refugee problems, civil unrest, and bloodshed over

diminished water availability.16

Inland glaciers around the world are quickly

disappearing. The millions who depended on the

Himalayan, Alpine, and Andean glaciers to regulate water

availability throughout the year are in a state of constant

emergency: there is little snow turning to ice atop

mountains in the winter, so there is no more gradual

melting for the spring and summer. Now there are either

torrential rains leading to flooding or prolonged droughts.

The most vulnerable communities with the least resources

have already seen what can ensue when water is scarce:

sectarian violence, mass migration, and death.

Even in some parts of the United States, there are fiery

conflicts over water, battles between the rich who are

willing to pay for as much water as they want and everyone

else demanding equal access to the life-enabling resource.

The taps in nearly all public facilities are locked, and those

in restrooms are coin-operated. At the federal level,

Congress is in an uproar over water redistribution: states

with less water demand what they see as their fair share

from states that have more. Government leaders have been

stymied on the issue for years, and with every passing

month the Colorado River and the Rio Grande shrink

further.17 Looming on the horizon are conflicts with

Mexico, no longer able to guarantee deliveries of water

from the depleted Rio Conchos and Rio Grande.18 Similar

disputes have arisen in Peru, China, Russia, and many

other countries.

Food production swings wildly from month to month,

season to season, depending on where you live. More

people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have

shifted, so some new areas have become available for

agriculture (Alaska, the Arctic),19 while others have dried

up (Mexico, California). Still others are unstable because of

the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and

tornadoes. This makes the food supply in general highly

unpredictable. One thing hasn’t changed, though—if you

have money, you have access. Global trade has slowed as

countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on

to their own resources. Disasters and wars rage, choking

off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now

unforgiving; because of its increasing scarcity, food can

now be wildly expensive. Income inequality has always

existed, but it has never been this stark or this dangerous.

Entire regions suffer from epidemics of stunting and

malnutrition. Reproduction has slowed overall, but most

acutely in those countries where food scarcity is dire.

Infant mortality has rocketed, and international aid has

proven to be politically impossible to defend in light of

mass poverty. Countries with enough food are resolute

about holding on to it.

In some places, the inability to gain access to such

basics as wheat, rice, or sorghum has led to economic

collapse and civil unrest more quickly than even the most

pessimistic experts had previously imagined. Scientists

tried to develop varieties of staples that could stand up to

drought, temperature fluctuations, and salt, but there was

only so much we could do. Now there simply aren’t enough

resilient varieties to feed the population. As a result, food

riots, coups, and civil wars are throwing the world’s most

vulnerable from the frying pan into the fire. As developed

countries seek to seal their borders from mass migration,

they too feel the consequences. Stock markets are

crashing, currencies are wildly fluctuating, and the

European Union has disbanded.20

As committed as nations are to keeping wealth and

resources within their borders, they’re determined to keep

people out. Most countries’ armies are now just highly

militarized border patrols. Lockdown is the goal, but it

hasn’t been a total success. Desperate people will always

find a way. Some countries have been better global Good

Samaritans than others, but even they have now effectively

shut their borders, their wallets, and their eyes.21

Ever since the equatorial belt started to become difficult

to inhabit, an unending stream of migrants has been

moving north from Central America toward Mexico and the

United States. Others are moving south toward the tips of

Chile and Argentina. The same scenes are playing out

across Europe and Asia. Enormous political pressure is

being placed on northern and southern countries to either

welcome migrants or keep them out. Some countries are

letting people in, but only under conditions approaching

indentured servitude. It will be years before the stranded

migrants are able to find asylum or settle into new refugee

cities that have formed along the borders.

Even if you live in areas with more temperate climates

such as Canada and Scandinavia, you are still extremely

vulnerable. Severe tornadoes, flash floods, wildfires,

mudslides, and blizzards are often in the back of your mind.

Depending on where you live, you have a fully stocked

storm cellar, an emergency go-bag in your car, or a six-foot

fire moat around your house. People are glued to weather

forecasts. Only the foolhardy shut their phones off at night.

If an emergency hits, you may only have minutes to

respond. The alert systems set up by the government are

basic and subject to glitches and irregularities depending

on access to technology. The rich, who subscribe to private,

reliable satellite-based alert systems, sleep better.

The weather is unavoidable, but lately the news about

what’s going on at the borders has become too much for

most people to endure. Because of the alarming spike in

suicides, and under increasing pressure from public health

officials, news organizations have decreased the number of

stories devoted to genocide, slave trading, and refugee

virus outbreaks. You can no longer trust the news. Social

media, long the grim source of live feeds and disaster

reporting, is brimming with conspiracy theories and

doctored videos. Overall, the news has taken a strange,

seemingly controlled turn toward distorting reality and

spinning a falsely positive narrative.

Those living within stable countries may be safe, yes, but

the psychological toll is mounting. With each new tipping

point passed, they feel hope slipping away. There is no

chance of stopping the runaway warming of our planet, and

no doubt we are slowly but surely heading toward some

kind of collapse. And not just because it’s too hot. Melting

permafrost is also releasing ancient microbes that today’s

humans have never been exposed to—and as a result have

no resistance to.22 Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks

are rampant as these species flourish in the changed

climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet,

increasingly overwhelming us. Worse still, the public health

crisis of antibiotic resistance has only intensified as the

population has grown denser in inhabitable areas and

temperatures continue to rise.23

The demise of the human species is being discussed

more and more. For many, the only uncertainty is how long

we’ll last, how many more generations will see the light of

day. Suicides are the most obvious manifestation of the

prevailing despair, but there are other indications: a sense

of bottomless loss, unbearable guilt, and fierce resentment

at previous generations who didn’t do what was necessary

to ward off this unstoppable calamity.

CHAPTER 3

The World We Must Create

It is 2050. We have been successful at halving emissions

every decade since 2020. We are heading for a world that

will be no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer by 2100.

—

In most places in the world, the air is moist and fresh, even

in cities. It feels a lot like walking through a forest, and

very likely this is exactly what you are doing. The air is

cleaner than it has been since before the Industrial

Revolution.

We have trees to thank for that. They are everywhere.1

It wasn’t the single solution we required, but the

proliferation of trees bought us the time we needed to

vanquish carbon emissions. Corporate donations and public

money funded the biggest tree-planting campaign in

history. When we started, it was purely practical, a tactic to

combat climate change by relocating the carbon: the trees

took carbon dioxide out of the air, released oxygen, and put

the carbon back where it belongs, in the soil. This of course

helped to diminish climate change, but the benefits were

even greater. On every sensory level, the ambient feeling of

living on what has again become a green planet has been

transformative, especially in cities. Cities have never been

better places to live. With many more trees and far fewer

cars, it has been possible to reclaim whole streets for urban

agriculture and for children’s play. Every vacant lot, every

grimy unused alley, has been repurposed and turned into a

shady grove. Every rooftop has been converted to either a

vegetable or a floral garden. Windowless buildings that

were once scrawled with graffiti are instead carpeted with

verdant vines.

The greening movement in Spain began as an effort to

combat rising temperatures. Because of Madrid’s latitude,

it is one of the driest cities in Europe. And even though the

city now has a grip on its emissions, it was previously at

risk of desertification. Because of the “heat island” effect of

cities—buildings trap warmth and dark, paved surfaces

absorb heat from the sun—Madrid, home to more than 6

million people, was several degrees warmer than the

countryside just a few miles away. In addition, air pollution

was leading to a rising incidence of premature births,2 and

a spike in deaths was linked to cardiovascular and

respiratory illnesses. With a health-care system already

strained by the arrival of subtropical diseases like dengue

fever and malaria, government officials and citizens rallied.

Madrid made dramatic efforts to reduce the number of

vehicles and create a “green envelope” around the city to

help with cooling, oxygenating, and filtering pollution.

Plazas were repaved with porous material to capture

rainwater; all black roofs were painted white; and plants

were omnipresent. The plants cut noise, released oxygen,

insulated south-facing walls, shaded pavements, and

released water vapor into the air. The massive effort was a

huge success and was replicated all over the world.

Madrid’s economy boomed as its expertise put it on the

cutting edge of a new industry.

Most cities found that lower temperatures raised the

standard of living. There are still slums, but the trees,

largely responsible for countering the temperature rise in

most places, have made things far more bearable for all.

Reimagining and restructuring cities was crucial to

solving the climate challenge puzzle. But further steps had

to be taken, which meant that global rewilding efforts had

to reach well beyond the cities. The forest cover worldwide

is now 50 percent, and agriculture has evolved to become

more tree-based.3 The result is that many countries are

unrecognizable, in a good way. No one seems to miss wide-

open plains or monocultures. Now we have shady groves of

nut and fruit orchards, timberland interspersed with

grazing, parkland areas that spread for miles, new havens

for our regenerated population of pollinators.4

Luckily for the 75 percent of the population who live in

cities, new electric railways crisscross interior landscapes.

In the United States, high-speed rail networks on the East

and West Coasts have replaced the vast majority of

domestic flights, with East Coast connectors to Atlanta and

Chicago. Because flight speeds have slowed down to

increase planes’ fuel efficiency, passenger bullet trains

make some journeys even faster and with no emissions

whatsoever.5 The U.S. Train Initiative was a monumental

public project that sparked the economy for a decade.

Replacing miles and miles of interstate highways with a

new transportation system created millions of jobs—for

train technology experts, engineers, and construction

workers who designed and built raised rail tracks to

circumvent floodplains. This massive effort helped to

reeducate and retrain many of those displaced by the dying

fossil fuel economy. It also introduced a new generation of

workers to the excitement and innovation of the new

climate economy.

Running parallel to this mega public works effort was an

increasingly confident race to harness the power of

renewable sources of energy. A major part of the shift to

net-zero emissions was a focus on electricity; achieving the

goal required not only an overhaul of existing

infrastructure but also a structural shift. In some ways,

breaking up grids and decentralizing power proved easy.

We no longer burn fossil fuels. There is some nuclear

energy in those countries that can afford the expensive

technology,6 but most of our energy now comes from

renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro.

All homes and buildings produce their own electricity—

every available surface is covered with solar paint that

contains millions of nanoparticles, which harvest energy

from the sunlight,7 and every windy spot has a wind

turbine. If you live on a particularly sunny or windy hill,

your house might harvest more energy than it can use, in

which case the energy will simply flow back to the smart

grid. Because there is no combustion cost, energy is

basically free. It is also more abundant and more efficiently

used than ever.

Smart tech prevents unnecessary energy consumption,

as artificial intelligence units switch off appliances and

machines when not in use. The efficiency of the system

means that, with a few exceptions, our quality of life has

not suffered. In many respects, it has improved.

For the developed world, the wide-ranging transition to

renewable energy was at times uncomfortable, as it often

involved retrofitting old infrastructure and doing things in

new ways. But for the developing world, it was the dawn of

a new era. Most of the infrastructure that it needed for

economic growth and poverty alleviation was built

according to the new standards: low carbon emissions and

high resilience. In remote areas, the billion people who had

no electricity at the start of the twenty-first century now

have energy generated by their own rooftop solar modules

or by wind-powered minigrids in their communities. This

new access opened the door to so much more. Entire

populations have leaped forward with improved sanitation,

education, and health care. People who had struggled to

get clean water can now provide it to their families.

Children can study at night. Remote health clinics can

operate effectively.

Homes and buildings all over the world are becoming

self-sustaining far beyond their electrical needs. For

example, all buildings now collect rainwater and manage

their own water use. Renewable sources of electricity made

possible localized desalination, which means clean drinking

water can now be produced on demand anywhere in the

world. We also use it to irrigate hydroponic gardens, flush

toilets, and shower.8 Overall, we’ve successfully rebuilt,

reorganized, and restructured our lives to live in a more

localized way. Although energy prices have dropped

dramatically, we are choosing local life over long

commutes. Due to greater connectivity, many people work

from home, allowing for more flexibility and more time to

call their own.

We are making communities stronger. As a child, you

might have seen your neighbors only in passing. But now,

to make things cheaper, cleaner, and more sustainable,

your orientation in every part of your life is more local.

Things that used to be done individually are now done

communally—growing vegetables, capturing rainwater, and

composting. Resources and responsibilities are shared now.

At first you resisted this togetherness—you were used to

doing things individually and in the privacy of your own

home. But pretty quickly the camaraderie and unexpected

new network of support started to feel good, something to

be prized. For most people, the new way has turned out to

be a better recipe for happiness.

Food production and procurement are a big part of the

communal effort. When it became clear we needed to

revolutionize industrialized farming, we transitioned

quickly to regenerative farming practices, mixing perennial

crops, sustainable grazing, and improved crop rotation on

large-scale farms, with increased community reliance on

small farms.9 Instead of going to a big grocery store for

food flown in from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles

away, you buy most of your food from small local farmers

and producers. Buildings, neighborhoods, and even large

extended families form a food purchase group, which is

how most people buy their food now. As a unit they sign up

for a weekly drop-off, then distribute the food among the

group members. Distribution, coordination, and

management are everyone’s responsibility, which means

you might be partnered with a downstairs neighbor for

distribution one week and your upstairs neighbor the next.

While this community approach to food production

makes things more sustainable, food is still expensive,

consuming up to 30 percent of household budgets, which is

why growing your own is such a necessity.10 In community

gardens, on rooftops, at schools, and even hanging from

vertical gardens on balconies, food sometimes seems to be

growing everywhere.

We’ve come to realize, by growing our own, that food is

expensive because it should be expensive—it takes valuable

resources to grow it, after all. Water. Soil. Sweat. Time.11

For that reason, the most resource-depleting foods of all—

animal protein and dairy products—have practically

disappeared from our diets.12 But the plant-based

replacements are so good that most of us don’t notice the

absence of meat and dairy. Most young children cannot

believe we used to kill any animals for food. Fish is still

available, but it is farmed and yields are better managed by

improved technology.13

We make smarter choices about bad foods, which have

become an ever-diminishing part of our diets. Government

taxes on processed meats, sugars, and fatty foods helped us

reduce the carbon emissions from farming. The biggest

boon of all was to our collective health. Thanks to a

reduced number of cancers, heart attacks, and strokes,

people are living longer, and health services around the

world cost less and less. In fact, a huge portion of the costs

of combating climate change were recuperated by

governments’ savings on public health.14

Along with outrageous spending on health care, gasoline

and diesel cars are also anachronisms. Most countries

banned their manufacture in 2030,15 but it took another

fifteen years to get internal combustion engines off the

road completely. Now they are seen only in transport

museums or at special rallies where classic car owners pay

an offset fee to drive a few short miles around the track.

And, of course, they are all hauled in on the backs of huge

electric trucks.

When it came to making the switch, some countries were

already ahead of the curve. Technology-driven countries

such as Norway and bicycle-friendly nations like the

Netherlands managed to impose a moratorium on cars

much earlier. Unsurprisingly, the United States had the

hardest time of all. First, it restricted their sale, and then it

banned them from certain parts of cities—Ultra Low

Emission Zones.16 Then came the breakthrough in the

battery storage capacity of electric vehicles,17 the cost

reductions that came from finding alternative materials for

manufacture, and finally the complete overhaul of the

charging and parking infrastructure.18 This allowed people

easier access to cheap power for their electric vehicles.

Even better, car batteries are now bidirectionally

connected with the electric grid, so they can either charge

from the grid or provide power to the grid when they aren’t

being driven. This helps back up the smart grid that is

running on renewable energy.

The ubiquity and ease of electric vehicles were alluring,

but satisfaction of our appetite for speed finally did the

trick.19 Supposedly, to stop a bad habit you have to replace

it with one that is more salubrious or at least as enjoyable.

At first China dominated the manufacture of electric

vehicles, but soon U.S. companies started making vehicles

that were more desirable than ever before. Even some

classic cars got an upgrade, switching from combustion to

electric engines that could go from zero to sixty mph in 3.5

seconds.20 What’s strange is that it took us so long to

realize that the electric motor is simply a better way of

powering vehicles. It gives you more torque, more speed

when you need it, and the ability to recapture energy when

you brake, and it requires dramatically less maintenance.

As people from rural areas moved to the cities, they had

less need even for electric vehicles.21 In cities it’s now easy

to get around—transportation is frictionless. When you take

the electric train, you don’t have to fumble around for a

metro card or wait in line to pay—the system tracks your

location, so it knows where you got on and where you got

off, and it deducts money from your account accordingly.

We also share cars without thinking twice. In fact,

regulating and ensuring the safety of driverless ride

sharing was the biggest transportation hurdle for cities to

overcome. The goal has been to eliminate private

ownership of vehicles by 2050 in major metropolitan

areas.22 We’re not quite there yet, but we’re making

progress.

We have also reduced land transport needs. Three-

dimensional (3D) printers are readily available, cutting

down on what people need to purchase away from home.23

Drones organized along aerial corridors are now delivering

packages, further reducing the need for vehicles.24 Thus

we are currently narrowing roads, eliminating parking

spaces, and investing in urban planning projects that make

it easier to walk and bike in the city. Parking garages are

used only for ride sharing, electric vehicle charging, and

storage—those ugly concrete stacking systems and edifices

of yore are now enveloped in green. Cities now seem

designed for the coexistence of people and nature.

International air travel has been transformed. Biofuels

have replaced jet fuel. Communications technology has

advanced so much that we can participate virtually in

meetings anywhere in the world without traveling. Air

travel still exists, but it is used more sparingly and is

extremely costly. Because work is now increasingly

decentralized and can often be done from anywhere, people

save and plan for “slow-cations”—international trips that

last weeks or months instead of days. If you live in the

United States and want to visit Europe, you might plan to

stay there for several months or more, working your way

across the continent using local, zero-emissions

transportation.25

While we may have successfully reduced carbon

emissions, we’re still dealing with the aftereffects of record

levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The long-living

greenhouse gases have nowhere to go other than the

already-loaded atmosphere, so they are still causing

increasingly extreme weather—though it’s less extreme

than it would have been had we continued to burn fossil

fuels. Glaciers and Arctic ice are still melting, and the sea

is still rising. Severe droughts and desertification are

occurring in the western United States, the Mediterranean,

and parts of China. Ongoing extreme weather and resource

degradation continue to multiply existing disparities in

income, public health, food security, and water availability.

But now governments have recognized climate change

factors for the threat multipliers that they are. That

awareness allows us to predict downstream problems and

head them off before they become humanitarian crises.26

So while many people remain at risk every day, the

situation is not as drastic or chaotic as it might have

been.27 Economies in developing nations are strong, and

unexpected global coalitions have formed with a renewed

sense of trust. Now when a population is in need of aid, the

political will and resources are available to meet that need.

The ongoing refugee situation has been escalating for

decades, and it is still a major source of strife and discord.

But around fifteen years ago, we stopped calling it a crisis.

Countries agreed on guidelines for managing refugee

influxes—how to smoothly assimilate populations, how to

distribute aid and resources, and how to share the tasks

within particular regions. These agreements work well

most of the time, but things get thrown off balance

occasionally when a country flirts with fascism for an

election cycle or two.

Technology and business sectors stepped up, too, seizing

the opportunity of government contracts to provide large-

scale solutions for distributing food and providing shelter

for the newly displaced. One company invented a giant

robot that could autonomously build a four-person dwelling

within days.28 Automation and 3D printing have made it

possible to quickly and affordably construct high-quality

housing for refugees. The private sector has innovated with

water transportation technology and sanitation solutions.

Fewer tent cities and housing shortages have led to less

cholera.

Everyone understands that we are all in this together. A

disaster that occurs in one country is likely to occur in

another in only a matter of years. It took us a while to

realize that if we worked out how to save the Pacific Islands

from rising sea levels this year, then we might find a way to

save Rotterdam in another five years. It is in the interest of

every country to bring all its resources to bear on problems

across the world. For one thing, creating innovative

solutions to climate challenges and beta testing them years

ahead of using them is just plain smart. For another, we’re

nurturing goodwill; when we need help, we know we will be

able to count on others to step up.

The zeitgeist has shifted profoundly. How we feel about

the world has changed, deeply. And unexpectedly, so has

how we feel about one another.

When the alarm bells rang in 2020, thanks in large part

to the youth movement, we realized that we suffered from

too much consumption, competition, and greedy self-

interest. Our commitment to these values and our drive for

profit and status had led us to steamroll our environment.

As a species we were out of control, and the result was the

near-collapse of our world. We could no longer avoid seeing

on a tangible, geophysical level that when you spurn

regeneration, collaboration, and community, the

consequence is impending devastation.

Extricating ourselves from self-destruction would have

been impossible if we hadn’t changed our mindset and our

priorities, if we hadn’t realized that doing what is good for

humanity goes hand in hand with doing what is good for

the Earth. The most fundamental change was that

collectively—as citizens, corporations, and governments—

we began adhering to a new bottom line: “Is it good for

humanity whether profit is made or not?”

The climate change crisis of the beginning of the century

jolted us out of our stupor. As we worked to rebuild and

care for our environment, it was only natural that we also

turned to each other with greater care and concern. We

realized that the perpetuation of our species was about far

more than saving ourselves from extreme weather. It was

about being good stewards of the land and of one another.

When we began the fight for the fate of humanity, we were

thinking only about the species’ survival, but at some point,

we understood that it was as much about the fate of our

humanity. We emerged from the climate crisis as more

mature members of the community of life, capable not only

of restoring ecosystems but also of unfolding our dormant

potentials of human strength and discernment. Humanity

was only ever as doomed as it believed itself to be.

Vanquishing that belief was our true legacy.

PART II

THREE MINDSETS

CHAPTER 4

Who We Choose to Be

Our future is unwritten. It will be shaped by who we choose

to be now.

As we learned during our stewardship of the Paris

Agreement, if you do not control the complex landscape of

a challenge (and you rarely do), the most powerful thing

you can do is change how you behave in that landscape,

yourself a catalyst for overall change. All too often in the

face of a task, we move quickly to “doing” without first

reflecting on “being”—what we personally bring to the

task, as well as what others might. And the most important

thing we can bring is our state of mind.

Mahatma Gandhi reminds us to be the change we want

to see. The actions we pursue are largely defined by the

mindset we cultivate in advance of the doing. When we’re

faced with an urgent task, it may feel counterintuitive to

first look inside ourselves, but it is essential.

Attempting change while we are informed by the same

state of mind that has been predominant in the past will

lead to insufficient incremental advances. In order to open

the space for transformation, we have to change how we

think and fundamentally who we perceive ourselves to be.

After all, if what’s at stake is nothing less than the quality

of human life for centuries to come, it is worth digging

down to the roots of who we understand ourselves to be.

Paradoxically, systemic change is a deeply personal

endeavor. Our social and economic structures are a product

of our way of thinking.

For example, our economy is based on the belief that we

can extract resources boundlessly, use them inefficiently,

and discard them wantonly, drawing from the planet more

than it can regenerate and polluting more than we can

clean up. Over time we’ve developed a deeply exploitative

ethos as the basis of our actions.

This no longer works.

Natural scientists have provided ample evidence that we

have reached several planetary boundaries, beyond which

Earth’s biosystems cannot sustain life. Soon there will be

little left to extract and exploit. Concerned social scientists

are clear on what we need to do: we must move toward a

regenerative economy, an economy that operates in

harmony with nature, repurposing used resources,

minimizing waste, and replenishing depleted resources. We

must return to the innate wisdom of nature herself, the

ultimate regenerator and recycler of all resources.

Less understood but just as important is the fact that we

have reached the limits of our individualistic competitive

approach. For a long time, Western societies have tended to

prize self-interest over the well-being of the whole. We

need to enlarge our understanding of ourselves and our

relationships with others, and certainly with the natural

systems that enable human life on Earth.

Our current crisis requires a total shift in our thinking.

To survive and thrive, we must understand ourselves to be

inextricably connected to all of nature. We need to cultivate

a deep and abiding sense of stewardship. This

transformation begins with the individual. Who we are and

how we show up in the world defines how we work with

others, how we interact with our surroundings, and

ultimately the future we co-create.

We believe three mindsets are fundamental to us all in

our pursuit to co-create a better world. With intentional

provocation, we call them Stubborn Optimism, Endless

Abundance, and Radical Regeneration. These mindsets are

not new. We can find shining examples in famous historical

figures, but the future we want requires that they be

prevalent among us all. These qualities of being are innate

human capacities (individual and collective), values that

can be called forth, nurtured, and developed in the crucible

of daily practice.

A shift in consciousness may sound grandiose to some,

insufficient to others. But we live at a time of growing

awareness of the intimate connections between the outer

and inner worlds. As author Joanna Macy has pointed out,

“In the past changing the self and changing the world were

regarded as separate endeavors and viewed in either-or

terms. That is no longer the case.”1 Scientific

understanding and spiritual insights are converging on the

reality of human-nature interconnectedness.

The transformative power of the three mindsets lies not

only in themselves but also in the direction each one

provides. Attached as we are to many forms of status quo in

our lives (relationships, job, home, etc.), we often delude

ourselves that they are permanent. But the fact is, nothing

is permanent; everything is always changing, no matter

how much we insist on standing still, hanging on to fleeting

moments. And making desired change always demands

going in an intentional direction.

Our new intentional direction must move us beyond

defeatism to optimism, beyond extraction toward

regeneration, beyond linear toward circular economies,

beyond individual benefit toward the common good, beyond

short-term thinking toward long-term thinking and acting.

By cultivating the three mindsets, we give clearer, stronger

direction to our lives and to our world, setting the

necessary foundation for us to collectively co-create the

world we want.

CHAPTER 5

Stubborn Optimism

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, the

man who became known as the Buddha, understood

optimism. He said many times that a brightness of mind

was both the final goal of the path of enlightenment and

also the first step. A bright mind is how you proceed.

Without it, you can’t make progress.

The Buddha also understood that we are not subject to

our attitudes in a passive way but are active participants in

creating them. Neuroscience has now confirmed this. It

does not matter if our natural tendency is to see things

with optimism or with pessimism. At this point in history

we have a responsibility to do what is necessary, and for

most of us that will involve some deliberate reprogramming

of our minds.

Psychological research has shown that attitudes can be

transformed by first identifying our thought patterns, then

deliberately cultivating a more constructive approach. The

practice involves becoming aware of these patterns,

drawing out the unconscious assumptions, and challenging

them when they don’t serve you.1

It’s not complicated, but neither is it easy. Essentially, we

all have inbuilt reactions to adverse things that happen

around us. From the latest alarming report on climate

change to missing the bus, we have a learned response to

all phenomena that we encounter in life, and those learned

reactions dictate how we respond to a particular situation.

When it comes to climate change, the vast majority of us

have a learned reaction of helplessness. We see the

direction the world is headed, and we throw up our hands.

Yes, we think, it’s terrible, but it’s so complex and so big

and so overwhelming. We can’t do anything to stop it.

This learned reaction is not only untrue, it’s become

fundamentally irresponsible. If you want to help address

climate change, you have to teach yourself a different

response.

You can do it. You can switch your focus, and you will be

stunned by the impact such a shift can create. You don’t

need to have all the answers, and you certainly don’t need

to hide from the truth, nor should you. When you are faced

with the hard realities, look at them with clarity, but also

know that you are incredibly lucky to be alive at a time

when you can make a transformative difference to the

future of all life on earth.

You are not powerless. In fact, your every action is

suffused with meaning, and you are part of the greatest

chapter of human achievement in history. Make this your

mental mantra. Take notice of how your mind tries to insist

on your helplessness in the face of the challenge and

refuses to accept it. Notice it, and refute it. It will not take

long for your thought patterns to change.

When your mind tells you that it is too late to make a

difference, remember that every fraction of a degree of

extra warming makes a big difference, and therefore any

reduction in emissions lessens the burden on the future.

When your mind tells you that this is all too depressing

to deal with and that it is better to focus on the things you

can directly affect, remind yourself that mobilizing for big

generational challenges can be thrilling and can imbue

your life with meaning and connection.

When your mind tells you that it will be impossible for

the world to lighten its dependence on fossil fuels,

remember that already more than 50 percent of the energy

in the UK comes from clean power,2 that Costa Rica is 100

percent clean,3 and that California has a plan to get to 100

percent clean, including cars and trucks, by the time

today’s toddlers have finished college.4

When your mind tells you that the problem is the broken

political system and we can’t fix that so there is no point in

doing anything, remind yourself that political systems are

still responsive to the views of people, and that throughout

history people have successfully overcome extraordinary

odds to achieve political change.

And when your mind tells you that you are just one

person, too small to make a difference, so why bother, you

can remind yourself that tipping points are nonlinear. We

don’t know what is going to make the difference, but we

know that in the end systems do shift and all the little

actions add up to a new world. Every time you make an

individual choice to be a responsible custodian of this

beautiful Earth, you contribute toward major

transformations.

You may not be religious or spiritually inclined, but

consider the lot of the stonemason in medieval Europe

building one of the great cathedrals. He could have chosen

to throw down his tools because he was not going to

personally finish the entire cathedral. Instead, he worked

patiently and carefully on his one piece, knowing he was

part of a great collective endeavor that would lift the hearts

and minds of generations. That is optimism, and cultivating

it will not only be a crucial step to advancing our human

story, it will also improve your life today.

Václav Havel aptly described optimism as “a state of

mind, not a state of the world.”5 Three characteristics are

generally agreed upon as essential to making this mindset

transformative: the intention to see beyond the immediate

horizon, the comfort with uncertainty about the final

outcome, and the commitment that is fostered by that

mindset.

To be optimistic, you must acknowledge the bad news

that is all too readily available in scientific reports, your

newsfeed, your Twitter account, and kitchen table

conversations bemoaning our current state of affairs. More

difficult, but necessary for any degree of change to take

place, is to recognize the adversities and still be able to see

that a different future is not only possible but is already

tiptoeing into our daily lives. Without denying the bad

news, you must make a point of focusing on all the good

news regarding climate change, such as the constantly

dropping prices of renewables, an increasing number of

countries taking on net-zero-emissions targets by 2050 or

before, the multiple cities banning internal combustion

vehicles, and the rising levels of capital shifting from the

old to the new economy. None of this is happening yet at

the necessary scale, but it is happening. Optimism is about

being able to intentionally identify and prescribe the

desired future so as to actively pull it closer.

It is always easier to cling to certainty than it is to work

for something because it is right and good, regardless of

whether it currently stands a decent chance of success. All

the measures to address climate change still require

further maturation; none guarantee ultimate success. We

don’t know which renewables, if any, will predominate, or

which are more likely to scale quickly. Problems with the

batteries of electric vehicles (weight, cost, recycling) must

still be solved, and charging networks still require

substantial expansion to succeed. Financial instruments

must more effectively manage the risks of new

technologies. Market models that shift us from single

ownership of homes and cars to shared ownership must

gather steam and make peace with regulation.

When you look at the future broadly instead of narrowly,

you see that you must take these uncertainties in stride, or

you will stay stuck in the knowns of the past. You have to

be willing to risk mistakes, delays, and disappointments, or

you will be at the mercy of only the tried and true, to your

ultimate peril.

This mindset is all the more important once you realize

that the habits, practices, and technologies of the past will

lead us only to ecological demise and human suffering.

Viewing our reality with optimism means recognizing that

another future is possible, not promised. In the face of

climate change, we all have to be optimistic, not because

success is guaranteed but because failure is unthinkable.

Optimism empowers you; it drives your desire to engage,

to contribute, to make a difference. It makes you jump out

of bed in the morning because you feel challenged and

hopeful at the same time. It calls you to that which is

emerging and makes you want to be an active part of

change. Rebecca Solnit puts it well: “Hope is an ax you

break down doors with in an emergency;…hope should

shove you out the door, because it will take everything you

have to steer the future away from endless war, from the

annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down

of the poor and marginal….To hope is to give yourself to the

future, and that commitment to the future makes the

present inhabitable.”6

In other words, optimism is the force that enables you to

create a new reality.

Optimism is not the result of achieving a task we have

set for ourselves. That is a celebration. Optimism is the

necessary input to meeting a challenge.

Optimism is about having steadfast confidence in our

ability to solve big challenges. It is about making the choice

to tenaciously work to make the current reality better.

Optimism is about actively proving, through every

decision and every action, that we are capable of designing

a better future.

From the darkness of an Alabama jail, Martin Luther

King, Jr., kept calling for the realization of a deeply held

dream, no matter how bleak its prospects. Many others

have done the same throughout history: John F. Kennedy

refusing to accept that nuclear war was inevitable. Gandhi

marching to the ocean to collect forbidden salt.

In all these cases, key people believed that a better

world was possible, and they were willing to fight for it.

They didn’t ignore difficult evidence or present things in a

way that wasn’t true. Instead they faced reality with a

fierce belief that change could happen, however impossible

it might have seemed at the moment.

On the road to the Paris Agreement in 2015, we learned

just how critical optimism is to transformation. When

Christiana took over responsibility for the United Nations’

annual rounds of climate negotiations in 2010, it was in the

wake of a total collapse of the previous year’s negotiations,

which had been held in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen was nothing short of a disaster. After years

of preparation and two weeks of excruciating around-the-

clock negotiations, the only result was a weak, inadequate

accord that was politically unacceptable and legally

irrelevant. The United States had embarrassingly declared

success prematurely. China and India had put up major

roadblocks, supported by all developing countries. It had

been a free-for-all of political frustration, outrage, and

disagreement.

It was far from the “Hopenhagen” the hosts had

advertised.

In fact, there had been blood.

Claudia Salerno, the Venezuelan representative, had

been excluded from the small room where only a few

leaders had negotiated behind closed doors. She was so

angry and so adamant about getting the floor, she

incessantly banged her country’s metal nameplate on her

desk until her hand was bleeding.

“Do I have to bleed to get your attention?” she screamed

at the Danish chairman. “International agreements cannot

be imposed by a small exclusive group. You are endorsing a

coup d’état against the United Nations.”

Each sentence was punctuated with the pounding of

metal and blood.

If this is what saving the planet looked like, we were all

doomed.

—

Six months later, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked

Christiana to assume responsibility for the international

climate negotiations. There was little hope in his request:

pick up the pieces from the political garbage can and make

something of them.

No one, from a high-level administrator at the UN to a

government delegate to a climate activist working from

home, believed that the world had a shot at ever achieving

a workable agreement. Everyone thought it was too

complicated, too costly, and too late anyway.

As a result, one of the toughest challenges Christiana

faced was bringing everyone to believe that an agreement

was even possible. Prior to considering the political,

technical, and legal parameters of an eventual agreement,

she knew she had to dedicate herself to changing the mood

on climate. The impossible had to be made possible.

The very first step was to change her own attitude.

As the recently appointed Executive Secretary of the

United Nations Convention on Climate Change, Christiana

held her first and best-remembered press conference. The

new voice of the entire international process, she sat

before forty journalists, gathered in a windowless room in

the Maritim Hotel in Bonn, Germany.

After a few anodyne interjections, the most important

question was asked: “Ms. Figueres, do you think a global

agreement will ever be possible?”

Without thinking, she blurted, “Not in my lifetime.”

Christiana had instinctively spoken for the thousands of

people who had been in Copenhagen, and for millions more

who followed the proceedings online. Hope was gone, and

the pain was deep. Her words expressed the prevailing

mood, but they also ripped straight into her own heart. The

attitude she had just perpetuated was exactly the problem.

If she succumbed to despair, and by extension let this

whole political process succumb to it, it would define the

quality of life for millions of vulnerable people today and

determine the fate of future generations. She couldn’t let

that happen.

Impossible is not a fact. It is an attitude.

When Christiana walked out of the press conference that

day, she knew her primary task: to be a beacon of

possibility that would allow everyone to find a way to a

solution together. How it would happen she did not know,

but she knew with clarity that she had no other option.

Bringing about a complex, large-scale transformation is

akin to weaving a tapestry of elaborate design with

thousands of people who have never woven anything or

even seen the pattern. Almost two hundred nations, five

hundred supporting UN staff members, more than sixty

topics under negotiation across five (sometimes

intersecting) negotiating tracks, and thousands of

participants from all walks of life were involved. Of course,

everyone wanted a good future for humanity, but once you

dove just one level below that very basic goal, everything

else was under constant negotiation, from agreeing on the

agenda for one working session, to topics as contentious as

how science should be reflected in policy. Predictably,

setbacks and obstructions quickly became the norm.

—

Throughout the whole process, we paid attention to the

underlying challenging dynamics, guiding them into a

constructive space so that innovative solutions could

emerge from the fertile ground of collective participation

and wisdom. Careful and well-targeted interventions were

repeatedly necessary to ensure forward momentum but

could never become overbearing. The intention was to

constantly unblock pent-up energy and catalyze the next

level of work. Complex dynamic systems can be

intimidating if approached from the expectation of control,

but they are thrilling if seen as a carefully curated

landscape of potential that blossoms as problematic issues

find resolution and enrich the commonly agreed-upon

grounds.

In December 2015, 195 nations adopted the Paris

Agreement unanimously, and hundreds of millions of people

widely recognized it as a historic achievement.

Undoubtedly many factors contributed to this resounding

success, as well as thousands of individuals, but the key

was the contagious frame of mind that led to collective

wisdom and effective decision making. Everyone who was

there at the adoption, and millions of people following

online, felt optimistic about the future, but in fact optimism

had been the starting point of the journey. It had had to be,

or else we would never have reached any agreement.

We need to remember, however, that in the challenging

years to come, optimism on its own won’t be enough, as it

wasn’t enough in Paris. What sustained us through the long

nights and years of building that initial agreement was a

particular brand of optimism that is necessary for the most

difficult tasks: stubborn optimism.

Optimism is not soft, it is gritty. Every day brings dark

news, and no end of people tell us that the world is going to

hell. To take the low road is to succumb. To take the high

road is to remain constant in the face of uncertainty. That

we may be confronted by barriers galore should not

surprise anyone. That we may see worsening climate

conditions in the short term should also not surprise us. We

have to elect to boldly persevere. With determination and

utmost courage, we must conquer the hurdles in order to

push forward.

We need both systemic transformation and individual

behavioral changes. One without the other will not get us

to the necessary scale of change at the necessary pace. We

all sit at various points of society: members of families,

community leaders, CEOs, policy makers. No matter where

you sit, we all can and must exercise that responsibility in

favor of the common good. No one is irrelevant.

Particularly in the face of grand human challenges, the

only responsible approach we can take is to protect

humanity and other forms of life and steer the course of

history toward the better. Changing direction at this late

hour is entirely possible, but only with a collective intent

and optimism that is so robust, we jolt ourselves out of the

currently established default path.

The story of the five-year process toward Paris is in

many ways like the process we must now unleash. Today

most people believe it is impossible to transform our

economy in one decade. But we cannot afford that fatalism;

our only option is to turn our full attention to the

immediate actions we can undertake to change direction. It

starts with our own way of thinking about the challenge,

our determined attitude, and our capacity to infect others

with the same conviction, no matter how challenging that

is. That is stubborn optimism.

The evolution of humanity is a story of adaptive

ingenuity to the challenges of the time. We face the

greatest challenge of human history. We may be challenged

beyond our currently visible capacities, but that only means

that we are invited to rise to the next level of our abilities.

And we can.

CHAPTER 6

Endless Abundance

The feeling that we have to compete with others to get

what we want, or what we think we need, runs deep in

each of us. Most of us have grown up under the stifling

influence of the zero-sum paradigm, the notion that if one

person wins, another one has to lose. (One person’s gain

has to be “balanced” by another’s loss in order for the sum

of all gains and losses to be zero.) The zero-sum paradigm

has baked competition into our worldview. Without

competition, we could not have achieved many of the great

economic and social advances we have made over the

centuries. And we will still need a healthy competitive edge

to develop the new technologies that will help us address

climate change. But when we allow competition to become

the dominant feature of our decision making, we lose our

grounding and start to see scarcity in places it may not

even exist.

Few of us haven’t felt that rush of urgency and

determination to get ahead of the crowd for a seat on the

train or bus. It’s a feeling so ubiquitous that in some

countries transportation companies have announcements

reminding us to let passengers off the bus or train before

attempting to board. But the drive to compete for a seat is

sometimes so strong, the announcements cannot prevent

people from pushing in first to claim their spot.

The frenzy that dominates in these scenarios doesn’t

begin with our competitive impulse. It starts with the

deeply ingrained perception of scarcity—the view that

there is a limited amount of something regardless of what

the reality may be. We are convinced that there is only one

good seat, so we want to secure it before someone else

does. Whether it is based on objective reality or not, our

fear of scarcity elicits our competitive response, which in

turn feeds our fear of scarcity in a self-reinforcing cycle.

The perception of scarcity puts us into a very small

mental box. We can expand that box in either of two ways.

First, we can realize that quite often the perception of

scarcity is not objective but rather of our own making. We

can climb out of the mental scarcity box by understanding

that there are other seats on the train or bus, and that

more buses are coming a few minutes later.

The second way is to decide to step away from the zero-

sum paradigm, a rather odd construct when you think

about it. Yes, the number of seats on the bus is limited. But

another person’s gain does not necessarily have to be my

loss. Perhaps giving my seat on a bus or train to another

allows me to start an unexpected, delightful conversation.

Maybe that simple act improves the other person’s day or

adds joy to mine. Giving is well known to increase

individual happiness, so my “loss” can actually become my

“gain.” In fact, “my loss ↔ your gain” can actually become

“our gain.”

It’s all about the mindset.

Our mindset is so powerful that it can convince us that a

scarcity exists, throwing us into unnecessary competition

and thereby objectively creating the scarcity we initially

feared. For instance, Tucson, Arizona, is a desert

community, and over the years water has become more and

more scarce. The Santa Cruz River, which used to flow

freely through the community all year round, is now dry.

Only twenty-eight centimeters of rain fall on Tucson each

year. And perhaps because water has always been

perceived as scarce in this region, the growing population,

wanting more, has frantically pumped so much water from

the ground that the water table has dropped by more than

ninety-one meters. Trees and other vegetation, which used

to line the Santa Cruz, died along with the river itself. The

perception of water scarcity, which led to overpumping,

then contributed to even greater scarcity, because bare (or

paved over) land cannot easily absorb the little rain that

falls—most of which is washed away.

Here’s the interesting part: the twenty-eight centimeters

of rain that Tucson gets each year are actually more than

the municipal water it consumes each year.1 Water was

never measurably scarce, it was only perceived as being

scarce. Tucson has plenty of water if you consider the

abundance of the entire water cycle instead of focusing

only on the amount in your well at any given time. When a

resource is perceived as scarce but is in reality abundant

(plenty of seats on a bus or enough rain for everyone), we

have the option of reacting either in a narrowly competitive

way or in a more broadly collaborative manner. How we

react may be influenced by something as profound as our

degree of personal self-awareness, or by something as

simple as how we happen to be feeling that day. Our

attitude does not change any of the facts (how many seats

there are on the bus or how much rain falls), but it does

make a massive difference in the nature of our experience.

And in many cases, when we collaborate, we have more

rich experiences, not fewer.

However, when the resources are actually scarce and

getting scarcer, we face a very different situation in making

decisions. Contrary to what we might initially think, in

circumstances of real (not only perceived) scarcity, our only

viable option is collaboration. Fortunately, contrary to what

most of us believe, it is the option we human beings tend to

adopt, at least under certain circumstances.

In the face of disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and

even terrorist attacks, members of a community tend to

come together in solidarity with one another. Studies

conducted after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and

Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, as well as many other

disasters around the world, have shown that communities

respond overwhelmingly with an altruistic spirit of

solidarity under the initial common pain and then

collaborate to reconstruct and recover afterward.2 At these

moments, our tendency to give, be it time, skills, money,

love, or simply a home-cooked meal, overrides our

tendency to be competitive. Key to this shift away from

competition is that giving makes us happy, so while we act

primarily in service to others during times of great

hardship, we are also, in fact, acting in service to

ourselves.3

On November 13, 2015, two weeks before the start of

the final session of negotiations for the Paris Agreement,

the city suffered its worst terrorist onslaught ever. The

attackers targeted six popular locations across the city,

killing 130 people and wounding almost five hundred.4 No

one who was there in the days following will ever forget the

sight of thousands of pairs of shoes placed in neat rows in

the Place de la République, including a pair of plain black

shoes sent by Pope Francis. And far from staying away, 155

heads of state and government traveled to Paris two short

weeks afterward for the largest ever gathering of heads of

state and government under one roof on a single day, partly

because of the importance of the need to reach a global

climate agreement, and partly as a mass demonstration of

solidarity with France.

In times of profound suffering and great need, we rise to

the occasion, we stand shoulder to shoulder in mutual

support. That impulse to gather in a circle of care for one

another must be extended to our efforts to address the

climate crisis.

Particular recent disasters that you may recall, and the

subsequent collaboration and solidarity they precipitated,

likely had only a local impact, but the situation we face

with global scarcity is vastly more challenging. Globally, we

have dramatically fewer insects, birds, and mammals than

we did just fifty years ago, and far less forest cover. Our

soils are less productive, and our oceans are less bountiful.

Harder to see but even more threatening in its

consequence is the fact that we are running out of

atmospheric space for our greenhouse gas emissions. Think

of the world’s atmosphere as a bathtub in which, for fifty

years, not water but greenhouse gases have been rising.

They are now approaching the rim, the limit that the

bathtub can hold, or the scientifically established maximum

amount of greenhouse gases that the atmosphere can

contain—its carbon budget. If we exceed the carbon

budget, the bathtub will start to overflow uncontrollably.

We are on the verge of atmospheric tipping points that are

frighteningly unpredictable and irreversible. Every bit of

carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted—no matter where in the

world—contributes to the possibility of disaster. We are

rapidly exhausting the space in the bathtub. This is the

ultimate scarcity.

Adopted in 1992, the UN Climate Change Convention is

based on the recognition that developed countries bear

overwhelming historical responsibility for climate change

because of the emissions caused by their fossil-fuel-based

industrialization. In contrast, developing countries have

insignificant historical responsibility but bear

disproportionately high destructive impacts in relation to

the size of their economies. That is not ideology, it is an

indisputable fact. At the same time, three decades later it is

evident that, as they develop and their growing populations

emerge from poverty, some developing countries are

rapidly increasing their emissions because their economic

growth is still largely linked to fossil fuels. As a result,

industrialized nations have been advocating that

developing countries assume more responsibility for

emission reductions. For years, developing countries have

flatly rejected these demands as hindering their economic

growth, even as they must shoulder increasing negative

impacts from climate change.

Suggestions for a fair allocation of what remains of the

carbon budget have been varied. Some have proposed

imposing a limit on emissions from industrialized nations so

that space remains for those of developing countries; the

developed nations deemed this unacceptable. Others have

proposed a gradual reduction of emissions in industrialized

countries and a managed growth of emissions in developing

countries. Unsurprisingly, no happy point of convergence

has been agreed on. Another proposal would impose a

worldwide limit of two tons of CO2 emitted per person per

year. As the range of national per capita yearly emissions

spans from 0.04 to more than 37 tons of CO2, it was

inevitable that those countries substantially above the

suggested two tons did not seriously consider the proposal.

Fair allocation of the remaining atmospheric space has

proven to be a futile exercise no matter the formula. A fair

outcome is not viable as long as we pursue it from a

mindset of scarcity and competition.

The state of the planet no longer allows for this mindset

because we have reached existential scarcity: limits to the

survival of many of the ecosystems that sustain us and that

help to maintain safe greenhouse gas levels in the

atmosphere. If the Amazon is destroyed, carbon emissions

will rise so high that the entire planet, not only Brazil, will

suffer the consequences. Likewise, if the Arctic permafrost

thaws, not only will the countries surrounding the North

Pole suffer, but so will the whole Earth. We are all in the

same boat. A hole at one end of the boat does not mean

that only the occupants sitting there will drown. We all win

or lose together.

The new zero-sum model presupposes collaboration, not

competition, as the necessary engine for regenerating the

biosphere and creating abundance.

—

It was close to midnight, and we were at our breaking

point.

The 2014 negotiations in Lima, Peru, had been moving

forward swiftly over the past days, but now we were at the

anticipated impasse: responsibility for emissions

reductions. We had known that the issue would raise its

head, and that this time the consequences were grave—

they would make or break next year’s Paris negotiations.

Without fail, at every major international negotiation

session, whenever we were on the cusp of an intractable

deadlock, there would be a soft knock on the office door,

often after midnight, and Minister Xie Zhenhua, for years

the head of the Chinese delegation, would walk in. As

anticipated, here he was again with a clear message. The

draft negotiating text did not properly account for the great

differences in responsibility for, and future ability to

respond to, climate change. Developing countries would

prefer no agreement in Lima or Paris next year, if it meant

accepting one that was unfair. He pointed to a recent

agreement between the United States and China that

steered away from an approach grounded in competition

and scarcity, toward collaboration and abundance. The

agreement did not focus on the historical responsibility of

industrialized nations nor on the obligations of developing

countries to reduce their emissions. It was based on a

different paradigm, one that encouraged the shared pursuit

of the benefits of emissions reductions for individual

nations as well as for the collective: a new model beyond

zero sum.

Now it was our job to adapt that conceptual model to the

context of a global agreement between 195 nations in a

way that was coherent with all the rest of the issues for

which we were finding common ground. First we had to

repeatedly negotiate every word and every comma of the

adapted text between the U.S. delegation, led by Todd

Stern and Sue Biniaz, and the Chinese delegation led by

Minister Xie. We had to move quickly but discreetly

between delegation offices so as to not give any visible

signs of frenzy to the thousands of other delegates who

were exhausted and anxious about the deadlock, wondering

if the whole session would go up in flames. But after

several iterations of goodwill on both parts, an agreed

version emerged, and each side undertook to bring their

respective group of countries on board.

The new understanding established that reducing

emissions is indeed a responsibility of every nation, for its

own enlightened self-interest as well as for the benefit of

the planet as a whole. The mindset shift and associated

new language in the text—away from competition and

toward shared winning, where everyone can gain from a

new abundance without impinging on each other—unlocked

the door to the global agreement that would be signed in

Paris the following year.

An increasing number of countries today fully

understand that their development in the twenty-first

century can and should be clean; that by decarbonizing

their economies, they can reap the benefits of more jobs,

cleaner air, more efficient transportation, more habitable

cities, and more fertile lands. This shift toward a mindset of

creating abundance does not negate the limitations of a

carbon economy; instead, it gives every country a wealth of

positive individual and collective reasons to stay within that

limit. As one country moves forward demonstrating the

national benefits of clean technologies and policies, others

will follow, momentum will be built, and the global rate of

decarbonization will increase, protecting the planet.

When we are motivated by a desire for collaboration, we

liberate ourselves from the restrictive framing of attaining

“what I want, or think I need,” and open ourselves up to a

broader framing of what is available and possible in many

other forms—available to me, but not only to me, to others

as well. The realization of abundance is not an illusory

increase in physical resources, but rather an awareness of

a broad array of ways to satisfy needs and wants so that

everyone is content. In this way resources will be protected

and replenished, and the relationships among us are

enriched.

Endless abundance.

At the individual level, we are called to enhance

collaboration and nurture abundance as a mindset. Making

that mindset shift is not as hard as it sounds. Consider, for

example the endless abundance of energy coming from the

sun, wind, water, sea waves, and heat within the Earth, all

of which we are now harnessing to produce electricity, and

none of which will ever get used up. Regenerated soils,

forests, and oceans can all be wisely managed for endless

abundance rather than squandered for imminent depletion.

In fact, ecosystems operate from the very principle of

abundance—they depend on components within them that

are naturally plentiful, such as waste, to provide the food

and nutrients for further growth.

We can also add creativity, solidarity, innovation, and

many other abundant human attributes available to us,

endlessly.

The rise of collectively generated and freely shared

knowledge on the internet has data challenges that remain

to be addressed, but it has made the notion of collaborative

systems and endless abundance easier to understand.

Think of Wikipedia, LinkedIn, or Waze. Each user of the

system is unique, but all users are interrelated through the

network of the endlessly growing system. Every user

contributes to the whole, but the total body of knowledge is

larger than the sum of all users. And the system is in

constant change, amplifying in some areas, correcting

course in others, and growing into previously unknown

spaces. Competition plays a role, but it is limited because

everyone contributes, everyone benefits, and everyone

partakes of a constantly increasing total. Collaboration is

the name of the game. Shared benefit from endless

abundance is the result of the game.

As a next step, one could imagine a world of “open

source everything,” an open approach in every field of

human endeavor, where competition is no longer the

operating principle, but rather collaboration. Following the

principles we observe in any natural ecosystem, this

approach explicitly promotes learning and growth

throughout the whole system. It allows us to constantly

teach one another, thereby exponentially increasing our

capacity to co-create knowledge and share goods and

services with open access, used by everyone for the benefit

of all.

The practice of abundance starts by shifting our minds

away from perceived scarcity to what we can collectively

make abundant. In so doing, we will become more aware of

others, what we can learn from them and share with them.

We will be more conscious of our own impulse to compete

and, as a corrective, develop a keener interest in how we

can all win. We will be more likely to show appreciation to

those who have contributed to a joint task, encouraging

ever-higher levels of teamwork and collaboration

everywhere. We will share the results of our labor with

anyone who can use it as input to their further work,

without mentally claiming any intellectual property rights.

Another person’s success is not our loss; it is our constantly

growing collective success.

We are entering the next phase of human evolution. The

human species (and many other animal and plant species)

must now adapt to the scarcity of natural resources we

have caused, and the rapidly diminishing space left in our

global atmosphere for carbon emissions. To do this, we

need to prioritize collaboration. Faced with the ultimate

scarcity, we must internalize the new zero sum (either we

all win or we all lose) and apply a mindset of abundance to

that which we have left and that which we can co-create

and share.

CHAPTER 7

Radical Regeneration

Exhausted after a long day’s work at the UN, we were

having a quiet meal at a little restaurant close to our office,

chatting and commenting on what had been done and what

was left to do. Two young men sitting next to us had

finished eating and were talking over their third beer about

what to do next. We tried to focus on our own to-do list, but

their conversation pulled us away.

“But why do you want to leave?”

“Because there’s nothing more for me here.”

“So where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. Wherever I can get something better.”

We looked at each other with raised eyebrows. The man

had expressed a sentiment we’d heard so many times

before—that when there’s nothing left, it’s time to find

more elsewhere.

The man’s focus on “getting something better” was no

individual quirk. It has been with human societies for

centuries. Conquerors of distant lands pillaged colonies for

metals, minerals, and exotic foods, in many cases leaving

little more than chaos, infectious diseases, and Bibles in

exchange. As managers of fertile soils, we humans have

proved remarkably effective at extracting trees and

nutrients, leaving only depleted topsoil in our wake.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these instincts.

They help us grow to meet rising challenges. But our

growth, both personal and professional, is a two-way street:

what we get and what we give. As a species, however, we

have become used to a one-way transaction, that of getting,

often losing sight of the void that our taking has created.

Our planet can no longer support one-directional

growth. We have come to the end of humanity’s extraction

road. The time for “getting” is over. Staring us in the face is

a huge red sign that reads STOP: PRECIPICE AHEAD.

Extraction is a propensity deeply ingrained in human

behavior. To move away from extracting and depleting, we

need to concentrate on another equally strong and intrinsic

trait: our capacity for supporting regeneration. Caring for

ourselves and others. Connecting with nature. Working

together to replenish what we use and to make sure plenty

remains for tomorrow. These tendencies are just as much

second nature, but they are less well developed in modern

society. It’s time to bring them to the surface.

Being regenerative is not strange to us.

If you have children, think about how supportive you are

with them when they go through periods of deep doubt.

Remember how patiently you listen to their worries and

help them stay hopeful. Or think of how encouraging you

are to friends who may have fallen into a professional hole,

how much time and energy you invest in helping them

replenish their self-confidence so that they can rise to the

top of their game once again.

Sometimes it’s easier to act in more regenerative ways

with our friends and families—or even with strangers

halfway across the world—than with ourselves. While this

may be noble, to be most effective, we need to begin with

ourselves.

Amid the climate crisis, we each have an urgent

responsibility to replenish ourselves and protect ourselves

from breaking down. In the face of imminent burnout, some

of our colleagues who have worked for years to address

climate change under extremely stressful circumstances

have at some point prudently taken time off to restore their

energies by turning to the healing arms of nature or the

loving embrace of a spiritual community. The wisest among

them have incorporated meditation and mindfulness

practices into their daily lives.

We know from our own experience that continual

personal grounding is key to being able to withstand the

daily bombardment of bad news from all sides. Without

such grounding, you will be a leaf in the wind—vulnerable

to the elements from all directions. Better to stand as a

tree, firmly rooted in your own values, principles, and

convictions. The two of us easily notice the difference

between a day in which we meditate and a day in which we

don’t. The benefits of meditation undoubtedly blossom with

years of practice, but they are also palpable on a day-to-day

basis. Maybe you don’t care for meditation, and a spiritual

practice holds no interest for you. Fair enough. But this

does not mean you should not be mindful of yourself.

Whether it is gardening, crafting, drawing, playing or

listening to music, exercising, meandering in the park, or

paddling down a river, identify what replenishes you and

your soul, and do it regularly and intentionally.

Our first responsibility is to notice how and when we are

depleted and to support ourselves. Our second

responsibility is to reaffirm and strengthen the

regenerative capacity we already display with family and

friends. But we cannot stop there. Our third responsibility

is to engage those beyond our innermost circle and, indeed,

nature itself.

In the natural world, the strictest interpretation of the

term regeneration is the self-generated healing process

that restores an organism’s injured bodily part from the

remaining healthy tissue. For instance, newts, lizards,

octopuses, and starfish have the capacity to regenerate lost

limbs or tails. In humans, adults can regenerate a damaged

liver to its original size after either partial removal or

injury. And all of us have witnessed the miracle of skin

repairing itself after a scrape or wound, sometimes leaving

no trace of the injury at all.

A broader interpretation of regeneration is the capacity

of a species or a biosystem to recover on its own, once

humans remove the pressure they had been exerting.

Whale populations and degraded lands are good examples.

Gray whales and humpbacks, once decimated by

nineteenth-century commercial whaling practices, have

now almost recuperated their numbers. The prohibition of

whaling shows that if we remove the extractive pressure,

animal populations have the ability to rebound (assuming of

course we have not driven them to extinction). The same is

true for ecosystems, as we can see in photos of ancient

ruins abandoned by humans that have been taken over by

the surrounding green growth. The recuperation of a

flourishing ecosystem around Chernobyl is a great

example. With humans gone, the plants started to grow

back, supporting worms and fungi that nourished the soil.

Birdsong is now abundant and even large mammals like

boars and bears have returned. If we remove the pressures

we have wielded, nature tends to return to health.

The converging crises of climate change, deforestation,

biodiversity loss, desertification, and acidification of the

oceans have taken us to the point where we can no longer

naïvely depend on the Earth’s natural resilience or capacity

to recuperate. While nature is innately restorative,

regeneration does not always occur completely on its own.

Right now, we have almost extinguished nature’s capacity

for self-renewal. In many cases, ecosystem restoration

requires intentional human intervention, such as rewilding,

by which we not only remove the destructive pressure of

grazing or unsustainable harvesting but also reintroduce

native animals and help nature bounce back, slowly

recuperating its rich biodiversity. Planting trees and shrubs

in degraded or deforested landscapes is an intentional

regenerative process that restores soil health, increases

productivity, and stabilizes underground aquifers. In one

well-known effort currently under way to reforest the

Scottish Highlands, researchers noticed that when the

trees were lost from the landscape, so were the fungi

normally found in the soil around them. It turns out that

mycorrhizal fungi are hugely beneficial for reforesting

degraded landscapes, and now a sprinkling of native

mushroom spores is added to the roots of new saplings as

they are planted to speed up and strengthen the revival of

the Great Caledonian Forest.

Coral farming, another fine example of intentional

regeneration, is the process whereby fragments of corals

are collected from local reefs, further broken up, raised in

nurseries where they mature much faster than in the open

sea, and then planted at the restoration site to regrow the

damaged reef. With the advent of innovative coral-farming

techniques, scientists will soon be able to launch large-

scale restoration efforts to revive the valuable coral reefs

that are at risk or already dead. Nature can restore itself,

but with intentional human help it has a better chance and

can speed up. With our support, regeneration can become

the predominant direction of the future evolution of this

planet.

We have brought our natural world to several perilous

brinks from which it may not be able to recover on its own.

It is like an elastic band that stretches and contracts

normally but if stretched too far will snap. Undoubtedly

regeneration of nature now needs to be intentional,

planned, and well executed at scale.

We will not recover everything. Many species are

already extinct and will not return, and some ecosystems

may already be damaged beyond their resilience threshold.

But fortunately we still have a relatively hardy natural

environment that responds positively to our care and

caring. Well-intentioned and well-planned regenerative

practices will restore our ecosystems, perhaps not to their

former state but to a new state of regained health with

enhanced resilience.

—

Let’s begin our regenerative mindset shift by

acknowledging and internalizing the simple fact that our

lives, our very physical survival, depend directly on nature.

Human beings cannot survive longer than a few minutes

without oxygen. The oxygen we breathe comes from the

photosynthetic processes of trees, grasses, and other plants

on land and of phytoplankton in the oceans. Every sip of

water we drink comes from rain, glaciers, lakes, and rivers.

Without land we would have no food to eat, no fruits,

vegetables, or grains, no cows, chickens, or sheep; and

without rivers and oceans, we would have no fish or

seafood to consume. Humans cannot survive for more than

a week without water or for three weeks without food.

Every breath we take, every drop of liquid we drink, and

every morsel of food we eat comes from nature and

connects us profoundly to it. It is a simple basic truth, yet

one we often tend to ignore or take for granted.

It is not only our immediate survival that depends on

functioning ecosystems. In large part our health, physical

and emotional, relies on having contact with the natural

world around us. This contact is under threat from rising

rates of urbanization and from time spent with our

electronic devices. Sedentary indoor life—often

characterized by limited natural light, poor air quality,

walled surroundings, and increasing screen time—leads not

only to obesity and loss of physical strength but also to

feelings of isolation and depression. This family of

symptoms has been broadly diagnosed as “nature-deficit

disorder.”1 Conversely, studies show a significant decrease

in mortality, stress, and illness for those who exercise and

spend time in the natural world. Nature-based play,

gardening, and access to natural landscapes heighten our

sense of well-being while sensitizing us to the ever-

changing light, weather, and seasons.

Reconnection to nature is a powerful antidote to anxiety

and stress, as well as a counter to physical illnesses. The

Japanese health system has developed the practice of

shinrin-yoku—literally, forest “bath” (not with water)—or

spending mindful time in the woods. It is beneficial for soul

and body as it boosts the immune system, lowers blood

pressure, aids sleep, improves mood, and increases

personal energy. It has become a cornerstone of preventive

health care and healing in Japan.

A growing number of pediatricians are prescribing more

unstructured time in nature for children to fight childhood

obesity while engendering a sense of wonder and love of

local wildlife, fauna, and special places. In fact, some

doctors argue that watching documentaries about

endangered species and faraway ecosystems cannot

substitute for personally caring for plants at home and

directly exploring the flights of butterflies, birds, and

dragonflies.

—

Public consciousness of our dependence on, and

interconnectedness with, the planetary life-support system

is growing, along with an increasing awareness of the need

to restore ecosystems and planetary health. Countless

efforts are under way around the world to plant trees,

protect mangroves and peatlands, reestablish wetlands,

and restore degraded lands via rain harvesting, perennial

grains, grasses, and agroforestry. But more is needed so

that these solutions can be taken to scale globally.

A regenerative mindset is most effective if pursued

intentionally and consistently. It is both a tough mental

discipline and a gentleness of spirit that needs to be

cultivated. It is about understanding that beyond getting

what we want and need from our fellow human beings, we

have the responsibility to replenish ourselves and to help

others to restore themselves to levels of greater energy and

insight. It is about understanding that beyond extracting

and harvesting what we need from nature, it is our

responsibility and in our enlightened self-interest to protect

life on this planet, indeed even enhance the planet’s life-

giving capacity. Personal and environmental goals are

interlinked, mutually reinforcing, and they both need our

attention.

A regenerative mindset bridges the gap between how

nature works (regeneration) and how we humans have

organized our lives (extraction).2 It allows us to “redesign

human presence on Earth”3 driven by human creativity,

problem solving, and fierce love of this planet.

Sir David Attenborough, one of the most renowned

naturalists of our time, has warned us that “the Garden of

Eden is no more.” We agree. That is why we now have to

create a Garden of Intention—a deliberately regenerative

Anthropocene.

Instead of strip-mined mountains, destroyed forests, and

depleted oceans, imagine millions of rewilding projects

covering over a billion hectares of forests, regenerating

wetlands and grasslands, and restoring coral farms in all

tropical oceans.

We will not have a regenerative Anthropocene by

default, but we can create it by design. With directional

intent, we can shift our aspirations from our current

extractive growth to a life-sustaining society of

regenerative values, principles, and practices.

We can ignite regenerative human cultures that seek to

ensure that humanity becomes a life-sustaining influence

on all ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. We will

need artists as well as policy experts, farmers as well as

leaders of industry, grandmothers as well as inventors, and

indigenous leaders as well as scientists.

We can choose regeneration as the overarching design

principle of our lives and our activities. We can restore the

resilience of the land and our communities while healing

our souls. Our corporate strategy meetings and family

reunions should be carbon neutral for sure, but beyond

that, they can include regenerative projects in which we

put our hands in the soil or in the water, together taking

actions that restore rather than degrade life on our planet.

We have to shift our action compass from self-centric to

nature-aligned. We have to filter every action through a

consequential stress test, and we have to be pretty radical

about it. When considering an action, we have to ask: Does

it actively contribute to humans and nature thriving

together as one integrated system on this planet? If yes,

green light. If not, red light. Period.

This is not a distant dream. It is already happening.

Together with renowned author Arundhati Roy, we can say,

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.

Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a

quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her

breathing.”

PART III

TEN ACTIONS

CHAPTER 8

Doing What Is Necessary

Toward the end of the first week of the Paris negotiations in

December 2015, we were working in Christiana’s office

when we heard a knock on the door.

Kevin O Hanlon, head of UN Security, came in. We had

all worked together for years, so the concern on his face

was easy to read.

“We found a bomb.”

It was the nightmare scenario we had been dreading.

Because of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, we had

allowed the security forces of the host country to assume

responsibility for the arrival and departure area of the UN

meeting grounds. By law, the location of a UN negotiation

meeting is considered extraterritorial for the duration of

the meeting, therefore not under the sovereignty of the

host country. But for COP21, we had transformed Le

Bourget Airport into a large conference center, and with

195 countries and 25,000 people in attendance, it was an

obvious potential target. We knew we needed help from

French law enforcement, especially the specialized French

antiterrorism police and their bomb-sniffing dogs.

Thirty thousand police officers had been deployed across

the country, and 238 security checkpoints had been set up.

Security was unprecedented. What we were attempting to

accomplish inside the UN grounds was unprecedented as

well. Now we were five days into the largest climate

change negotiations in UN history. The stakes were

enormous.

Kevin explained that the bomb had been found in a trash

bag in the transportation hub of the Le Bourget subway

station, the main train stop for our conference—every

single one of the 25,000 participants streamed through that

station all day long. Christiana’s two daughters used the

station at least twice a day. Tom had two children at home,

waiting for him to return. We looked at each other and saw

in each other’s eyes the scenes from three weeks earlier in

Paris and Saint-Denis. Broken glass. Blood. Dead bodies.

Family members weeping.

The bomb had been deactivated, but there was no way to

determine if there were more explosive devices in the area.

Everything hung in the balance. After years of

development, we finally had a draft text of a global climate

agreement. We had the long-term target of a net-zero

emissions economy, language to protect the vulnerable, and

even a ratchet mechanism to periodically deepen emission

reductions to try to keep the world to “well below 2

degrees Celsius” of temperature rise. These ambitious

goals were in the draft text but were not guaranteed to

survive many countries’ political pressure to remove them.

Plus, we wanted more. We wanted the agreement to put us

on a path to a 1.5-degree-Celsius maximum temperature

rise. A 2-degree world would result in up to three times as

much infrastructure destruction, biological destruction,

and life-threatening heat, hunger, and water scarcity. The

difference would save millions of lives and perhaps even

give low-lying islands and coastlines a chance of survival. If

we called off the conference, we didn’t know whether we

could ever achieve an agreement again—formidable

political obstacles remained, and the forces of resistance

were beginning to gather to prevent the world from

achieving what it needed to do.

This was our chance.

And now a decision was needed.

Should we close down the conference and with it the

chance for a global climate agreement, or should we keep it

open, with all the risk that this entailed? Christiana was no

stranger to making hard choices, but this wasn’t a choice a

mother should ever have to make.

All the risks, the fears, and the loss washed over us both

in that moment. It was a terrifying place to be, but we

couldn’t stay there long. We had to act—one way or

another.

—

You also have a choice ahead of you, and by now you

understand the risks.

The time you have to make that choice and act on it is

vanishingly small. We have discussed the mindset everyone

needs to cultivate in order to meet the global challenge of

the climate crisis, but on its own, this is not enough. For

change to become transformational, our change in mindset

must manifest in our actions.

There are ten necessary actions for the making of a

regenerative future, the future we hope you will choose.

Some may be familiar; others will be new. We have

considered not only the world we are trying to create but

also the risks inherent in the effort.

On one level, the big solution to the climate crisis is

blindingly obvious; we need to stop filling our atmosphere

with greenhouse gases. But in order to deliver on that goal,

we need to find myriad small solutions.

Greenhouse gases are emitted as a direct result of the

things humans do to survive, such as sourcing food and

getting around. Our ways of doing and being have become

so entangled with what is killing the planet that we cannot

feasibly just flip a switch and stop emitting greenhouse

gases.1 Consider the implications: if in an imaginary world,

we stopped using all fossil fuels in an instant, if we denied

people what they are used to—we would have a global

revolution in a matter of weeks if not days.

On the other hand, if governments do not do enough and

keep endangering the lives of young people and their

future children, a major uprising is also likely and perhaps

even already underway.2

We need transformational change at the speed that

science demands and in a manner consistent with

democracy—that is, if we do not wish to descend into

tyranny or anarchy. This point is critical. In the coming

decades, climate change will show up in larger and more

lethal ways, leading to more forced migrations, changes in

agricultural output, and more extreme weather.

Increasingly populist leaders will try to justify their actions

by claiming to protect the short-term interests of those they

govern. This could hinder attempts to deal with the root

causes of climate change, thereby worsening the crisis.

Even the most casual observers of today’s politics see that

this risk is not merely theoretical. A five-year drought in

Syria—the worst ever recorded—destroyed agriculture and

caused many rural families to migrate to cities. Large

numbers of refugees were already pouring in from the war

in Iraq, and the combined tensions gave rise to the civil war

and the atrocities committed by Bashar al-Assad. Then a

flow of refugees, largely from Syria, made their way to

Europe, where Chancellor Angela Merkel eventually

accepted many into Germany.3 This led to fundamental

changes in the German political system as the AfD

(Alternative for Germany), a far-right movement, jumped

from averaging 3 percent in the polls to 16 percent and is

now a major political force.4 This weakened Merkel, then

the de facto leader of the European Union, and it continues

to affect politics in Europe and beyond.

If we are to resist extremist politics as the effects of

climate change grow ever more critical, we will have to be

vastly better prepared than we are today. The ten action

areas we set out here attempt to portray not only how we

can reduce emissions but also how as a society we can

make ourselves more resilient to extremist movements that

could pull us back in the wrong direction.

The ten actions that we call for are not only about

moving beyond fossil fuels and investing in technological

solutions. They also call for a fairer economic system that

does not strain the social net even further. They call for

strong political engagement by everyone, and for

relinquishing nostalgia for a past that might be dangerous

to re-create. The additional pieces may feel remote from

the issue of climate change, but they are fundamental parts

of our response. We must reject the cycle of blame and

retribution and embrace the shared endeavor we so

desperately need. We cannot strain the social safety net

and continue to expand inequality, or else our democratic

systems will refuse to allow further changes to the

economy. We have to get our arms around the whole issue

at the same time.

What we will ask of you is significant. It is not simply

about making minor changes to your lifestyle, although

those can be important too; it is about transforming our

priorities in order to create a future in which all of us may

thrive. It will involve developing and utilizing the qualities

of mind we talked about in the previous section and using

them to take greater steps toward creating a new world.

None of us has complete control over which path the

world ultimately chooses to take and which future will be

ours. But each of us individually can engage in these ten

action areas, giving direction to the transformation toward

a regenerative world.

We are all weavers of the grand tapestry of history. As

we cast our minds back and consider those who lived at

moments of great consequence, we naturally feel that if we

had lived then, we would have been among those who made

the noble choices rather than those who stumbled along,

head down, changing nothing. Well, this is our chance.

Every one of the needed actions is something you can

personally achieve as a human being, even if that boils

down to urging others to take climate change seriously. Our

hope is that by the time you put this book down, you will

understand that you can make a significant difference.

We can no longer afford the indulgence of feeling

powerless.

We can no longer afford to assume that addressing

climate change is the sole responsibility of national or local

governments, or corporations or individuals. This is an

everyone-everywhere mission in which we all must

individually and collectively assume responsibility. You play

many roles in your life—parent, spouse, friend,

professional, person of faith, agnostic. You may have great

means or none at all. You may sit on the board of a

corporation or lead a city, province, or country. Whoever

you are, you are needed now in every one of your roles.

Changing our mindset is critical but does not suffice. We

invite you to dive into doing as soon as possible. Focus on

doing one or two of the ten actions at first. Choose the

areas that make the most sense for you, and then challenge

yourself to do more over time. Know that our discussion

can only point the way, shining a light on what we think is

critical at this unique moment, but all of us can do myriad

other things to make a difference.5 If you leave this book

with a commitment to be part of this journey, then you will

need to go beyond what we set out here.

You already know the end of our bomb story.

We had to do what was necessary, no matter the cost.

We knew the only way to truly protect our own children

was to courageously continue the work of protecting all

humanity and our planetary home. The metro station

stayed open. The conference proceeded. Taking this action

was not without risk, but neither of us regrets it. We hope

that, in ten years, we will be able to say the same about our

collective action.

The time for doing what we can has passed.

Each of us must now do what is necessary.

ACTION 1: Let Go of the Old World

To meet the challenges of the climate crisis and preserve

all that we hold dear; to retain democracy, social justice,

human rights, and other hard-won freedoms in the future,

we must part ways with that which threatens to destroy

them. Now is the time to make profound shifts in how we

live, work, and relate to each other. To be successful, we

need to make a series of intentional moves.

The first of these is to honor the past, then let it go.

Fossil fuels have given a huge boost to humanity’s

development, but their continued use is no longer

supportable because of the extraordinary damage they

cause to our health, our ecosystems, and our climate.

Viable alternatives are safer. Now is the time for us to

thank fossil fuels, retire them, and move on.

It is the same story for so many of the profound shifts we

need to make today. The building blocks of our current

society—energy, transportation, and agricultural systems,

which we now know to be harmful—must undergo radical

transformations.

We all find change difficult. We tend to cling to what we

know and resist what is new—even when the new brings

tremendous benefits. Opposition to onshore wind turbines

in the UK is a good example. Even though onshore wind is

now the cheapest form of energy6 (cheaper than coal, oil,

gas, and other renewable sources), rural landowners have

significantly resisted it, keen to preserve the appearance of

the countryside. When the Conservative Party (which

derives much of its support from these rural communities)

came to power in 2015, it slashed subsidies and changed

planning laws for onshore wind—leading to an 80 percent

reduction in new capacity.7 Only now, with climate change

awareness rapidly rising among the UK public, is support

for onshore wind starting to outweigh an attachment to

yesterday’s aesthetics.

Be mindful that some individuals and industries are

actively fighting the changes we need to make to achieve a

world that is only 1.5 degrees warmer. They are sowing

fear and uncertainty, sponsoring divisiveness, and seducing

us into an unconstructive blame game, all of which we

would do well to resist.

Change makes us vulnerable to tribalism and to the

illusion of certainty. In the transition to a regenerative

world, one of the biggest risks is that the political center

does not hold, and people succumb to the easy promises of

populist leaders at either end of the political spectrum.

History and early signs both suggest that this might be our

new reality, with the real potential to turn democracy into

tyranny. We cannot go back to the way of life that created

the climate emergency in the first place, but treading new

ground is politically challenging. The political shocks

currently reverberating across the world are just the start.

Change can also trigger blame. Some people who claim

to be on the right side of the climate change debate will

have a narrative laced with exclusion or blame. Blame is

already a powerful current in our relationship to climate

change—it is directed toward the developed world, the oil

industry, capitalism and corporations, particular countries,

and the older generation. Outrage is understandable,

particularly now that we know beyond a doubt that some

companies hid the truth about climate change for decades

in order to continue making money.8 In those cases, justice

and due process are called for and should certainly be

delivered.

But blame does not serve us. It creates a sense of

needed restitution but does not actually deliver it. Blame

can consume us and cause us to lose years of constructive

action. History shows very clearly that once humans start

pointing the finger of blame at each other, it can be hard to

stop. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Allied

powers humiliated Germany, forced her to accept full blame

for the war, and imposed crippling reparations payments.

Historians agree that that paved the way for the rise of

fascism and a second massive global conflict twenty years

later.9

Here’s what we can do to let go of the old world and

keep the worst of our impulses in check:

—

Focus on where you’re going, not on where you’ve been. Cultivate your

constructive vision for the future and hold on to it, come

what may. When you can see where you’re going, you won’t

be so afraid of losing your grip on the past.

—

Build resilience to nostalgia. Recognize and understand the inherent

impermanence of our world, and build a practice of

nonattachment. We can all be susceptible to a desire to re-

create the past. However, history teaches us that at

moments of profound change, our nostalgia can be used

against us. It can distract us from the urgent work ahead,

and political leaders may appeal to the past to manipulate

our emotions and secure our consent to act immorally.

—

Burst out of your bubble. We will not be able to make big changes

in our society without fully understanding and accepting

one another’s deeply held values and legitimate concerns.

Certain segments of our society may continue to resist

change for good reasons, and our failure to understand

them may set us all back. In 2018 French President

Emmanuel Macron tried to approach reducing emissions

and air pollution by increasing the fuel tax. But he failed to

bring everyone on board—those struggling to make ends

meet faced unacceptable increases in the cost of their

commutes. The result was a fury of protest, catching the

government completely off guard. And the French gilets

jaunes (“yellow jackets”) activists spectacularly forced

Macron to abandon his plan.10 Why do these disconnects

happen? Partly because we are becoming increasingly

divided by the type of media we consume. We tend to read

opinion pieces that reflect or support our own views,

reinforcing what we want to hear and already believe.

Cleverly programmed algorithms turbocharge that process

on the internet and social media.11

This means that often we have no idea what other people

deeply value or think.

Get offline and get to know your neighbors, people in the

grocery line, or fellow commuters. Challenge your own

assumptions, and be mindful of misinformation and

disinformation. Share your hopes and fears in person, listen

to others, and be honest and respectful.

—

In 1990, after spending twenty-seven years in prison,

Nelson Mandela was informed by President F. W. De Klerk

that he would be freed in less than twenty-four hours. The

following day Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison

and into history. He had to pass through a courtyard,

beyond which he would be a free man. As he later

recounted, he knew that if he did not forgive his captors

before he reached the outer wall, he never would. So he

forgave them. This did not mean that he forgot. The Truth

and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that he later

established played a remarkable role in helping post-

apartheid South Africa let go of its past. The TRC allowed

anyone who had been a victim of violence to be heard in a

formal setting. In addition, anyone who had perpetrated

violence could also give testimony and request amnesty

from prosecution. Mandela’s achievement and the process

he established greatly aided the transition from one state

to another very different one.

The past was relinquished, and the future finally had

room to emerge.

We too must let go of the fossil-fuel-dominated past

without recrimination. The process of letting go is

essential, and it must be intentional. The more work we do

to let go of the old world and walk with confidence into the

future, the stronger we’ll be for what lies ahead.

ACTION 2: Face Your Grief but Hold a Vision of the Future

The winters, springs, summers, and autumns, the rainy and

dry seasons that we remember will not be those that our

children and their children will enjoy. It’s rare today to find

someone over fifty who isn’t conscious that the weather

patterns that defined their childhoods are being quickly

and drastically altered. Glaciers and lakes are rapidly

retreating, and our oceans are choking in plastic.12 Ancient

bones and diseases are surfacing in the permafrost.13 As

our weather and landscapes change before our eyes, as

millennial signposts of natural rhythms disappear, our

understanding of the ways of the world is unraveling.

Things don’t make sense the way they used to.

We cannot hide from the grief that flows from the loss of

biodiversity and the impoverished lives of future

generations. We have to feel the full force of this new

reality in our bones. There is a power to consciously

bearing witness to all that is unfolding without turning

away, and counterintuitively, you may actually feel better

about the situation when you deeply accept the reality of it.

And beyond this, we also then need to look to the future

and set our sights on what we can still create. The changes

to come will be more disorienting than those we have

already experienced, and it will be easy to lose our footing

unless we can clearly see where we want to go. We need to

take responsibility for this reality by facing the uncertain

future with as much courage as we can muster. Doing so

requires us to understand why we must meet this moment

with energy and commitment.

For years, the countries of the world tried to reach a

global agreement on climate change. The effort became so

all-encompassing that the challenge being attempted began

to merge with the reason for doing it. The vision became

securing a global agreement. As powerful and important as

it was, the global agreement was actually a goal in service

of a vision. The vision was, and still is, a regenerative world

where humans and nature can thrive.

Confusing vision with goals is easy. A goal is a specific

target that we set on the way to achieving a vision. It

includes the strategies and tactics we use in moving toward

the vision. Goals are critical, but we also need a vision to

inspire the kind of commitment and energy we will need to

get through the difficult years ahead. If we don’t have a

vision, our goals alone may not afford us the flexibility

necessary to achieve the vision.

And if we lose sight of the big picture and become

fixated on how to achieve it, at best, progress can grind to

a halt, or worse, divisiveness can take hold.

However, for those eager to take action, fixating on the

vision can feel irresponsible and unconnected to reality.

When we are caught up in the issues of today—

communities decimated by increasingly violent weather

patterns; the unbridgeable chasm between the rich and the

poor; rapacious multinational companies focused on short-

term profits rather than long-term value; and political

leaders bent on driving divisions between nations (and

within nations)—having a vision can seem naïve and wishful

thinking. The distance between projecting a vision of a

better world and realizing it through concerted action can

sometimes seem unbridgeable.

Having a vision is essential, but we have to be open to

doing things in new ways. So hold on to your vision, but

remain flexible and adaptive about the route to get there.

The route may change based on circumstances, while the

vision remains a fixed North Star, a guide and a

destination.

—

Start with why. You do not have to believe your vision is likely to

be achieved, or that the struggle to achieve it is going well,

to keep pursuing it.

Pondering the different scenarios presented at the

beginning of this book, you may conclude that we cannot

turn this ship around in time, that we are going to crash,

and that our vision is unattainable. That thought is not

irrational. What would be irrational is to imagine that the

reasons for building a better future are therefore

diminished. Stubborn optimism needs to motivate you

daily; you always need to bear in mind why you feel the

future is worth fighting for. The essential “why” should be

the driving force of all efforts to combat climate change no

matter what.

—

Imagination is essential. Ideologies and ways of organizing this

world can seem very ingrained, but they are subject to

major disruption more easily than you think. It took

Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragette movement slightly

more than a decade to force the British government to give

women the right to vote.14 The Soviet Union seemed so

solid as to be eternal, but once cracks started to appear,

the edifice crumbled in just a few months.15

In 1939 General Motors presented visitors to the World’s

Fair in New York City with an imaginative vision of what

the future could look like. It was called Futurama and

consisted of an enormous model of multiple high-rise

buildings, vast suburbs, and large motorways for travel

between them, necessitating the use of cars.16

Imagination is going to be critical as we work to

transform today’s urban sprawl to make it fit for the future.

Some futurists have predicted that in the course of a

decade, the rise of the autonomous, shared, on-demand

electric car means we will need 80 percent fewer cars on

the roads than we do now.17 This will free up huge areas of

urban space that are currently used as parking lots.

In London, for instance, it could mean that 70 percent of

the space currently used for parking cars, or the equivalent

of about five thousand sports fields, could become available

for growing food, rewilding, or building sustainable

housing.18

Much of what we imagine to be permanent is more

ephemeral than we realize. Sometimes imagination can

seem naïve, but don’t belittle thinking big. Time and again

societies have turned seeming fantasies into realities when

circumstances require something new.

—

Keep your eyes on what’s to come. There will be times when we feel

we are failing. However much we progress, we will see

some deterioration in our environment and our society.

Heartbreakingly, people will die as a result of climate

change, land that people live on will become uninhabitable,

and species will continue to become extinct—all causes for

real grief, and grieving is needed. Give adequate time and

space for that necessary mourning, and seek support from

your communities—both are extremely important. We

cannot and should not turn away from the pain, but that

heartbreak should spur us on to greater action rather than

sink us into a pit of blame, despair, or hopelessness.

As Maya Angelou said so eloquently: “You may

encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In

fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you

can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you

can still come out of it.”19

A compelling vision is like a hook in the future. It

connects you to the pockets of possibility that are emerging

and helps you pull them into the present. Hold on to that.

Stay firmly fixed to a vision of a world you know is possible.

This act is radical resistance to the belief that solving our

problems is beyond us.

When Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the steps of the

Lincoln Memorial in August 1963, the outlook for race

relations in the United States was grim. Just months earlier,

Alabama governor George Wallace had stood outside the

Alabama state capitol and declared, “Segregation now,

segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” To enforce

segregation, police unleashed dogs and water cannons on

protesters, even on children as young as six. Even those

who supported civil rights felt that change was too far off

and the campaign was hopeless. Given that context, King’s

words about having a dream were like a light in darkness.

He didn’t know how it was going to happen, but he held

tight to his vision of a society in which people were treated

equally regardless of their race. The following year his

persistence led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and

his vision lived on after his death, inspiring equal rights

movements across the world and embedding nonviolent

protest as a cornerstone of political protest movements.20

A world that has become richer in the active use of

vision and imagination is a much more vibrant, inspiring,

and joyful place. In these complex times, we often lament

the lack of global leaders who can show us the way and

help guide us. Those people are important, but we must all

believe that the world is worth saving and a regenerative

future is utterly possible. In the end, we are not going to

solve this problem by hoping that our democratic systems

produce enlightened leadership. They might, but the

survival of our species can’t depend on the partisan lines of

a divided electorate. Instead, we must all embrace a strong

vision of a better future.

ACTION 3: Defend the Truth

Three centuries ago Jonathan Swift wrote, “Falsehood flies,

and truth comes limping after it.”21 How prophetic this

turned out to be. A recent analysis by MIT shows that on

Twitter lies spread on average six times faster than truth,

and that truth never reaches the same level of

penetration.22 Social media is an engine for the production

and dissemination of lies.

This fact has serious consequences for our society and in

particular for our ability to come together to deal with

complicated long-term threats like the climate crisis. In this

“post-truth era,” the undermining of science now has

currency.

The fabric of the scientific method is fraying. Objectivity

is under attack. Some political leaders have chosen to part

company with objective reality. The rise of social media has

afforded these leaders ample opportunity to obscure facts.

This move toward subjectivity creates a breeding ground

for oppression and tyranny. We all have an urgent

responsibility to recognize and defend such an attack on

truth because if it persists, our small window of opportunity

to turn back the tide on the climate crisis will be lost

forever.

In no period of history did leaders ever speak the truth

at all times, but right now an altogether different level of

lying is evident in the political arena.

Humans are vulnerable to the post-truth world for a

reason. Our natural inclination seems to be to seek

confirmation of things we already believe to be true, rather

than evidence for an objective reality.23

It feels good to have our beliefs confirmed, and we

respond with positive emotion to anyone who makes us feel

this way. Thus, if a leader affirms our belief that vaccines

cause autism, or that climate change is a hoax, or that

anything else that we feel to be true is true, then we get a

frisson of positive emotion. This well-documented and -

researched phenomenon is called confirmation bias.24

Climate change will result in disasters, lots of them:

inundations of major cities, loss of islands, a rising tide of

migration. At these moments of extreme vulnerability,

leaders with authoritarian instincts will want to seize the

chance to consolidate their power. Populist authoritarian

rulers will not seek to address the complex climate crisis

with long-term solutions; instead they will find someone to

blame. We cannot allow them to use the coming disasters to

exacerbate tragedy to the detriment of us all.

Here’s what we can do to defend the truth:

—

Free your mind. In the end, you are responsible for what you

choose to believe in a post-truth world. Make no mistake,

this problem is not ancillary to the climate crisis. If we

can’t agree on something as basic as a verified fact, our

hands will be tied when it comes to the big stuff, and

climate change is huge.

The reality of climate change is finally provoking

genuine public anger, spurring people onto the streets. Our

democratic systems cannot resist our voices for long,

provided we can maintain the basis of objective truth

within our societies. We must consciously enter into a state

of self-reflection, questioning whether we are making a

conscious choice to adhere only to information that does

not challenge our position. For example, the fact that you

are reading this book might be an instance of your own

confirmation bias. Pay attention to your own eagerness to

believe political leaders you agree with and to disbelieve

those with whom you don’t. Fight to force your mind down

avenues and ways of thinking that you are unused to.

Thinking outside established patterns is a radical act for

preserving our collective freedom. Get good at it.

—

Learn to distinguish between real science and pseudoscience. In 2017, the

Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank funded in

part by the Mercer Family Foundation, sent beautifully

produced textbooks on climate science to three hundred

thousand schoolteachers across the United States. The

book, originally targeting policy makers and published in

2015 to coincide with the Paris negotiations, was titled Why

Scientists Disagree About Global Warming and began with

this statement: “Probably the most widely repeated claim in

the debate over global warming is that ‘97% of scientists

agree’ that climate change is man-made and dangerous.

This claim is not only false, but its presence in the debate is

an insult to science.” This textbook, authored by

“distinguished climate scientists,” was sent to teachers,

with a letter urging them to use the book and its

accompanying DVD in their classrooms. The Heartland

Institute, which promotes denial of established climate

science, encouraged people to “seek out advice from

independent, non governmental organizations and

scientists who are free of financial and political conflicts of

interest” rather than relying on the UN Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for scientific advice.

It would have been extremely difficult for some

recipients of that book to determine whether this was real

science or bunk, and whether the authors were indeed

distinguished climate scientists. In fact, one author was

formerly director of environmental science at Peabody

Energy (a coal company that went bankrupt). That author

has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in geography, not

climate science. One of his credits is that he is the lead

author of the reports of the Nongovernmental International

Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). Note the striking and

confusing similarity of that name to the UN-backed IPCC.

The NIPCC is actually a project sponsored by the Heartland

Institute. Many teachers immediately saw the textbook as

the unscientific propaganda it was, but those who didn’t

and used it in their classrooms had a lasting impact on

their students.

This story teaches us a good lesson: even when a

document looks “official,” is beautifully produced, and is

authored by real scientists, we should approach its

contents with caution. It is essential that you make the

extra effort to determine whether you are basing your

opinions on fact or fiction. Check where your information

comes from. If necessary, follow the money. Determine the

source of the funding for the research in question, be it a

climate science statement, report, or article. See if the

research is accredited by an established university or other

well-known academic body. The simplest way to do this is to

find out if the study was “peer reviewed,” meaning

reviewed and evaluated by other experts in the field. For

example, the IPCC report on 1.5 degrees Celsius, released

in October 2018, was a collaboration of ninety-one authors

and review editors from forty different countries. Most

mainstream newspapers will have an editorial policy to

ensure that sources are either peer reviewed or have

similar criteria for reliability, but it is always worth

checking.

—

Don’t give up on climate deniers. As we enter the post-truth world

more fully, the fault line between a desire for truth and an

adherence to ideology runs closer to each of us. Some of us

may have a natural inclination for one point of view but a

deeper desire for truth, whereas others will exhibit a

slavish adherence to one perspective, whatever the facts.

In fact, those at the latter extreme have left the arena in

which facts make a difference. Many people are now

experiencing this even within their own families. Facts

aren’t enough to change the mind of a climate denier, so

presenting statistics and sources won’t help. If you reach

them, it will be because you sincerely listened to them and

strove to understand their concerns. By giving care, love,

and attention to every individual, we can counter the forces

pulling us apart.

—

For people who came of age between the fall of the Berlin

Wall and the fall of the Twin Towers, today’s world can

indeed appear strange. Those days were marked by a

general consensus about how humanity should advance.

Some may now wish for that simpler time, making us

vulnerable to the promises of leaders who would take us

back instead of focusing on what lies ahead.

The future will be different, it will be complex, and the

genie of social media can’t be put back in the bottle. There

is no getting away from the fact that humanity needs to

come to grips with the truth if it wishes to contain a

monster of its own creation. If we wish to come together to

address the climate crisis, and halt the rapidly accelerating

extinctions that are now taking place in greater and

greater numbers, we need to accept our responsibility to

always defend the incontrovertible truths of climate change

and their consequences. We are all responsible for what we

hold to be true and for defending that truth against attack.

We will succeed by applying a thoroughly critical approach

to the information that shapes our ideas, opinions, and

actions. We will succeed by calling out falsehoods,

particularly those that may determine how we act on

climate change. Once this becomes a habit, once we

become better practiced at determining what is real, the

fog of misinformation that we are currently cloaked in and

the daily distractions vying for our attention will be easier

to navigate. When we work this way to defend and advance

a fact-based reality, the view of the regenerative future we

want, and the path we will travel to get there, will come

more sharply into focus.

ACTION 4: See Yourself as a Citizen—Not as a Consumer

The South Indian monkey trap is an ingenious but cruel

device. It consists of a coconut staked to the ground with a

hole in it and a ball of sweet rice inside. A monkey

approaches and fits his hand through the hole to grasp the

rice he can smell inside. However, the hole is not large

enough for his clenched fist to pass back through. His

instinct is to keep his hand clasped over the ball of rice, so

he is trapped by his instinct, not by anything physical: if he

would let go of the rice, he would be free.

Such is our relationship with consumption (purchasing,

using, and throwing away): we know it is trapping us, but it

has become so embedded in our psyche—to the point of

being almost instinctive—that we cannot let go.

Much of what we buy is intended to enhance our sense

of identity. Particular brands of clothes, soap, cookies,

televisions, and cars are designed with a tribe in mind,

their attributes carefully cultivated by the consumer goods

companies that sell the products. Identity and consumption

keep moving closer together. In the UK, for example, the

average person consumes more than sixty-five pounds of

clothes every year, equivalent to about five loads of

laundry.25 These purchases are driven mainly by the fact

that fashion trends change each season. These cycles, by

their very nature, require us to clear out our closets

regularly and hop back in line for more clothes.

But the fashion industry has an enormous carbon

footprint. Textile production is second only to the oil

industry for pollution. It adds more greenhouse gases to

our atmosphere than all international flights and maritime

shipping combined. Estimates suggest that the fashion

industry is responsible for a whopping 10 percent of global

CO2 emissions,26 and as we increase our consumption of

fast fashion, the related emissions are set to grow rapidly.

Our engines of economic growth depend on us

continuing to spend money. In the 1920s, some Americans

were concerned that a new generation was emerging that

had satisfied its needs—and that would lead to a drag on

growth. President Herbert Hoover’s Committee on Recent

Economic Change in 1929 concluded that advertising was

necessary to create “new wants that will make way for

endlessly newer wants as fast as they are satisfied.”27

Today consumer goods companies spend a great deal of

money to make sure we remain stuck in the consumption

cycle. Their marketing and advertising budgets are

enormous. In the United States, the price of one thirty-

second advertisement during the Super Bowl—one of the

most-watched sporting events on television—was more than

$5 million in 2019.28 Amazon, the online marketplace,

raked in an extraordinary $10 billion in revenue from

advertising sales in 2018 alone.29 Every year more than

$550 billion is spent on advertising in a world of

consumption and fast consumerism.30

What is more, billions of products are intentionally

designed to become obsolete, fueling even more economic

growth as we strive to replace them. Single-use plastics are

the epitome of that, but obsolescence—the process of

becoming outdated and discarded—is designed into almost

all consumer goods. Warranties for certain products rarely

go beyond three years because the product is likely to

break after that period. And often a new item costs less

than the replacement part. New software updates won’t

install on old computers, meaning those too must be

replaced. The list is endless and depressing. As a result, the

practice of mending, repairing, and restoring is becoming a

dying art.

In the global economy, supply chains often reach across

the world and back again. Each link represents a different

production stage, often performed by a different company,

from the mining of precious metals in Bolivia for your

smartphone to the packaging of the final product in China.

As a result, it is hard to know which parts of the supply

chains of major corporations practice sustainability and

which contribute to climate change.

Here’s what you can do.

—

Reclaim your idea of a good life. Consumerism is the prevailing

definition of a good life: you are in perpetual pursuit of the

almighty upgrade, whether it is to your phone, your

clothes, or your car. But rather than meeting our needs,

buying things in order to achieve a sense of satisfaction or

belonging can become addictive and lead to self-doubt and

confusion about our very identity and life direction.31

Identifying as a consumer—of any particular type of

product or brand—implies passivity, and it also implies that

consuming that product meets our needs.

Consumerism traps us into thinking we can purchase

personality. Moreover, it eats up our mental space and

creates a constricted view of the world, one in which our

value and identity are built upon the proliferation of

disposable waste. Psychological studies have shown that

mass consumption creates a bigger and bigger hole in our

lives that we keep trying to fill.32 As we consciously or

unconsciously attempt to consolidate our sense of identity

through curated buying habits, we drive the engine of mass

consumption faster and faster, bringing ourselves ever

closer to the edge of disaster.

Despite all the ways culture is pushing us in the

direction of blind consumerism, we can start to

intentionally push back. We can develop the mental

discipline to resist the imperatives of consumerism. We can

change our consumption habits and vote with our money

for products that are sustainable.

Further, we can change the way we identify as

consumers, to reboot our relationship with materialism.

Freeing ourselves from the influence of advertising can be

a liberating experience and a radical political act.

—

Become a better consumer. In the short term, we can improve

matters by changing our consumption patterns within the

system. Not all purchases are equal. Buying high-quality

clothes made from organic cotton that will last and be

handed down is different from buying cheap, disposable

items that end up in a landfill after a few weeks of wear. If

you have the option of voting with your money, make more

educated decisions about the products you do need to buy.

Buy from companies that are public about their values,

have made commitments to sustainability, and are part of

organizations that certify they are following through on

their pledges. The impact will be significant.

Vote with your money. Most important, eliminate waste.

Apply the old-fashioned adage of reduce, reuse, recycle.

When we need to buy things, our choices should be

informed and enlightened.

—

Dematerialize. Consider how we made the change from vinyl,

cassette tapes, and CDs to downloading or streaming

music. Technology in many instances now allows us to do

without material objects while still enjoying the services

that they provide. Less can be more. In the near future,

even individual ownership of cars may cease to exist as the

dominant paradigm—the transportation we need might be

offered by shared vehicles, probably self-driving and

certainly electric.33 One day consumers may come to define

themselves not as owners of products but as beneficiaries

of systems of service delivery. Already the world’s largest

provider of overnight accommodation (Airbnb) owns no

buildings. The world’s largest provider of personal

transport (Uber) owns no cars.34 This shift from ownership

to stewardship will fundamentally change our relationship

to consumerism. We can help accelerate it by engaging

with it and welcoming it with open arms.

—

The story of the happy fisherman, first made popular by

Paulo Coelho, has several versions. A content fisherman is

relaxing on the beach in his little village after catching a

few big fish. A businessman walks past, notices the bounty,

and asks the fisherman how long it took to catch all those

big fish. Not very long, says the fisherman. The

businessman asks why then, if it didn’t take long, the

fisherman doesn’t spend more time at sea, so as to catch

more fish. The fisherman replies that the fish he caught are

enough to feed his whole family, and that when he finishes

with his catch, he can go home to play with his children,

take a nap with his wife, then join his friends for drinks and

music making in the evening.

The businessman suggests to the fisherman that he

could lend him some money to be more successful. Then

the fisherman can spend more time at sea and buy a bigger

boat to catch lots more fish that he could sell to make more

money. He can then invest the money in more boats and set

up a big fishing company. Over time the fishing company

can go public on the stock exchange and make the

fisherman millions.

“And then what?” asks the fisherman.

The businessman proudly explains that then the

fisherman can retire. He can finally enjoy spending his days

as he wishes: catching a few fish in the morning, spending

time playing with his children, taking an afternoon nap

with his wife, and joining his friends for drinks and music

making in the evenings.

It has been said that the most important things in life are

not things. If, like Coelho’s fisherman, we can learn to

recognize what is enough, we might also move beyond the

mindset of consumption and ownership, consciously

avoiding the forces that feed that mindset. We can begin to

appreciate that with a different approach to life, our

capacity for happiness will increase and that our drain on

the planet will dramatically slow down.

ACTION 5: Move Beyond Fossil Fuels

The assumption that we will always need fossil fuels comes

from mental attachment to the past. In order to move

beyond fossil fuels, we must let go of the conviction that

they are necessary for humanity to thrive in the future.

Only when this mindset is challenged can we migrate our

thinking, finances, and infrastructure to the new energies.

Fossil fuel companies are deliberately slowing the

transition. As providers of these still plentiful and potent

energy sources, these companies have power that has

grown exponentially, and now their influence is deep and

wide.

Many businesses continue to invest heavily in lobbying

to water down new regulations that would help shift the

economy beyond fossil fuels.35 Some individuals in senior

leadership positions, however, wish to address the issue

and transform their businesses. That desire is sincere—we

know this firsthand. But they are in a tough spot: if they

shift their companies too far and too fast, they destabilize

their business model, and investors will punish them. If

they delay the shift too long, the value of their company

may crumble. Several are playing the dangerous waiting

game to be the “last one out,” continuing to derive income

from the market space left by companies that are leaving

fossil fuels behind.

Almost all governments are still subsidizing fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel industry may dispute it, but it receives huge

government handouts. Globally, governments spend about

$600 billion every year keeping prices of fossil fuels

artificially low.36 That’s around three times as much as

subsidies provided for renewable energy.37 Governments

may claim their administrations support renewable energy,

but until they stop subsidizing fossil fuels, our progress will

stall.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England,

famously said that unless we make a smooth transition

from today’s fossil-fuel-based economy to the fully

decarbonized economy we need in the future, at some point

there will be a “jump to distress,”38 meaning that high-

carbon assets will suddenly drop in value by a large

percentage. Carney urged us to avoid that at all costs.

When you think about how much of our economy is built on

a foundation of fossil fuels, his prediction comes as no

surprise. Entire industries, companies, and governments

could go bankrupt or lose a lot of value very suddenly if we

delay transition to the point of crisis.

If we allow a jump to distress to happen, it will affect all

of us. Governments rely on tax receipts from fossil fuels to

finance their services. Many pensions are invested in fossil

fuels and in companies reliant on them. The systemic

nature of the financial services system means that if a

major drop in value occurs, it will quickly affect lots of

other, seemingly unrelated entities. Such a jump to distress

could make the financial crisis of 2008 pale in comparison.

Given all this, the urgent shift from fossil fuels must

happen in a planned and measured way and not as the

result of panic. In 2017, heads of central banks came

together to establish the Network for Greening the

Financial System (NGFS) and are now united in their

efforts to be vigilant of the impacts of climate change on

global monetary stability.39

A growing body of financial research and information

about how countries and companies are likely to perform in

a future that is fundamentally different from the past is

helping investors understand the risk. For example,

Moody’s rating agency (one of the highly influential

agencies that assess risks to companies and countries) now

has a controlling stake in RiskFirst, a firm that measures

the physical risks of climate change.40 Investors are

reallocating capital away from what are now commonly

known as “stranded assets.” That reallocation is moving

markets and catching the attention of corporate leaders,

but it needs to go much further, much faster.

—

Stand up for 100 percent renewable energy. In the past few years, energy

generation from renewable sources has undergone an

impressive surge. We are currently on track to supply 30

percent of power demand in 2023 from renewables, and 50

percent by 2030.41 Corporations are taking the lead.

Almost two hundred companies, including well-known ones

such as Apple, IKEA, Bank of America, Danone, eBay,

Google, Mars, Nike, and Walmart, have already shifted to

100 percent renewables as sources of electricity or are on

their way to doing so.42 Seventy-five percent of people in

Europe and North America support government taking

strong action for electricity to be generated by 100 percent

renewable power.43 To become our new reality, renewable

power will have to be delivered at the systemic level by

leaders in political and institutional situations of authority.

Those leaders represent the priorities of the people who

elect them, so let’s vote for leaders who advocate clean

energy.

If those in positions of power and influence today expect

to be remembered as loyal public servants, responsible for

representing the people, then they must look to the future

with clearer vision. We should reward with our votes only

the leaders who step forward with genuine insight.

We can do this with real confidence, because solar and

wind power have developed at a speed and scale that few

believed possible just a few years ago. With a 90 percent

drop in costs for solar panels in the past decade,

renewables now compete with coal on price alone in most

places around the world, and increasingly with gas as

well.44 A similar story is unfolding for both onshore and

offshore wind energy production. The storage solutions

required to smooth out energy from solar and wind are also

rapidly evolving to become economically viable.

As costs have dropped, innovators are reimagining how

energy grids of the future will operate. Far more intelligent

and interconnected grids are emerging.

—

Make a time-bound, ambitious plan. We have ten years to cut our

global emissions in half and another twenty years after

that, at maximum, to get them to net zero. Corporations

and countries have great responsibility for leading the

charge, but we can all play our part by reducing our own

personal emissions. If we think clearly and act when we

need to, this is enough time.45 The 50 percent reduction

necessary over the next ten years is where we must now

focus our attention. That is a global figure, but the number

can be averaged out in this way: those of us who have been

using far more than our share should reduce our emissions

more than 50 percent. Let’s aim for a minimum of 60

percent, knowing that we humans tend to overestimate

what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we

can achieve in ten.

What would your life look like in ten years if you were

using at least 60 percent less fossil fuel than you are now?

Most of your current emissions probably come from flying,

driving, and heating and cooling your house. The key

culprits tend to be expensive items that we can’t easily

abandon, such as cars, boilers, and air conditioners. Once

you have bought a car, you will use it, and while you may

try to use it less, there is a limit to what you can achieve.

Consider shifting to an electric vehicle within the next ten

years. The increased efficiency and range of electric

vehicles, combined with price drops and innovative

financing models, are putting them within the reach of

more and more of us. Even midrange models are now

capable of driving 150 miles in one stretch, and charging

stations are more abundant than ever before.46 Others may

consider moving beyond the car, and even away from car

ownership, a possibility that is becoming increasingly

viable.

As for heating and cooling your house, you should aspire

to buy renewable electricity through the grid and to

generate more at home. Improving insulation and switching

to electric heating all at once may seem daunting. Take one

step at a time. Start by performing an energy audit in your

home to identify energy leakages and inefficiencies. This

will help you to prioritize your energy upgrade investments.

You can do the cheaper energy improvements first, then

plan phased investments over a few years when, say, a

boiler would have to be replaced anyway. Over time you

will save money and reduce emissions.

Reducing flying is likely to have the biggest impact if you

live in a wealthy country. Much of what is wonderful about

the world has come from the fact that we can visit different

parts of it, have cultural exchanges, and see amazing

places. It is an unbelievable privilege for those who are

able to afford it to get on a plane in one part of the world

and get off, ten hours later, on the other side. If you enjoy

travel adventures, take business trips, or visit family

abroad, you will not find it easy to give up flying.

Only 6 percent of the world’s population has ever set

foot on a plane.47 If you are among them, it is incumbent

upon you to take a stance and make a plan. You might

decide never to set foot on a plane again, and if you do, we

applaud and celebrate you. But in reality, that may not be

possible for you today, but you can still make a

contribution. You can commit to not flying for holidays, or

to taking the train to places within, say, five hundred miles

of your home. You might commit to taking only a certain

number of flights per year, or to taking meetings via

videoconferencing.

However you approach it, air transportation is one of the

critical issues we are going to have to grapple with on the

path to a 60 percent reduction by 2030. Neither it nor the

other changes discussed here have to be frightening. When

people consider such lifestyle changes, they can become

alarmed and feel that something precious is being taken

from them. However the opposite is the case. While we may

resist change, the reality is that the speed, scale, and

reckless use of resources in our wasteful economy are

making few of us happy. As we focus on making thoughtful

changes to help preserve what we really care about, finding

a sense of purpose often improves our quality of life. Try it

for yourself, and see what you find.

ACTION 6: Reforest the Earth

The future we must choose will require us to pay more

attention to our bond with nature. Ancient stands of trees

teeming with life are integral to our survival. Extracting

more and more output from increasingly depleted and

exhausted soil is a formula for our own destruction. If we

want to thrive over the long term, we need to find the

sweet spot of working to regenerate nature for its own

benefit and ours, and drawing from it only what we need to

support our lives. Achieving this balance on a global scale

is still possible. We can be the generation to achieve it.

Forests create the conditions for forests, in a self-

sustaining system. They give up moisture to the sky, which

creates clouds and rain, moving water back to all parts of

the forest. Microscopic fungi in vast underground networks

of mycelia stretch between trees across thousands of miles

and connect them, sharing nutrients. Soils build up and

create the rich foundation for future generations of trees.

This symbiotic interplay makes a forest vulnerable,

however. If we destroy enough of it, or fragment it, thereby

hindering its interconnectedness, the whole system can

collapse. We will lose the great forests of this Earth the

way, in an old saying, people go bankrupt: first very slowly,

and then very fast.

Since the dawn of agriculture, humans have cut down

approximately 3 trillion trees, or half the trees on Earth. As

a result, almost half the land on our planet has been

severely degraded from its natural state. In 2018 alone, 12

million hectares of forest—equivalent to thirty football

fields a minute—were razed, a third of which was pristine

primary rain forest.48 If we carry on in the same vein, we

will destroy everything that is left of our forests within a

very few short decades. Even if we avert this fate,

generations to come will wonder in astonishment at how

close we came and how mindlessly we almost threw the

forests away.

Almost all tropical deforestation is driven by demand for

four commodities: beef, soy, palm oil, and wood. Beef cattle

are responsible for more than double the deforestation of

the other three combined. In the Amazon, providing land

for beef cattle to graze on is directly responsible for more

than 80 percent of the deforestation.49 In addition, much of

the soy is used as feedstock for chickens, pigs, and cattle.

This situation is bad and about to get worse, with Brazil

lifting previous forest-protecting policies,50 and China now

massively increasing its meat and dairy consumption.51

Industrial agriculture and the food industry, which often

prioritize profitable food over nutritious food, are almost as

big a driver of climate change as fossil fuels. Yet much of

the food produced is never eaten. It doesn’t even

necessarily get to the people who need it. In the Global

South, a lack of roads and storage facilities means that food

often rots before it gets to people, and even if it does reach

them in time, they might not have the money to buy it. In

the Global North, food languishes in home and store

refrigerators until well past its use-by date, or it is left

uneaten on the plate at the end of a meal and then thrown

away. Such waste then drives greater food production.

We can achieve food security for all. At least two

distinguished ecologists have calculated we could feed the

world adequately by making selective improvements in

agricultural productivity, sharply reducing food waste, and

changing our diets,52 which health experts recommend

anyway.53 We can do all these things without destroying

another square inch of nature.

—

Plant trees. Vast land areas around the world are potentially

available for reforestation and tree planting. One study

found that 900 million hectares, about the size of the entire

United States, are available for reforestation without

interfering with either human habitation or agriculture.54

Once new forests were mature, they would absorb and

store 205 billion tons of carbon, while supporting

biodiversity and making the planet more beautiful. That

equates to absorption of nearly 70 percent of all the CO2

released into the atmosphere since the Industrial

Revolution.

In addressing climate change, few actions are as critical,

as urgent, or as simple as planting trees. This ancient

carbon-absorbing technology needs no high technology, is

completely safe, and is very cheap. It literally reverses the

process that has led to climate change, in that as trees (and

all other biomasses) grow, they absorb CO2 from the air,

release oxygen, and return carbon to its rightful location: in

the soil. In addition, trees provide coveted green areas in

cities, reduce ambient temperature, may produce food, and

stabilize aquifers in rural and suburban areas.

Unfortunately, over the past five to ten years, we have

come to think of planting trees and reforesting as a

penance we must pay for the sin of emitting greenhouse

gases, or worse yet, as a pretended benefit that hides the

reality of emissions. “Offsetting” has developed a bad

reputation among some environmentalists. It is time to

correct this mistake. Every single one of us should plant

one tree, ten trees, or twenty. Don’t even think of it as an

offset—in itself it is a critically important contribution to

addressing climate change now, without the need for

sophisticated energy technologies. Those will be developed,

but even when we count on them, we will still need to

absorb carbon out of the air to reach net-zero emissions.

In short, we could return the climate to how it was

decades ago just by planting trees.55

Massive reforestation and restoration provide real

benefits for people. In China in the 1990s, vast areas of

land began to resemble the Dust Bowl of the American

Midwest, but China was able to halt this rapid degradation.

Programs were established to reforest 100 million hectares

by paying farmers directly to plant trees. The program is

ongoing and highly successful. It has resulted in more

stable rainfall, more fertile soil, and increased production

from farmland.56 Ethiopia, having diminished its forest

cover to a mere 4 percent of its territory, undertook a

record-breaking campaign by planting 350 million trees at

one thousand sites across the country, most of which were

planted in a single day.57 Not all of them will survive, but

those that do will make an important contribution.

The benefits of planting trees are not limited to rural or

agricultural areas. Trees will cool a city by up to 50

degrees Fahrenheit.58 That amount can make up for the

significant additional heat that cities will have to endure

under any climate scenario, and as cities in India are

already reaching temperatures in excess of 122 degrees

Fahrenheit, it could mean the difference between life and

death for millions of people. Trees also clean the air in

cities by filtering fine particulate matter and absorbing

pollutants. They regulate water flow, buffer flooding and

increase urban biodiversity. Their impact is so pronounced

that urban properties surrounded by trees are worth an

average of 20 percent more than those that are not.59 If we

are to make the transition to urban living that is needed to

provide space for nature to thrive, we need to bring nature

into cities and integrate it as never before.

—

Let nature flourish. The term rewilding has been coined to

describe the growing practice of allowing land to return to

its natural processes. Rewilding has the potential to

radically change the carbon balance of the atmosphere and

to preserve the web of life. Multiple large- and small-scale

rewilding initiatives are already taking place all over the

world. An excellent example is the Knepp Wildland Project

in West Sussex, England. In 2001, the project obtained

more than 3,500 acres of land that had been farmed

intensively since World War II. The land was severely

degraded, and the farm had rarely made a profit. Knepp

Wildland’s ethos is to allow natural processes to play out

rather than aiming for any particular goals or outcomes.

Free-roaming grazing animals—cattle, ponies, pigs, and

deer—drive this process-led regeneration, acting as proxies

for herbivores that would have grazed the land thousands

of years ago. Their different grazing preferences create a

mosaic of habitats from grassland and scrub to open-grown

trees and wood pasture. These animals need minimal

intervention. At low cost, they provide wild-range, slow-

grown, pasture-fed organic meat for which the market is

growing. In just over a decade, Knepp has seen astonishing

results in biodiversity. It is now a breeding hotspot for

purple emperor butterflies, turtle doves, and 2 percent of

the UK’s population of nightingales.

—

Go plant-based. If you eat less meat and dairy, your carbon

footprint will decrease, and your health will improve.

Eating less meat and dairy is better, and eating none at all

is best. While this may feel like a stretch for most of us, for

the vast majority of human history we ate very little meat.60

Many countries are already shifting toward plant-based

diets. Even if you feel that you cannot completely forgo

meat and dairy, adopting a flexible diet in which you enjoy

other foods for certain meals or certain days of the week

can have a huge impact. In reality, this is likely to be where

the biggest dietary changes will come in the next years. In

many countries the number of people planning to become

vegan or vegetarian is relatively low, but fully 50 percent of

the U.S. population would like to eat less meat. Plant-based

meat replacements are already becoming cheaper, more

efficient, and more delicious. By 2040, these products are

expected to make up 60 percent of the market, up from 10

percent today.61 The market is beginning to recognize the

future of plant-based food. You have the chance to join a

food revolution by adopting and normalizing a more plant-

based diet.

—

Boycott products contributing to deforestation. Too many ingredients in

the products we consume every day come from deforested

land. In 2010, Greenpeace released an advertisement

featuring an office worker opening a Kit Kat candy bar.

However, the bar was made not of chocolate but of

orangutan fingers, and as the office worker took a bite,

blood poured across his keyboard.62 The video hit a nerve,

helping people make the connection between candy

ingredients and the mass destruction of the orangutan’s

natural habitat. More than two hundred thousand e-mails

were sent to Nestlé; protests were held outside its offices.

Within six weeks one of the largest companies in the world

completely reversed its policy, committing to zero-

deforestation palm oil.63

It’s easy to forget how much power we all have if we

choose to use it. If a company is engaging in destructive

land practices, we can work to make that fact clear to

everyone. As that happens, you can remove your consent

from that company by refusing to buy its products.

We are not powerless.

ACTION 7: Invest in a Clean Economy

A linear model of growth rewards extraction and pollution.

We need to move from that model toward one that

regenerates natural systems. We are going to require a

clean economy that operates in harmony with nature,

repurposes used resources as much as possible, minimizes

waste, and actively replenishes depleted resources.

This new economic model will need better policies and

strong institutions so that the great market forces of

investment and entrepreneurialism can work toward

regeneration instead of extraction. Finance and investment

will play a key role. While we have managed capitalism

moderately well over the centuries, with successful

institutions such as law, taxation, and charity, we have not

yet perfected it. Now is the time to do so.

We are used to thinking of the economy as the primary

indicator of how we are performing as a species. More

economic growth is good, less is bad; negative growth, or a

recession, is a disaster. Politicians will do anything in their

power to keep the numbers moving in the upward

direction, and most regard this as their principal

responsibility.

Economic growth is currently measured by GDP, or gross

domestic product, the market value of goods and services

produced in a year. The idea that endless GDP growth is

the aim of responsible countries is highly embedded into

our cultures and becomes self-perpetuating, as the media,

politicians, business leaders, and others constantly refer to

it as second nature.64

But GDP is a poor marker of what human beings need in

order to thrive, as it is all about extracting, using, and

discarding resources. As a marker of success, it does not

effectively take into consideration the impacts of pollution

or inequality, or prioritize the value of health, education, or

even happiness. It also places no value on the actions that

regenerate degraded lands or that bring ailing oceans back

to health. To illustrate the point, if you drink coffee from a

disposable cup every day, GDP will go up, but the forests

will disappear and emissions will go up too. If you drink

coffee from a reusable ceramic mug, GDP will go down. If

you throw away your ceramic mug every day and buy a new

one, GDP will go through the roof.

In the current transition, strictly linear GDP growth can

no longer be the priority. More stuff does not mean a better

life, and indeed it is contributing to our existential crisis.

Moving away from quantity of products that can be

purchased, we must reorient our underlying sense of value

toward quality of life, including within all of Earth’s

ecosystems. Prioritizing growth according to its

contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

would be a good place to start. These seventeen

interconnected goals aspire to sustainably increase global

prosperity, equality, and well-being.65

—

Put your money where it matters. Capital tends to flow toward

investments that have worked in the past, as if the future

will resemble the past in any meaningful way. The world’s

capital is guarded by ranks of extremely cautious people

who are looking to secure a good return, and their top

priority is often to avoid risking a loss of value. This is

technically right, of course, but it presents us with a

problem. We’re not going to create the future we want

without some risk.

In June 2019, the Norwegian parliament voted into law

new plans for its sovereign wealth fund (the world’s

largest, managing $1 trillion in assets). It will divest more

than $13 billion of investments in fossil fuels and invest up

to $20 billion in renewables, beginning with wind and solar

projects in developed markets.66

You can help precipitate similar seismic shifts in

allocation of capital. In 2012, Bill McKibben and 350.org

began a grassroots divestment campaign to encourage

financial institutions to stop investing in projects and

companies that perpetuate the causes of climate change.67

It has grown into one of the most successful campaigns in

history. Financial firms with more than $8 trillion in

combined assets have divested their fossil fuel holdings.

This has made money available for climate solutions and

sent a warning signal to those still building the past. In

2016, Peabody, the world’s largest coal company, listed

divestment as one of the reasons for its bankruptcy.68 Shell

has listed divestment as a material risk to the future of its

business.69

Divesting from the past and reinvesting in the future can

be done right now. Your money has the power to destroy or

to build, and it is no longer acceptable to remain oblivious

to the fact. If you have a pension fund or savings, find out

where your money is invested. Do not underestimate the

power of the default option in defined pension schemes—if

you work for a company that has such a scheme, request

that it shift away from fossil fuels. Write to your pension

fund trustees and find out if they are divesting from the old

economy or how they propose to change the behavior of

corporations they are invested in so as to promote the

clean economy. Encourage your friends and colleagues to

do the same.

Once capital starts flowing in increasing amounts to

companies and projects that are advancing the future—and

we are making serious progress in that direction already—a

moment will come when we reach the zenith of our uphill

efforts and things will start to roll more easily in the right

direction. We are already seeing that dirty, polluting,

irresponsible investments perform less well than the

alternatives. Companies that shy away from considering

the future of the planet are also getting awkward questions

from customers (keep asking them!) and investors, and are

struggling to find bright young people to work for them.

With continued pressure, the money and momentum will

start flowing to those who are building the clean economy.

—

The building blocks for a regenerative economy are already

robust and thriving around the world. In January 2019,

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, announced

that her government would soon present a “well-being

budget” to gauge the long-term impact of policy on the

quality of people’s lives. “We need to address the societal

well-being of our nation, not just the economic well-being,”

she said. This type of thinking, Prime Minister Ardern

argued, could help us shift beyond short-term cycles and

learn to see politics through a lens of “kindness, empathy

and well-being.”70 This is what we are called to do, as we

work to build the infrastructure and systems that will

benefit us, and retire those that are harming us.

Economic growth can deliver tremendous benefits, and

economic growth has lifted more people out of poverty than

any other model in history. But the days of valuing how

quickly we can dig stuff up and turn it into trash have to

come to an end, not as a matter of ideology or policy but as

a matter of survival. The reduction of poverty under the old

model may well be temporary, since our structure of

prioritizing short-termism and GDP will likely send many

people back into unforgiving poverty as climate change

accelerates. The good news is that economists increasingly

consider the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals to

be sensible objectives. Advancing the SDG framework

makes it absolutely possible for us to achieve sustainable

growth, effect emissions reductions, and reduce poverty in

consonance with one another in mutually reinforcing

systems.

In Costa Rica, President José Figueres Ferrer,

Christiana’s father, made the decision in 1948 to abolish

the army. He invested in education and expanded forest

cover from a low of less than 20 percent. Now Costa Rica

has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America,71

forest cover is more than 50 percent,72 and the nation’s

electricity is provided almost exclusively by renewable

energy. Costa Rica measures its progress both by GDP and

by indicators that help the government make decisions that

maximize well-being. On the Happy Planet Index, Costa

Rica ranked number one as the happiest place on Earth in

2009, 2012, and 2018.73

ACTION 8: Use Technology Responsibly

Evolving new technologies have enormous potential for

delivering emissions reductions. We must embrace them

carefully but rapidly and not rely on them as a silver bullet.

As we grow more comfortable with machines being part of

our lives, we will need to use technology responsibly,

mindful of its power and influence, and ensure that proper

governance systems are in place.

If we make it through the climate crisis and arrive on the

other side with humanity and the planet intact, it will be

largely because we have learned to live well with

technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) supported by sensors (to

gather data) and robotics (to automate physical activities)

together with the network of smart devices known as the

“internet of things” have huge potential to become our

greatest allies in the fight for survival.74 But these very

same technologies are also the ones that could destroy that

better future. For example, autonomous self-driving electric

vehicles could eliminate the need for unnecessary private

ownership of vehicles, but on the downside, they could also

allow unscrupulous governing bodies to track and control

the movements of every citizen.

A fire that warms you on a cold night is good; one that

consumes your home is bad.

Likewise, technology is neither inherently good nor

inherently bad. It just has to be managed properly.

Many people alive today will at some point likely

encounter a machine that is smarter than they are in

almost every way. The world famously got a taste of what

that might be like in 2017. The AI program AlphaGo Zero

figured out how to win at the ancient and notoriously

difficult Chinese strategy game of Go, learning entirely by

itself, essentially accumulating thousands of years of

human knowledge, and improving on it, in just forty days.75

Deep Mind, the company that developed AlphaGo Zero,

says the technology is not limited to machines that can

outcompete human beings in strategy games but is

intended to be used to inform new technology that will

positively impact society.76 But we can’t rely on the

promises of corporations to ensure that a technology is

aligned with our goals for regenerating nature and

pursuing the conditions that will help humanity thrive.

AI machines learn quickly, although we may not be able

to predict exactly what they will be used for. Machines

could become better at extracting what resources remain

on Earth and hoarding them for those who control the

technology—which is why protection against the abuse of

AI needs to be woven into policy oversight and governance

from the start.

Politicians and CEOs who are unwilling to lead or do

what we need to confront the climate crisis have often

touted future technology as a solution. But if we allow the

potential of future technology to blind us to the scale and

urgency of what we need to do today, we will be taking a

terrible risk. Not only might innovations not arrive in time,

but new technology will only fit well into a society that is

already moving in the right direction. Belief in innovation is

no excuse for lack of a plan.

To be sure, we need technology to avert climate disaster,

but technology also has huge potential to increase the

already-vast wealth disparities in our societies. In a world

where 70 percent of the population has to survive on a

share of only 2.5 percent of global wealth,77 the rise of

automation could exacerbate inequality and social

instability and complicate the advance of solutions to

complex problems like climate change.

For all the talk in certain political circles about

immigration taking jobs away from native citizens, it is

automation that is driving the vast majority of job losses

around the world.78 This problem will worsen in coming

decades. Likewise, the decline of meat consumption, as it is

replaced with plant-based and lab-grown alternatives, will

transform the economies of whole countries. In Brazil,

more than 20 million people are involved in the agriculture

industry.79 Up to two-thirds of them either raise cattle for

beef, or grow soy to feed cattle. To switch to more

sustainable agriculture, they could convert the land to

biofuel production, assuming increased demand for such in

the near future. The shift away from beef and toward

advanced biofuels will have huge benefits ecologically, but

if the transition is managed badly, without supporting

alternative training or jobs, the sudden unemployment of

millions could result in enormous human hardship,

increasing the appeal of extremist politicians. Even if we

develop all the technology needed to address the climate

crisis, humans may be so impacted by the transition that

we will elect leaders who pander to populist impulses and

divert our focus from the narrow gate toward a

regenerative future.

If properly managed, machines might make all the

difference in our ability to deal with the climate crisis in

time. Almost every sector that requires breakthroughs to

bring about a regenerative future will be massively aided

by machine learning. For example, one of the big problems

associated with securing large amounts of renewable

power on energy grids is that its generation is intermittent

—producing only when the sun is shining or the wind is

blowing.

With AI algorithms, it is now possible to completely

redesign our centralized energy grids. AI-informed energy

grids can be much more decentralized, acting as neural

networks, dynamically predicting what power is needed

when. AI-informed grids would “intuitively” map supply and

demand, flexing between storage and energy flow so that

greater amounts of renewable energy can be produced,

thus reducing gas and coal use, perhaps completely.80

AI is accelerating our decarbonization efforts in many

other areas. Machine learning is being used to prevent the

leakage of methane from gas pipelines, to accelerate the

development of solar fuels (synthetic chemical fuels

produced directly/indirectly from solar energy), to improve

battery storage technologies, to optimize freight and

transport for better efficiency, to reduce energy use in

buildings, to plant forests using drones, and much more.81

AI is also showing promising signs of improving our ability

to predict extreme weather and even of removing

greenhouse gases directly from the air.

Reaching the Paris Agreement was complicated, but

agreeing on a collective global approach to governing AI

could be even more so. Right now countries are in a race to

develop the skills and conditions to be leaders in this new

field, and different populations have different attitudes

about the acceptable degree of involvement of AI in our

lives. For instance, people in Nigeria and Turkey would be

happy to have AI systems perform major surgery on them,

but people in Germany and Belgium would not.82

Governments experience different degrees of pressure to

develop appropriate guidelines for managing AI, and as a

result some are very lax and some are highly stringent.83

Understandable as this is, it isn’t really good enough for

something as important as dealing with the climate crisis.

The effort of the French and Canadian governments to

create an International Panel for Artificial Intelligence is a

good start.84

—

Find out if your government, your local community, or the company you work for is

investing in AI, and what they are using it for. Take responsibility for

pressuring them, in whatever way you can, to look to the

international efforts already under way, and to put policies

in place to ensure that the AI they support will also

accelerate the regenerative future, not hinder our chances

of success.

—

In a few decades more than 9 billion people could inhabit

the planet, possibly more than 10 billion. It will be

impossible for so many people to live here if we have the

same impact per capita on our atmosphere as we do today.

Technology, specifically machine learning and AI, has the

potential to transform our presence here. Issues and

problems, including how we can effectively use natural

resources in a circular rather than linear way, that have

long eluded us may finally be unlocked.

When AlphaGo Zero was learning to play and win at Go,

the developers noticed that as it taught itself techniques

perfected by professional players over generations, it

occasionally made decisions to discard those techniques in

favor of new, better ones that human beings had not yet

had time to learn. In a race against time, the speed of

learning that AI offers has extraordinary—exponential—

potential to accelerate climate solutions, if it is deployed

and governed well.

A humbling story of how this might unfold took place at

Google’s data centers in 2016. For more than ten years

Google engineers had been at the cutting edge of

optimizing their data systems. Their servers were among

the most efficient in the world, and it seemed that any

improvements from then on would be marginal. Then they

unleashed DeepMind algorithms on the system. Energy

demand for cooling was consistently reduced by 40

percent.85 This illustration is just a tiny example of the

power of AI to make possible what seems impossible to the

human mind.

At present, investment in applying AI to the climate

crisis is lower than it should be. In the future, governments

and corporations around the world will have to carefully

support the responsible application of AI and invest quickly

in its capacity to deliver material breakthroughs in

emissions reductions. In that scenario, technology may be

our greatest ally on the road to a brighter future.

ACTION 9: Build Gender Equality

We must ensure that decision making at all levels of society

involves increasing numbers of women, because when

women lead, good things happen. That is the unequivocal

conclusion of years of research. Women often have a

leadership style that makes them more open and sensitive

to a wide range of views, and they are better at working

collaboratively, with a longer-term perspective. These traits

are essential to responding to the climate crisis.86

We know this because the early evidence is already in.

Companies, countries, NGOs, and financial institutions all

take stronger climate action when they are led by women

or have a high proportion of women in decision-making

roles.87 Recasting our society so that women play at least

an equal role in decision making at all levels (family,

community, professions, government) is now a matter of

survival.

In many countries, discrimination based on gender is

assumed to be a thing of the past. Yet studies show that all

industries still strongly tend to overestimate male

performance and underestimate female performance. While

women are aware of this discrepancy, men tend to dismiss

it. The vast majority of leadership role models remain male:

just look at any photo of G20 leaders from any year. The

well-publicized pay gap (women are paid 20 percent less

than men for the same work) is another manifestation and

shows that many perceptions continue to be subjective and

discriminatory.88

Before we can work to correct the imbalance of power

and decision making, we have to acknowledge that it exists,

often but not always based on structural unconscious bias.

Right now that is still lost on many.

Nonetheless many women have recognized the unique

gravity of our situation on climate change. Intrepid leaders

like Natalie Isaacs, Isra Hirsi, Nakabuye Flavia, Greta

Thunberg, and Penelope Lea have mobilized millions of

young people who are now demanding urgent climate

action and implementing it themselves. Women are at the

forefront of collaborative efforts to support each other in

the face of our changing climate. In many countries,

women’s intimate knowledge of the land means they are

quicker to spot environmental changes, to learn from them,

and out of necessity, find ways to adapt. Women are

pioneers of innovative climate solutions within their

communities, and they are instinctively good at deep

listening, at empathy and collective wisdom gathering,

especially in times of transition. These qualities have never

been more important or necessary.

A world with true gender equality would look different

from ours. Some seem to assume that it would look the

same but with a tilted gender power balance. But the

interesting element of gender equality, apart from its

evident moral rightness, is the opportunity it provides for

all of humanity to co-create a world that is regenerative

and in which we can thrive together. Nations with greater

female representation in positions of power have smaller

climate footprints. Companies with women on their

executive boards are far more likely to invest in renewable

energy and develop products that help solve the climate

crisis. Women legislators vote for environmental

protections almost twice as frequently as men, and women

who lead investment firms are twice as likely to make

investment decisions based on how companies treat their

employees and the environment.89

It is imperative that women be afforded educational

opportunities worldwide. Educated women can work, be

economically more productive, and help society make

better decisions. Crucially, education helps women stand

up for themselves and empowers them to make their own

choices, in particular about their reproductive health.

Keeping girls in school means they are less likely to marry

young or have as many children. According to the

Brookings Institution, in certain parts of the world, a girl

with twelve years of education compared to one with no

schooling will have up to five fewer children in her

lifetime.90

Today 130 million girls are being denied the right to

attend school, condemning a massive number of future

women to constant pregnancy, bringing more and more

children into parts of the world that will scarcely be able to

support them. By these calculations, 100 percent

enrollment of girls in school today would lessen the

anticipated global population in 2050 by 843 million

people,91 a boon in confronting the climate crisis.

If you are a woman, now is the time to consider running

for public office or being more assertive about a deserved

promotion at work. If you are a man, now is the time to

support and encourage your female colleagues, partners,

friends, and family members. Women may feel particularly

empowered by joining a wider movement or a cohort that

shares their aims. The Brand New Congress movement in

the United States, which played a significant role in a

record number of women being chosen for the 2018

primaries, is a powerful example.92 Female candidates,

including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—now a seriously

influential leader on climate action—drew on huge reserves

of confidence to run for office by standing shoulder to

shoulder with other women.93

We will be able to manage climate change better if we

can improve the ratio of women making the decisions about

how to do it. It’s time to either become one of those

decision makers or support women you know to become

one.

—

In the remote, sun-cracked desert of India’s westernmost

state, Gujarat, women are harnessing renewable power and

improving their livelihoods by acting collectively. Gujarat,

the source of nearly 76 percent of India’s salt, remains

largely disconnected from the electrical grid. For decades,

more than forty thousand salt-pan worker families (locally

called agariyas) have relied on diesel-powered pumps—

often spending more than 40 percent of their annual

revenue for the season’s production. Now that is all

changing. With visionary leadership and support from

Reemaben Nanavaty, a native of Gujarat and director of the

Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)—which, with 2

million members, is the largest trade union for informal

workers in the world—the agariyas are shifting to solar.

The first one thousand women who made the shift have

benefited from a doubling of their income—helping them to

achieve greater financial and social independence and

enabling them to send their children to middle and high

school. When rolled out to the 15,000 SEWA members who

work on the salt pans, the project will prevent the emission

of 115,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide—the equivalent of

taking nearly 25,000 cars off the road.94

Solar Sister, a social enterprise operating in Nigeria and

Tanzania, recruits women and trains them to sell

affordable, renewable energy sources, like solar lamps and

clean cookstoves. Deforestation and climate change mean

women must often walk farther than they used to in order

to collect water or find firewood for cooking. If they don’t

collect enough water or firewood, they are more likely to

experience domestic violence. The increased workload also

means that they have less time to spend on education or

income-generating activities. Solar Sister has recruited and

trained four thousand women who are now entrepreneurs

and have brought clean energy solutions to 1.6 million

people in Africa and relieved some of the pressure on

women.95

These are just two examples of women improving their

own lives and livelihoods and those of their sisters when

given the resources and freedom they need.

The potential is global.

ACTION 10: Engage in Politics

Finally, the action that we feel is ultimately the most

important. Democracies are threatened by the climate

crisis and must evolve to meet the challenge. In order to

help them do so, we all need to actively participate.

The transition to a regenerative world is possible only if

we have stable political systems that are responsive to our

planet’s changing needs and our citizens’ changing desires.

Since climate change threatens political security itself,96

stability is both an essential condition for the transition and

an outcome of managing it successfully.

If the first duty of government is to protect its people,

then across much of the world the form of democracy we

have become used to is failing. Climate change is an

existential threat and is likely to intensify faster than most

people today realize. If our systems of government can’t

protect us from that existential threat, they will in time be

replaced. But those replacements may take a long time to

evolve and will not necessarily be any better at advancing

us toward a regenerative future in the available time frame.

In many countries today, corporate interests have

captured our democracies. Just as with the tobacco

industry, a small minority of companies have used a

relatively limited amount of money to purchase

extraordinary influence in major legislative capitals and

thereby have prevented elected representatives from

protecting the people. Often this occurs through trade

associations, so even when corporations themselves do not

directly lobby for an outcome, it is done on their behalf.97

This has become a major issue. In the United States, for

example, in 2016, the National Association of

Manufacturers (NAM) won a long-fought battle to delay

implementation of the Clean Power Plan. In 2017, NAM

supported the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Companies such as Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Corning,

and Intel are all members of NAM, yet all claim to support

strong climate action under the Paris Agreement.98

On a national level, voter action (or inaction) and intent

underpin larger global moves. Over the last twenty years,

climate change has been steadily climbing up the list of

voter priorities.99 While this is good news, no significant

proportion of voters actually see climate as their highest

priority. That is a serious problem. In the United States,

new presidents have a very short window of time to

actually get big things done. For example, Barack Obama

came into office very committed to taking strong action on

climate, and he had a majority in both houses of Congress.

He could have chosen to prioritize—and would probably

have passed—ambitious climate legislation. However,

instead he made a decision to pursue health-care reform,

another campaign pledge and a domestic priority. Passing

health care required Obama to use up a significant part of

his political capital, and it built a knot of fierce resistance

to his other policies in the Republican Party, to the point

that they stonewalled anything he proposed. As a result,

not until his second term was he able to turn his political

attention to climate change. Even then, it was only by using

executive power that he made progress, not through

legislation.

Rather than wait for things to get worse, we must

embrace engagement at all levels of politics. We must see it

as one of our most pressing responsibilities, and we must

hold every politician to account. We must elect only leaders

who see far-reaching action on climate change as their

absolute first priority and who are prepared to act on the

first day they assume office. Large numbers of people must

vote on climate change as their number-one priority. As we

are in the midst of the most dire emergency, we must

urgently demand that those who seek high office offer

solutions commensurate with the scale of the problem.

Their policy platforms must strictly be informed by science.

It’s time to participate in nonviolent political movements

wherever possible.

In April 2019, the group Extinction Rebellion, building

on years of work by various nonprofit organizations, some

politicians, and other activists, seized the moment and

began a series of global protests, the first of which was to

take over central London for ten days in nonviolent protest.

Thousands of first-time activists, people who had never

marched or signed a petition in their lives, blocked roads,

linked arms, and planted trees on Waterloo Bridge. Within

two months of that initial protest, the UK declared a

climate emergency, adopted a target of net-zero emissions

by 2050 (less ambitious than what Extinction Rebellion was

calling for, but still a big step), and established a citizens’

assembly to look at how it could be achieved.100

Civil resistance by members of the public can outdo

efforts by political elites to achieve radical change. This is

not an aberration; it is how change happens, typically when

injustice in the prevailing system becomes too great.

Civil disobedience is not only a moral choice, it is also

the most powerful way of shaping world politics.101

Historically, systemic political shifts have required civil

disobedience on a significant scale. Few have occurred

without it. The numbers required may seem large, but they

are not impossible. History has shown that when

approximately 3.5 percent of the population participates in

nonviolent protest, success becomes inevitable.102 No

nonviolent protest has ever failed to achieve its aims once

it reached that threshold of participation. In the UK, this

would be 2.3 million people. In the United States, 11

million.

These numbers are now within our reach.

The remarkable rise to prominence of Greta Thunberg

and the Fridays for Future movement is showing us that

the world is ready for the next phase of direct action.103

Greta’s single, defiant act of civil disobedience—striking

from school every Friday—has captured the zeitgeist. She

inspired, in a relatively short period of time, a peaceful

process for igniting and harnessing the anger of millions of

young people in many countries and enrolling them in

regular climate activism.

Adding further momentum to the successful capital

divestment movement (in which money is moving away

from assets linked to fossil fuels), in 2019, the head of the

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

described the mass mobilization of world opinion against

oil as the greatest threat its industry faces.104 This

mobilization has as its motivating force people from all

walks of life, spanning all generations, across all

continents. Every additional person who chooses to

participate will bring us closer to the tipping point for

success.

We acknowledge that participating in school strikes or

civil disobedience demonstrations is not always possible or,

in undemocratic societies and even in some democracies

around the world, safe. What is important is for you to

assess the avenues that might be open to you to engage in

the political process and to find ways to work within them.

Beyond directly addressing governments, other political

actions are needed. Corporations and trade associations

fund and engage in political lobbying against citizen action

on climate change. We need to remove our consent from

these corporations. The simplest way is to vote with your

money: stop buying their stocks, and stop buying their

products and services where alternatives exist. Talk to your

bank, talk to the institutions that manage your insurance

products or debts. Find out if your money is invested in

these corporations and ask for alternative options. Some

financial institutions are already taking protective action,

but others may not yet feel sufficient pressure from their

customers to make a serious shift in capital allocation.

Governments that are stable now and trying to find ways

to meet this challenge should be worked with, not

dismantled. We all have a responsibility to exert what

leverage we can inside the traditional power systems and

push them as far and as fast as we can. As we press both

inside and outside the system for the overdue political

changes that need to occur, we should also be mindful of

the role that institutions have played in upholding our basic

rights and our ability to weather transitions together. For

hundreds of years—thousands, in some cases—our

institutions of government, learning, communication, law,

and religion have held us to a norm. It is possible to argue

that this is what has kept us back, and at times in history

that has been true. But equally true is that they have

protected us from our worst instincts at moments of rage

and insanity. Let’s be mindful of what they have given us

and find ways, when appropriate, to protect them. Once

they are gone, they cannot be easily replaced.

Because climate change is unlike any other challenge

that humanity has had to face, we have no template for the

kind of political, economic, and societal transformation

needed now—but there are a range of extraordinary

examples we can learn from. Movements of civil

disobedience from the early twentieth-century suffragettes

to Gandhi’s drive for Indian independence to Martin Luther

King, Jr., and the 1960s civil rights movement to the 2003

Rose Revolution in Georgia—to name just a few—are all

inspirational insofar as they mobilized vast numbers of

people to champion their causes. An open, inclusive

narrative and a sense of working collectively to change

history for the better took them further than they ever

imagined possible. As Nelson Mandela said, “It always

seems impossible until it is done.”

Now is the time for us to participate—in our schools,

businesses, communities, towns, and countries—to ensure

that the battle to survive the climate crisis becomes the

biggest political movement in history. It is not about

changing governments or political leaders. It is about

waging sustained political action and engagement. The

ingredients to achieve our goal are ripe. We have huge

momentum with millions of people on the streets calling for

change. Corporations, cities, investors, and governments

all over the world are taking highly sophisticated and

coordinated action toward a 1.5-degree-Celsius future, and

are open and listening to the calls of emergency from the

streets.

If democracy is to survive and thrive into the twenty-first

century, climate change is the one big test that it cannot

fail.

CONCLUSION

A New Story

We want you to know two things.

First, even at this late hour we still have a choice about our future, and

therefore every action we take from this moment forward counts.

Second, we are capable of making the right choices about our own

destiny. We are not doomed to a devastating future, and humanity is

not flawed and incapable of responding to big problems, if we act.

Future generations will most likely look back at this

moment as the single most significant turning point for

action.

But the path we have set out is not easy, and success is

not assured. The road ahead is winding. We are at a

moment of real darkness, but there is no turning back. We

may kick against this reality, but actually, it is a moment of

truth, just as we find in all good stories. What is needed

now is a steadfast commitment to the task and an

understanding that failure is not an option.

We can be informed by art, literature, and history as

much as by science. Meeting the challenge of climate

change needs to become part of a new story of human

striving and renewal.

Right now, the predominant stories we are telling

ourselves about the climate crisis are not very inspiring.

But a new story can reinvigorate our efforts.

When the story changes, everything changes.

In October 1957, Americans looked upward as the Soviet

Union’s Sputnik I satellite crossed over the country.1 For

the first time, there was a satellite in the sky, and their

“enemy” had beaten them to it. That night, from

Pennsylvania to Kansas to Colorado, families realized in

dismay that the enemy could see them, was watching them.

How did the country respond? Within a few years,

President John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech about

landing a man on the moon within that decade, a feat far

more challenging than launching a satellite.2 He spoke of it

without knowing whether it could be done, and without a

detailed budget, plan, or timeline. He was reclaiming the

narrative and placing Americans inside a story that was

hopeful and in which they could prevail.

The speech both terrified and electrified NASA. Within a

few months it reorganized itself in line with this new goal.

Teams worked harder than ever to innovate, which was

particularly galvanizing and thrilling for young people; the

average age of the team that launched the Apollo missions

was twenty-eight.3 Everyone was part of a shared endeavor

that gave their lives meaning.

When Kennedy first paid a visit to NASA Mission

Control, at one point he came across a janitor who was

cleaning the control room. “And what is your role here?” he

asked.

“Mr. President, sir,” came the reply, “I’m putting a man

on the moon.”4

The compelling vision made this man feel that he was

part of something great, and he was. Someone had to keep

the room clean: it would not have been possible to put a

man on the moon if that didn’t happen. Imagine how the

janitor would have felt, however, if he had been cleaning a

control room for a government agency that had been

bested by a rival and was facing relative decline. It was the

story that motivated him to action.

Consider also the story that Great Britain told itself as it

was enduring the blitzkrieg raids of 1941. As late as 1939,

Britain had torn itself to pieces over different ideas of how

to deal with Hitler. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was

committed to a policy of appeasement and had great

support. With the memories of the First World War still

fresh, a good proportion of people would have done

anything to avoid facing the reality that Hitler would stop

at nothing to conquer Europe. Eventually, Chamberlain fell,

and in his place came Winston Churchill. Churchill is

remembered for many things, not all of them positive, but

his most remarkable achievement in those early days was

embedding a new story into the national psyche that

prepared people for what was to come. An island alone. A

greatest hour. A greatest generation that would fight them

on the beaches and fight them in the hills and in the

streets. A country that would never surrender.

Countless interviews with those who lived through that

time have again and again described how a spirit of shared

endeavor infused all actions, from the pilots in the Battle of

Britain, to the people who turned their gardens and green

spaces into food production on a massive scale. The simple

task of pulling potatoes from the soil became an act of

service in support of absent loved ones at the front and

part of the pursuit of victory.

Even with the Paris Agreement, for the longest time, the

story that prevailed was that climate change was too

complicated; it was impossible to get countries to agree,

and the structure of the UN would not allow agreement.

The negotiations were populated with thousands of people

who could explain in great detail and for many hours why

there was absolutely no way through the myriad complexity

to reach agreement. Changing that mindset was the

hardest but most critical step we took. The journey from

the failure in Copenhagen to the culmination in Paris was

marked by a gradual buildup of momentum, and as the

momentum built, the story changed.

At first there were only a few, but over time, thousands

of people became convinced that the moment for progress

was possible and that they had an important role to play. As

each country made a commitment, more people believed in

this possibility. The price of solar panels fell, cities took

leadership positions, people marched in the streets,

corporations took action, and investors moved money out of

fossil fuels. They all became steps on the journey to a new

story.

At this moment, when we have reached the limits of the

planet’s ability to sustain life in the form in which we know

it, we have also reached the limits of the stories that define

our lives. Personal achievements through individualistic

competition, continuous consumption, skepticism about our

ability to come together as humanity, and an inability to see

the deeper impacts of what we are doing to the planet—all

are no longer useful.

Now we must move toward understanding our shared

existence on this planet, not because it is a nice addendum

to what we do but because it is a matter of survival. Our

current quest for a regenerative future has even higher

levels of complexity and is decisively more consequential

than the U.S. quest to put a man on the moon or the UK’s

determination to defeat Hitler.

This is not the quest of one nation. This time it’s up to all

of us, to all the nations and peoples of the world. No matter

how complex or deep our differences, we fundamentally

share everything that is important: the desire to forge a

better world for everyone alive today and all the

generations to come.

Imagine, just for a moment, a world in which we had

achieved this quest. It may seem far-fetched to you, utopian

even, but since the very survival of humanity is at stake,

ironically we believe that our chances of rising to this

challenge are greater now than they have ever been.

Humanity is capable of coming together to do this. Whether

we will succeed in doing so will become apparent in a few

short years.

With this book, we have begun to weave together some

of the elements of our new story.

We can, together, reimagine our place in this world. As

human beings, we all have the outrageous fortune to be

here on this planet at this moment of profound

consequence.

When the eyes of our children, and their children, look

straight into ours, and they ask us “What did you do?” our

answer cannot just be that we did everything we could.

It has to be more than that.

There is really only one answer.

We did everything that was necessary.

So let us begin today to tell the story of how we did not

balk at this seemingly insurmountable challenge, of how we

were not defeated by the multiple setbacks we

encountered. Let us tell the story of how we made the

choice to pull away from the brink of peril, of how we took

our responsibility seriously and did everything that was

necessary to emerge from the crisis while rekindling our

relationships with each other and with all the natural

systems that enable human life on Earth.

Let it be a story of great adventure, against

overwhelming odds.

A story of survival.

And of a thriving existence.

WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW

This Action Plan is part of a growing movement of stubborn climate activists committed to fulfilling the vision of a regenerative world.

We can only do this together and we hope you will join us at www.GlobalOptimism.com.

RIGHT NOW

Take a deep breath and decide that collectively we can do this, and that

you will play your part. You will be a hopeful visionary for humanity

through these dark days. From this moment, despair ends and tactics

begin.

Decide that you will be part of the politics of the future. You will vote for,

campaign for, and support candidates who champion emissions reductions.

Reject the politics of nostalgia. For the next ten years, this will be your

number-one political priority.

Commit to reducing your impact on the climate by more than half of what

it is today by 2030. Aim for 60 percent. Just because right now you don’t

know how you will do so does not need to stop you. We are all learning.

TODAY OR TOMORROW

Determine where your principal elected officials stand on climate change;

write to them about your commitments and let them know. Tell them you

are watching.

Choose at least one day of the week to go meat-free, and decide how soon

you will add more days to that commitment.

Think big. How do you most impact climate change, and what big things

can you do to effect a regenerative future?

Tell others about your commitments, in person or on social media. Don’t be

shy! Invite others to follow suit. Your example will motivate them.

THIS WEEK

Share your personal plan to reduce emissions by more than half with your

partner, kids, and friends, and invite them to do so as well. Preserving the

future of all life should be joyful. Have fun with it.

Take some actions and stick to them over time—it will give you momentum.

Reduce daily energy use, bike instead of driving a car, switch your energy

supplier to 100 percent clean. It’s all good and all needs doing. Consider

what else you can do, while remembering there is still much to be done.

Go outside and look around. This world is damaged and hurting, but it is

also beautiful and intact and whole. Pay attention to something you have

forgotten—emerging leaves in the spring or frost on dead leaves in winter.

Feel the gratitude we owe the Earth for her bounty and beauty.

THIS MONTH

Find out who in your vicinity is organizing political action involving climate

change. Attend meetings and meet the concerned citizens. Go to

demonstrations and marches! Allow yourself to be inspired by the miracle

of committed groups intent on changing the world.

Start a conversation with someone who is not active on climate change

with a view toward understanding their stance and gently enlarging their

awareness of the crisis from their perspective.

Enact your commitments: What precisely will you do this year? How will it

affect you and your family? How will you begin to apply the changes you

plan to make?

Challenge your consumerism. Look at what you have bought, and ask

yourself whether it brings you joy. Question your impulses to buy more,

and begin to see how liberating it is to buy less.

Start a mindfulness practice, perhaps a breathing exercise of gratitude. Do

it every day, if only for a few minutes. Learn to create a gap of light

between yourself, the world, and your reactions.

Plant trees. As many as you can. Look for a local group doing tree planting.

Get out there when you can, and when you can’t, support others to do so.

Understand your privilege in relation to others, and commit to helping

level the playing field for all.

THIS YEAR

Be political in your daily life. Seek collective opportunities to advance the

cause of emissions reductions. It will inspire you and help you feel you are

part of a shared endeavor. Engage regularly in direct action if that is

possible where you live. VOTE!

Be consistent. You may have changed your electricity supply to 100

percent renewable energy, rethought your commute, changed your air

travel habits, and altered your diet. If you can sustain your effort for the

first year, you stand a good chance of doing so every year. Recognize your

accomplishment.

BY 2030

Deliver on your plan to cut your emissions by more than half. Celebrate

your achievement.

Finance others to plant more trees as a symbol of the fact that you still

have some way to go. Trees are good, and the world needs more of them.

Ensure you have voted in line with these priorities in national and regional

elections and been vocal about the fact that you have done so.

Continue to practice the other new habits you have developed.

Encourage those closest to you—family, friends, loved ones—to be climate

conscious.

Start the plan to reduce your emissions again by more than half over the

next decade.

BEFORE 2050

Be at net-zero emissions, having been part of the generation that chose a

better future for all of us.

APPENDIX

Tipping Points

Exponential Roadmap 2019 (www.exponentialroadmap.org). Adapted

from Steffen et al., “Trajectories of the Earth System in the

Anthropocene,” PNAS 115, no. 33 (2018): 8252–59

Temperature Scenarios

Temperature Scenarios. Adapted from Climate Action Tracker

(https://climateactiontracker.org/ global/ temperatures/)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, we would like to thank those family members and mentors who have

shaped and guided our worldviews. Among them are José Figueres Ferrer, Kofi

Annan, Thich Nhat Hanh, Bee Rivett-Carnac, Nigel Topping, Antony Turner,

Paul Dickinson, Fraser Durham, Howard and Sue Lamb, Vivienne and Michael

Zammit Cutajar, Sister True Dedication, Brother Phap Lai, and Brother Phap

Linh.

This book is in many ways an outcome of the work of all those people who

co-created the Paris Agreement of 2015, and of the many efforts since then to

ensure we meet the challenge of our times.

A significant group of trusted friends and advisers helped us develop and

hone the ideas in the book in a direct way. We are grateful to them all for their

patient reviewing and wise counsel. In particular we would like to mention

Natasha Rivett-Carnac, Jesse Abrams, Stephanie Antonian, Rosina Birbaum,

Amanda Eichel, Nick Foster, Thomas Friedman, Sarah Goodenough, Callum

Grieve, Dave Hicks, Andrew Higham, John Holdren, Sarah Hunter, Merlin

Hyman, Raj Joshi, Andy Karsner, Satish Kumar, Graham Leicester, Lindsay

Levin, Thomas Lingard, Thomas Lovejoy, Mark Lynas, Michael Mann, Marina

Mansilla Hermann, Mark Maslin, Bill McKibben, Jennifer Morgan, Jules Peck,

Matthew Phillips, Brooks Preston, Shyla Raghav, Chloe Revill, Mike Rivett-

Carnac, Bill Sharpe, Nicholas Stern, Betsy Taylor, Anne Topping, Patrick

Verkooijen, Daniel Wahl, Steve Waygood, Martin Weinstein, and Kerem Yilmaz.

Extra special thanks are due to Zoe Tcholak-Antich, Lauren Hamlin, and

Victoria Harris.

A much larger group of friends and colleagues have been our fellow

travelers both in the creation of the Paris Agreement and in the vital next steps

the world is now taking to address the climate crisis and deliberately choose a

better future. This list is vast, and it would be impossible for us to mention

everyone here, but we would like to pay special mention to Alejandro Agag,

Lorena Aguilar, Fahad Al Attiya, Ken Alex, Ali Al-Naimi, Carlos Alvarado

Quesada, Christiane Amanpour, Chris Anderson, Mats Andersson, Monica

Araya, John Ashford, David Attenborough, AURORA, Mariana Awad, Peter

Bakker, Vivian Balakrishnan, Ajay Banga, Greg Barker, Ecumenical Patriarch

Bartholomew, Nicolette Bartlett, Oliver Bäte, Kevin Baumert, Marc Benioff, Jeff

Bezos, Dean Bialek, Sue Biniaz, Fatih Birol, Michael Bloomberg, May Boeve,

Gail Bradbrook, Piers Bradford, Richard Branson, Jesper Brodin, Tom Brookes,

Jerry Brown, Sharan Burrow, Felipe Calderon, Kathy Calvin, Mark Campanale,

Miguel Arias Cañete, Mark Carney, Clay Carnill, Andrea Correa do Lago, Anne-

Sophie Cerisola, Robin Chase, Sagarika Chatterjee, Tomas Anker Christensen,

Pilita Clark, Helen Clarkson, Jo Confino, Aron Cramer, David Crane, John

Danilovich, Conyers Davis, Tony de Brum, Bernaditas de Castro Muller, Brian

Deese, Claudio Descalzi, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paula DiPerna, Elliot Diringer,

Sandrine Dixson Decleve, Ahmed Djoghlaf, Claudia Dobles Camargo, Alister

Doyle, José Manuel Entrecanales, Hernani Escobar, Patricia Espinosa,

Emmanuel Faber, Nathan Fabian, Laurent Fabius, Emily Farnworth, Daniel

Firger, James Fletcher, Pope Francis, Gail Gallie, Grace Gelder, Kristalina

Georgieva, Cody Gildart, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Kimo Goree, Ellie Goulding,

Mats Granryd, Jerry Greenfield, Ólafur Grímsson, Sally Grover Bingham,

Emmanuel Guerin, Kaveh Guilanpour, Stuart Gulliver, Angel Gurria, Antonio

Guterres, William Hague, Thomas Hale, Brad Hall, Winnie Hallwachs, Simon

Hampel, Kate Hampton, Yuval Noah Harari, Jacob Heatley-Adams, Julian

Hector, Hilda Heine, Ned Helme, Barbara Hendricks, Jamie Henn, Anne

Hidalgo, François Hollande, Emma Howard Boyd, Stephen Howard, Arianna

Huffington, Kara Hurst, Mo Ibrahim, Jay Inslee, Natalie Isaacs, Maria Ivanova,

Lisa Jackson, Lisa Jacobson, Dan Janzen, Michel Jarraud, Sharon Johnson,

Kelsey Juliana, Yolanda Kakabadse, Lila Karbassi, Iain Keith, Mark Kenber, John

Kerry, Sean Kidney, Jim Kim, Ban Ki-moon, Lise Kingo, Richard Kinley, Sister

Jayanti Kirpalani, Isabelle Kocher, Caio Koch-Weser, Marcin Korolec, Larry

Kramer, Kalee Kreider, Kishan Kumarsingh, Rachel Kyte, Christine Lagarde,

Philip Lambert, Dan Lashof, Penelope Lea, Guilherme Leal, Bernice Lee, Jeremy

Leggett, Thomas Lingard, Andrew Liveris, Hunter Lovins, Mindy Lubber,

Miguel Ángel Mancera Espinosa, Gina McCarthy, Stella McCartney, Bill

McDonouh, Catherine McKenna, Sonia Medina, Bernadette Meehan, Johannes

Meier, Maria Mendiluce, Antoine Michon, David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Amina

Mohammed, Jennifer Morris, Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko,

Kumi Naidoo, Nicole Ng, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Indra Nooyi, Michael

Northrop, Tim Nuthall, Bill Nye, Jean Oelwang, Rafe Offer, Ngozi Okonjo-

Iweala, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, Kevin O Hanlon, René Orellana, Ricken

Patel, Jose Penido, Charlotte Pera, Jonathan Pershing, Stephen Petricone,

Stephanie Pfeifer, Shannon Phillips, Bertrand Piccard, François-Henri Pinault,

John Podesta, Paul Polman, Ian Ponce, Carl Pope, Jonathon Porritt, Patrick

Pouyanne, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, Tracy Raczek, Jairam Ramesh, Curtis Ravenell,

Robin Reck, Geeta Reddy, Dan Reifsnyder, Fiona Reynolds, Ben Rhodes, Alex

Rivett-Carnac, Chris Rivett-Carnac, Nick Robins, Jim Robinson, Mary Robinson,

Cristiam Rodriguez, Matthew Rodriguez, Kevin Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Artur

Runge-Metzger, Karsten Sach, Claudia Salerno Caldera, Fredric Samama,

Richard Samans, M. Sanjayan, Steve Sawyer, Jerome Schmitt, Kirsty

Schneeberger, Seth Schultz, Klaus Schwab, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeff

Seabright, Maros Sefcovic, Leah Seligmann, Peter Seligmann, Oleg Shamanov,

Kevin Sheekey, Feike Sijbesma, Nat Simons, Paul Simpson, Michael Skelly, Erna

Solberg, Andrew Steer, Achim Steiner, Todd Stern, Tom Steyer, Irene Suárez,

Mustafa Suleyman, Terry Tamminen, Ratan Tata, Astro Teller, Tessa Tenant,

Halldór Thorgeirsson, Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Susan Tierney, Halla

Tomasdottir, Laurence Tubiana, Keith Tuffley, Jo Tyndall, Hamdi Ulukaya, Gino

van Begin, Ben van Beurden, Andy Vesey, Mark Watts, Dominic Waughray,

Meridith Webster, Scott Weiner, Helen Wildsmith, Antha Williams, Dessima

Williams, Mark Wilson, Justin Winters, Martin Wolf, Farhana Yamin, Zhang Yue,

Mohammed Yunus, Jochen Zeitz, and Xie Zhenhua.

We would like to thank each and every one of the outstanding colleagues of

the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, the always thorough UN security personnel, and the exemplary

Mission 2020 team.

This book would not have been possible without the remarkable skills of the

editors at Knopf and Bonnier that we were privileged to work with, Erroll

McDonald and Margaret Stead, with their respective teams.

After spending a good two years thinking about writing a book and making

almost no progress, the big transformation occurred when we met Doug

Abrams in September 2018. Doug and the team at Idea Architects transformed

our approach and made the project real in a way it simply would never have

been without them. In many ways, the book owes its genesis to this team more

than any other and, alongside Doug, to wordsmith Lara Love and efficient Ty

Gideon Love. Our gratitude goes also to Caspian Dennis, Sandy Violette, and

the whole team at Abner Stein, as well as Camilla Ferrier, Jemma McDonagh,

and the entire team at the Marsh Agency.

Finally, we cannot end this acknowledgment without thanking the close

friends and family members who supported us through the writing of this book.

The few months of actual writing time were marked by a remarkable intensity

of major events in our lives, of both sadness and joy. These included the passing

of two of Christiana’s brothers, Mariano and Martí; of Tom’s mother-in-law,

Irene Walter; and of Doug’s father, Richard Abrams. It also included the

wedding of Christiana’s daughter Yihana. We are left with a deep sense of

gratitude toward those closest to us who generously and patiently supported us

throughout this period, in particular Naima Ritter, Yihana Ritter, Kirsten

Figueres, Mariano Figueres, Chaco Delgado, David Hall, Ron Walter, Diana

Strike, Sara Rivett-Carnac, and Natasha Rivett-Carnac.

You are our past, our present, and our future.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION: THE CRITICAL DECADE

1. Charles Keeling, “The Concentration and Isotopic Abundances of Carbon

Dioxide in the Atmosphere,” Tellus 12, no. 2 (1960): 200–203,

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/ epdf/ 10.1111/ j.2153-

3490.1960.tb01300.x. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC

Davis has kept records of global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration

since 1958, updating the Keeling Curve: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/

programs/ keelingcurve/.

2. David Neild, “This Map Shows Where in the World Is Most Vulnerable to

Climate Change,” ScienceAlert, February 19, 2016,

https://www.sciencealert.com/ this-map-shows-the-parts-of-the-world-most-

vulnerable-to-climate-change.

3. These two articles explain the science well and contain helpful visuals: D.

Piepgrass, “How Could Global Warming Accelerate If CO2 Is

‘Logarithmic’?” Skeptical Science, March 28, 2018,

https://skepticalscience.com/ why-global-warming-can-accelerate.html;

Aarne Granlund, “Three Things We Must Understand About Climate

Breakdown,” Medium, August 30, 2017, https://medium.com/

@aarnegranlund/ three-things-we-dont-understand-about-climate-change-

c59338a1c435.

4. Neild, “This Map Shows Where in the World Is Most Vulnerable to Climate

Change.”

5. Including in the UK and United States, for example: Sandra Laville, “Two-

thirds of Britons Want Faster Action on Climate, Poll Finds,” Guardian (U.S.

edition), June 19, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/ 2019/

jun/ 19/ britons-want-faster-action-climate-poll; Valerie Volcovici, “Americans

Demand Climate Action (As Long As It Doesn’t Cost Much): Reuters Poll,”

Reuters, June 26, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/ article/ us-usa-election-

climatechange/ americans-demand-climate-action-reuters-poll-

idUSKCN1TR15W.

6. Elizabeth Howell, “How Long Have Humans Been on Earth?” Universe

Today, January 19, 2015, https://www.universetoday.com/ 38125/ how-long-

have-humans-been-on-earth/; Chelsea Harvey, “Scientists Say That 6,000

Years Ago, Humans Dramatically Changed How Nature Works,”

Washington Post, December 16, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/

news/ energy-environment/ wp/ 2015/ 12/ 16/ humans-dramatically-changed-

how-nature-works-6000-years-ago/.

7. Margherita Giuzio, Dejan Krusec, Anouk Levels, Ana Sofia Melo, et al.,

“Climate Change and Financial Stability,” Financial Stability Review, May

2019, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ pub/ financial-stability/ fsr/ special/ html/

ecb.fsrart201905_1~47cf778cc1.en.html.

8. Megan Mahajan, “Plunging Prices Mean Building New Renewable Energy

Is Cheaper Than Running Existing Coal,” Forbes, December 3, 2018

(updated May 6, 2019), https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ energyinnovation/

2018/ 12/ 03/ plunging-prices-mean-building-new-renewable-energy-is-

cheaper-than-running-existing-coal/ #61a0db2631f3.

9. Fossil Free, “What Is Fossil Fuel Divestment?” https://gofossilfree.org/

divestment/ what-is-fossil-fuel-divestment/.

10. Chris Flood, “Climate Change Poses Challenge to Long-Term Investors,”

Financial Times, April 22, 2019, https://www.ft.com/ content/ 992ba12a-

c02a-3bca-b947-0e2fbc5e91b7.

1. CHOOSING OUR FUTURE

1. For more on ice ages, see, for example, Michael Marshall, “The History of

Ice on Earth,” New Scientist, May 24, 2010, https://www.newscientist.com/

article/ dn18949-the-history-of-ice-on-earth/.

2. The world’s population is expected to hit 9.8 billion by 2050. United

Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Growing at a Slower

Pace, World Population Is Expected to Reach 9.7 Billion in 2050 and Could

Peak at Nearly 11 Billion around 2100,” June 17, 2019, https://www.un.org/

development/ desa/ en/ news/ population/ world-population-prospects-

2019.html.

3. Daniel Christian Wahl, “Learning from Nature and Designing as Nature:

Regenerative Cultures Create Conditions Conducive to Life,” Biomimicry

Institute, September 6, 2016, https://biomimicry.org/ learning-nature-

designing-nature-regenerative-cultures-create-conditions-conducive-life/.

4. The Industrial Revolution and the explosion of fossil fuel use changed our

direction. For more on this, see History.com, “Industrial Revolution,” July

1, 2019 (updated September 9, 2019), https://www.history.com/ topics/

industrial-revolution/ industrial-revolution for a history of the Industrial

Revolution; and Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser, “Fossil Fuels,” Our World

in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/ fossil-fuels, for the development of

fossil fuel use.

5. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “Changes in the Carbon

Cycle,” NASA Earth Observatory, June 16, 2011,

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ features/ CarbonCycle/ page4.php.

6. Rémi d’Annunzio, Marieke Sandker, Yelena Finegold, and Zhang Min,

“Projecting Global Forest Area Towards 2030,” Forest Ecology and

Management 352 (2015): 124–33, https://www.sciencedirect.com/ science/

article/ pii/ S0378112715001346; John Vidal, “We Are Destroying

Rainforests So Quickly They May Be Gone in 100 Years,” Guardian (U.S.

edition), January 23, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/ global-

development-professionals-network/ 2017/ jan/ 23/ destroying-rainforests-

quickly-gone-100-years-deforestation.

7. Josh Gabbatiss, “Earth Will Take Millions of Years to Recover from Climate

Change Mass Extinction, Study Suggests,” Independent, April 8, 2019,

https://www.independent.co.uk/ environment/ mass-extinction-recovery-

earth-climate-change-biodiversity-loss-evolution-a8860326.html.

8. Richard Gray, “Sixth Mass Extinction Could Destroy Life as We Know It—

Biodiversity Expert,” Horizon, March 4, 2019, https://horizon-magazine.eu/

article/ sixth-mass-extinction-could-destroy-life-we-know-it-biodiversity-

expert.html; Gabbatiss, “Earth Will Take Millions of Years.”

9. LuAnn Dahlman and Rebecca Lindsey, “Climate Change: Ocean Heat

Content,” Climate.gov, August 1, 2018, https://www.climate.gov/ news-

features/ understanding-climate/ climate-change-ocean-heat-content.

10. Lauren E. James, “Half of the Great Barrier Reef Is Dead,” National

Geographic, August 2018, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ magazine/

2018/ 08/ explore-atlas-great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-map-climate-

change/.

11. T. Schoolmeester, H. L. Gjerdi, J. Crump, et al., Global Linkages: A Graphic

Look at the Changing Arctic, Rev. 1 (Nairobi and Arendal: UN Environment

and GRID-Arendal, 2019), http://www.grida.no/ publications/ 431.

12. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “As Seas Rise, NASA

Zeros In: How Much? How Fast?” August 3, 2017, https://www.nasa.gov/

goddard/ risingseas.

13. Joseph Stromberg, “What Is the Anthropocene and Are We in It?”

Smithsonian, January 2013, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ science-

nature/ what-is-the-anthropocene-and-are-we-in-it-164801414/.

14. An exploration can be found in Darrell Moellendorf, “Progress,

Destruction, and the Anthropocene,” Social Philosophy and Policy 34, no. 2

(2017): 66–88. See also the documentary film Anthropocene: The Human

Epoch, 2018, https://theanthropocene.org/ film/.

15. More than 3 degrees Celsius warmer than the preindustrial average global

temperature.

16. That is, 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than the preindustrial average global

temperature.

17. For a full explanation, see Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change,

“Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºC,” 2018, https://www.ipcc.ch/

sr15/.

18. Nebojsa Nakicenovic and Rob Swart, eds., Special Report on Emissions

Scenarios (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000),

https://www.ipcc.ch/ report/ emissions-scenarios/.

2. THE WORLD WE ARE CREATING

1. Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of

Health, World Health Organization, “Ambient Air Pollution: Health

Impacts,” https://www.who.int/ airpollution/ ambient/ health-impacts/ en/.

2. Greenpeace Southeast Asia, “Latest Air Pollution Data Ranks World’s Cities

Worst to Best,” March 5, 2019, https://www.greenpeace.org/ southeastasia/

press/ 679/ latest-air-pollution-data-ranks-worlds-cities-worst-to-best/.

3. “Cloud Seeding,” ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/ topics/

earth-and-planetary-sciences/ cloud-seeding.

4. Acid rain is any form of precipitation that contains high levels of nitric and

sulfuric acids. It can also occur in the form of snow and fog. Normal rain is

slightly acidic, with a pH of 5.6, while acid rain has a pH between 4.2 and

4.4. Most acid rain is a product of human activities. The biggest sources

are coal power plants, factories, and automobiles. See Christina Nunez,

“Acid Rain Explained,” National Geographic, February 28, 2019,

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ environment/ global-warming/ acid-

rain/.

5. Heather Smith, “Will Climate Change Move Agriculture Indoors? And Will

That Be a Good Thing?” Grist, February 3, 2016, https://grist.org/ food/ will-

climate-change-move-agriculture-indoors-and-will-that-be-a-good-thing/.

6. Johan Rockström, “Climate Tipping Points,” Global Challenges Foundation,

https://www.globalchallenges.org/ en/ our-work/ annual-report/ climate-

tipping-points [inactive].

7. See David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

(New York: Tim Duggen Books, 2019).

8. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, “Climate Change,” 2018,

http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/ our-work/ threats-to-the-reef/ climate-change.

9. Aylin Woodward, “One of Antarctica’s Biggest Glaciers Will Soon Reach a

Point of Irreversible Melting,” Business Insider France, July 9, 2019,

http://www.businessinsider.fr/ us/ antarctic-glacier-on-way-to-irreversible-

melt-2019-7.

10. Roz Pidcock, “Interactive: What Will 2C and 4C of Warming Mean for Sea

Level Rise?” Carbon Brief, September 11, 2015,

https://www.carbonbrief.org/ interactive-what-will-2c-and-4c-of-warming-

mean-for-global-sea-level-rise; Josh Holder, Niko Kommenda, and Jonathan

Watts, “The Three-Degree World: The Cities That Will Be Drowned by

Global Warming,” Guardian (U.S. edition), November 3, 2017,

https://www.theguardian.com/ cities/ ng-interactive/ 2017/ nov/ 03/ three-

degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming.

11. United Nations Climate Change News, “Climate Change Threatens

National Security, Says Pentagon,” October 14, 2014, https://unfccc.int/

news/ climate-change-threatens-national-security-says-pentagon. For more

useful resources, see American Security Project, “Climate Security Is

National Security,” https://www.americansecurityproject.org/ climate-

security/.

12. Polar Science Center, “Antarctic Melting Irreversible in 60 Years,”

http://psc.apl.uw.edu/ antarctic-melting-irreversible-in-60-years/.

13. Ocean Portal Team, “Ocean Acidification,” Smithsonian Institute, April

2018, https://ocean.si.edu/ ocean-life/ invertebrates/ ocean-acidification.

14. Chang-Eui Park, Su-Jong Jeong, Manoj Joshi, et al., “Keeping Global

Warming Within 1.5 °C Constrains Emergence of Aridification,” Nature

Climate Change 8, no. 1 (January 2018): 70–74.

15. Regan Early, “Which Species Will Survive Climate Change?” Scientific

American, February 17, 2016,

https://www.scientificamerican.com83647/article/which-species-will-

survive-climate-change/.

16. Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development,

“Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing

the Unavoidable,” Sigma Xi, February 2007, https://www.sigmaxi.org/ docs/

default-source/ Programs-Documents/ Critical83647-Issues-in-Science/

executive-summary-of-confronting-climate83647-change.pdf.

17. For more on the risks of climate change on these river systems, see John

Schwartz, “Amid 19-Year Drought, States Sign Deal to Conserve Colorado

River Water,” New York Times, March 19, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/

2019/ 03/ 19/ climate/ colorado-river-water.html; Sarah Zielinski, “The

Colorado River Runs Dry,” Smithsonian, October 2010,

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ science-nature/ the-colorado-river-runs-

dry-61427169/; “Earth Matters: Climate Change Threatening to Dry Up the

Rio Grande River, a Vital Water Supply,” CBS News, April 22, 2019,

https://www.cbsnews.com/ news/ earth-day-2019-climate-change-

threatening-to-dry-up-rio-grande-river-vital-water-supply/.

18. Gary Borders, “Climate Change on the Rio Grande,” World Wildlife

Magazine, Fall 2015, https://www.worldwildlife.org/ magazine/ issues/ fall-

2015/ articles/ climate-change-on-the-rio-grande.

19. Brian Resnick, “Melting Permafrost in the Arctic Is Unlocking Diseases and

Warping the Landscape,” Vox, September 26, 2019, https://www.vox.com/

2017/ 9/6/ 16062174/ permafrost-melting.

20. “How Climate Change Can Fuel Wars,” Economist, May 23, 2019,

https://www.economist.com/ international/ 2019/ 05/ 23/ how-climate-change-

can-fuel-wars.

21. Silja Klepp, “Climate Change and Migration,” Oxford Research

Encyclopedias: Climate Science, April 2017, https://oxfordre.com/

climatescience/ view/ 10.1093/ acrefore/ 9780190228620.001.0001/ acrefore-

9780190228620-e-42.

22. Resnick, “Melting Permafrost.”

23. Derek R. MacFadden, Sarah F. McGough, David Fisman, Mauricio

Santillana, and John S. Brownstein, “Antibiotic Resistance Increases with

Local Temperature,” Nature, May 21, 2018, https://www.nature.com/

articles/ s41558-018-0161-6.

3. THE WORLD WE MUST CREATE

1. P. J. Marshall, “Reforestation: The Critical Solution to Climate Change,”

Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, December 7, 2018,

https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/ reforestation-the-critical-solution-to-

climate-change/.

2. Julio Díaz, public health and environment expert at the National School of

Public Health in Madrid, which is part of the Carlos III Health Institute,

reports that individuals with kidney problems and neurodegenerative

diseases such as Parkinson’s visit the doctor more frequently in hot

weather. Excessive heat also increases the risk of premature births and low

birth rates. Cited in Manuel Planelles, “More Than a Feeling: Summers in

Spain Really Are Getting Longer and Hotter,” El País, April 3, 2019,

https://elpais.com/ elpais/ 2019/ 04/ 03/ inenglish/ 1554279672_888064.html.

3. E. O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for

Life,” https://eowilsonfoundation.org/ half-earth-our-planet-s-fight-for-life/;

Emily E. Adams, “World Forest Area Still on the Decline,” Earth Policy

Institute, August 31, 2012, http://www.earth-policy.org/ indicators/ C56/

forests_2012.

4. Project Drawdown, “Tree Intercropping,” https://www.drawdown.org/

solutions/ food/ tree-intercropping; Project Drawdown, “Silvopasture,”

https://www.drawdown.org/ solutions/ food/ silvopasture.

5. Petra Todorovich and Yoav Hagler, “High-Speed Rail in America,” America

2050, January 2011, http://www.america2050.org/ pdf/ HSR-in-America-

Complete.pdf; Anton Babadjanov, “Can We Replace Cross-Country Air with

Rail Travel? Yes, We Can!” Seattle Transit Blog, February 15, 2019,

https://seattletransitblog.com/ 2019/ 02/ 15/ can-we-replace-cross-country-air-

with-rail-travel-yes-we-can/.

6. Project Drawdown, “Nuclear,” https://www.drawdown.org/ solutions/

electricity-generation/ nuclear. See also Union of Concerned Scientists,

“Nuclear Power & Global Warming,” May 22, 2015 (updated November 8,

2018), https://www.ucsusa.org/ nuclear-power/ nuclear-power-and-global-

warming.

7. RMIT University, “Solar Paint Offers Endless Energy from Water Vapor,”

ScienceDaily, June 14, 2017, https://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/ 2017/

06/ 170614091833.htm.

8. Global Water Scarcity Atlas, “Desalination Powered by Renewable Energy,”

https://waterscarcityatlas.org/ desalination-powered-by-renewable-energy/.

9. Project Drawdown, “Pasture Cropping,” https://www.drawdown.org/

solutions/ coming-attractions/ pasture-cropping. See also Taylor Mooney,

“What Is Regenerative Farming? Experts Say It Can Combat Climate

Change,” CBS News, July 28, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/ news/ what-

is-regenerative-farming-cbsn-originals/.

10. For more on climate change and food prices, see Nitin Sethi, “Climate

Change Could Cause 29% Spike in Cereal Prices: Leaked UN Report,”

Business Standard, July 15, 2019, https://www.business-standard.com/

article/ current-affairs/ climate-change-could-cause-29-spike-in-cereal-

prices-leaked-un-report-119071500637_1.html.

11. For more on this concept, see Anna Behrend, “What Is the True Cost of

Food?” Spiegel Online, April 2, 2016, https://www.spiegel.de/ international/

tomorrow/ the-true-price-of-foodstuffs-a-1085086.html; Megan Perry, “The

Real Cost of Food,” Sustainable Food Trust, November 2015,

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/ articles/ the-real-cost-of-food/.

12. Sarah Gibbens, “Eating Meat Has ‘Dire’ Consequences for the Planet, Says

Report,” National Geographic, January 16, 2019,

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ environment/ 2019/ 01/ commission-

report-great-food-transformation-plant-diet-climate-change/.

13. Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization

of the United Nations, “Climate Change Mitigation Strategies,” September

28, 2016, http://www.fao.org/ fishery/ topic/ 166280/ en.

14. Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Parke Wilde, Yue Huang, Renata Micha, and Dariush

Mozaffarian, “Legal and Administrative Feasibility of a Federal Junk Food

and Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax to Improve Diet,” American Journal of

Public Health, January 10, 2018, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/ doi/

10.2105/ AJPH.2017.304159; Arlene Weintraub, “Should We Tax Junk Foods

to Curb Obesity?” Forbes, January 10, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/ sites/

arleneweintraub/ 2018/ 01/ 10/ should-we-tax-junk-foods-to-curb-obesity/;

Mexico and Hungary are already piloting the idea of taxing junk food; see

Julia Belluz, “Mexico and Hungary Tried Junk Food Taxes—and They Seem

to Be Working,” Vox, January 17, 2018 (updated April 6, 2018),

https://www.vox.com/ 2018/ 1/17/ 16870014/ junk-food-tax.

15. This is already happening: “China’s Hainan Province to End Fossil Fuel Car

Sales in 2030,” Phys.org, March 6, 2019, https://phys.org/ news/ 2019-03-

china-hainan-province-fossil-fuel.html.

16. This is already happening in the UK: Tom Edwards, “ULEZ: The Most

Radical Plan You’ve Never Heard Of,” BBC News, March 26, 2019,

https://www.bbc.com/ news/ uk-england-london-47638862.

17. Smart Energy International, “Storage Advancements Fast-Track New

Power Projects, Experts Say,” June 21, 2018, https://www.smart-

energy.com/ news/ energy-storage-new-power-projects/.

18. Adela Spulber and Brett Smith, “Are We Building the Electric Vehicle

Charging Infrastructure We Need?” IndustryWeek, November 21, 2018,

https://www.industryweek.com/ technology-and-iiot/ are-we-building-

electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure-we-need.

19. Echo Huang, “By 2038, the World Will Buy More Passenger Electric

Vehicles Than Fossil-Fuel Cars,” Quartz, May 15, 2019, https://qz.com/

1618775/ by-2038-sales-of-electric-cars-to-overtake-fossil-fuel-ones/; Jesper

Berggreen, “The Dream Is Over—Europe Is Waking Up to a World of

Electric Cars,” CleanTechnica, February 17, 2019,

https://cleantechnica.com/ 2019/ 02/ 17/ the-dream-is-over-europe-is-waking-

up-to-a-world-of-electric-cars/.

20. We can already achieve this acceleration in 2019. See James Gilboy, “The

Porsche Taycan Will Do Zero-to-60 in 3.5 Seconds,” The Drive, August 17,

2018, https://www.thedrive.com/ news/ 22984/ the-porsche-taycan-will-do-

zero-to-60-in-3-5-seconds; and classic car retrofits are already starting to

take off: Robert C. Yeager, “Vintage Cars with Electric-Heart Transplants,”

New York Times, January 10, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/ 2019/ 01/ 10/

business/ electric-conversions-classic-cars.html.

21. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “68% of the

World Population Projected to Live in Urban Areas by 2050, Says UN,” May

16, 2018, https://www.un.org/ development/ desa/ en/ news/ population/ 2018-

revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.

22. David Dudley, “The Guy from Lyft Is Coming for Your Car,” CityLab,

September 19, 2016, https://www.citylab.com/ transportation/ 2016/ 09/ the-

guy-from-lyft-is-coming-for-your-car/ 500600/.

23. Annie Rosenthal, “How 3D Printing Could Revolutionize the Future of

Development,” Medium, May 1, 2018, https://medium.com/

@plus_socialgood/ how-3d-printing-could-revolutionize-the-future-of-

development-54a270d6186d; Elizabeth Royte, “What Lies Ahead for 3-D

Printing?” Smithsonian, May 2013, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/

science-nature/ what-lies-ahead-for-3-d-printing-37498558/.

24. Marissa Peretz, “The Father of Drones’ Newest Baby Is a Flying Car,”

Forbes, July 24, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ marissaperetz/ 2019/

07/ 24/ the-father-of-drones-newest-baby-is-a-flying-car/.

25. The “slow-cation” was already popular from the seventeenth to the

nineteenth centuries, in the form of the “Grand Tour.” Richard Franks,

“What Was the Grand Tour and Where Did People Go?” Culture Trip,

December 4, 2017, https://theculturetrip.com/ europe/ articles/ what-was-

the-grand-tour-and-where-did-people-go/.

26. International Organization for Migration mission statement,

https://www.iom.int/ migration-and-climate-change-0. See also Erik Solheim

and William Lacy Swing, “Migration and Climate Change Need to Be

Tackled Together,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, September 7, 2018, https://unfccc.int/ news/ migration-and-climate-

change-need-to-be-tackled-together.

27. Richard B. Rood, “What Would Happen to the Climate If We Stopped

Emitting Greenhouse Gases Today?” The Conversation, December 11,

2014. http://theconversation.com/ what-would-happen-to-the-climate-if-we-

stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-today-35011.

28. The 3D-printed version is already building houses at speed. See Adele

Peters, “This House Can Be 3D-Printed for $4,000,” Fast Company, March

12, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.com/ 40538464/ this-house-can-be-3d-

printed-for-4000.

4. WHO WE CHOOSE TO BE

1. Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess

We’re in Without Going Crazy (San Francisco: New World Library, 2012),

32.

5. STUBBORN OPTIMISM

1. Kendra Cherry, “Learned Optimism,” Verywell Mind, July 25, 2019,

https://www.verywellmind.com/ learned-optimism-4174101.

2. Jeremy Hodges, “Clean Energy Becomes Dominant Power Source in U.K.,”

Bloomberg, June 20, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/ news/ articles/ 2019-

06-20/ clean-energy-is-seen-as-dominant-source-in-u-k-for-first-time.

3. Jordan Davidson, “Costa Rica Powered by Nearly 100% Renewable

Energy,” EcoWatch, August 6, 2019, https://www.ecowatch.com/ costa-rica-

net-zero-carbon-emissions-2639681381.html.

4. Sammy Roth, “California Set a Goal of 100% Clean Energy, and Now Other

States May Follow Its Lead,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2019,

https://www.latimes.com/ business/ la-fi-100-percent-clean-energy-

20190110-story.html.

5. Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Huizdala

(New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 181–82.

6. Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities

(Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016), 4.

6. ENDLESS ABUNDANCE

1. Brad Lancaster, “Planting the Rain to Grow Abundance,” lecture at

TEDxTucson, March 6, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?

v=I2xDZlpInik.

2. American Sociological Association, “In Disasters, Panic Is Rare; Altruism

Dominates,” ScienceDaily, August 8, 2002, https://www.sciencedaily.com/

releases/ 2002/ 08/ 020808075321.htm.

3. Therese J. Borchard, “How Giving Makes Us Happy,” Psych Central, July 8,

2018, https://psychcentral.com/ blog/ how-giving-makes-us-happy/.

4. Wikipedia, “November 2015 Paris Attacks,” https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/

November_2015_Paris_attacks.

7. RADICAL REGENERATION

1. Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-

Deficit Disorder (New York: Algonquin, 2005).

2. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1972).

3. Daniel Christian Wahl, Designing Regenerative Cultures (Charmouth, UK:

Triarchy Press, 2016), 267.

8. DOING WHAT IS NECESSARY

1. Even if we did, the world would not stop warming. See Ute Kehse, “Global

Warming Doesn’t Stop When the Emissions Stop,” Phys.org, October 3,

2017, https://phys.org/ news/ 2017-10-global-doesnt-emissions.html.

2. Caitlin E. Werrell and Francesco Femia, “Climate Change Raises Conflict

Concerns,” UNESCO Courier, no. 2 (2018), https://en.unesco.org/ courier/

2018-2/ climate-change-raises-conflict-concerns.

3. “Germany on Course to Accept One Million Refugees in 2015,” Guardian

(U.S. edition), December 7, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/

2015/ dec/ 08/ germany-on-course-to-accept-one-million-refugees-in-2015.

4. Benedikt Peters, “5 Reasons for the Far Right Rising in Germany,”

Süddeutsche Zeitung, https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/ artikel/ politik/ afd-

5-reasons-for-the-far-right-rising-in-germany-e403522/.

5. Project Drawdown is a great additional resource, and outlines one hundred

solutions to reverse global warming.

6. Reality Check team, “Reality Check: Which Form of Renewable Energy Is

Cheapest?” BBC News, October 26, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/ news/

business-45881551.

7. Michael Savage, “End Onshore Windfarm Ban, Tories Urge,” Guardian

(U.S. edition), June 30, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/

2019/ jun/ 30/ tories-urge-lifting-off-onshore-windfarm-ban.

8. Shannon Hall, “Exxon Knew About Climate Change Almost 40 Years Ago,”

Scientific American, October 26, 2015,

https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article/ exxon-Knew-about-climate-

change-almost-40-years-ago/.

9. Sarah Pruitt, “How the Treaty of Versailles and German Guilt Led to World

War II,” History.com, June 29, 2018 (updated June 3, 2019),

https://www.history.com/ news/ treaty-of-versailles-world-war-ii-german-

guilt-effects.

10. S.P., “What, and Who, Are France’s ‘Gilets Jaunes’?” Economist, November

27, 2018, https://www.economist.com/ the-economist-explains/ 2018/ 11/ 27/

what-and-who-are-frances-gilets-jaunes.

11. Alex Birkett, “Online Manipulation: All the Ways You’re Currently Being

Deceived,” Conversion XL, November 19, 2015 (updated February 7,

2019), https://conversionxl.com/ blog/ online-manipulation-all-the-ways-

youre-currently-being-deceived/.

12. Stephanie Pappas, “Shrinking Glaciers Point to Looming Water Shortages,”

Live Science, December 8, 2011, https://www.livescience.com/ 17379-

shrinking-glaciers-water-shortages.html.

13. Bridget Alex, “Artic [sic] Meltdown: We’re Already Feeling the

Consequences of Thawing Permafrost,” Discover, June 2018,

http://discovermagazine.com/ 2018/ jun/ something-stirs.

14. Fern Riddell, “Suffragettes, Violence and Militancy,” British Library,

February 6, 2018, https://www.bl.uk/ votes-for-women/ articles/ suffragettes-

violence-and-militancy.

15. Office of the Historian, Department of State, “The Collapse of the Soviet

Union,” https://history.state.gov/ milestones/ 1989-1992/ collapse-soviet-

union.

16. “Futurama: ‘Magic City of Progress’ ” in World’s Fair: Enter the World of

Tomorrow, Biblion, http://exhibitions.nypl.org/ biblion/ worldsfair/ enter-

world-tomorrow-futurama-and-beyond/ story/ story-gmfuturama.

17. Abby Norman, “Aliens, Autonomous Cars, and AI: This Is the World of

2118,” Futurism.com, January 11, 2018, https://futurism.com/ 2118-

century-predictions; Matthew Claudel and Carlo Ratti, “Full Speed Ahead:

How the Driverless Car Could Transform Cities,” McKinsey & Company,

August 2015, https://www.mckinsey.com/ business-functions/ sustainability/

our-insights/ full-speed-ahead-how-the-driverless-car-could-transform-cities.

18. Brad Plumer, “Cars Take Up Way Too Much Space in Cities. New

Technology Could Change That,” Vox, 2016, https://www.vox.com/ a/new-

economy-future/ cars-cities-technologies; Vanessa Bates Ramirez, “The

Future of Cars Is Electric, Autonomous, and Shared—Here’s How We’ll Get

There,” Singularity Hub, August 23, 2018, https://singularityhub.com/ 2018/

08/ 23/ the-future-of-cars-is-electric-autonomous-and-shared-heres-how-well-

get-there/.

19. Tim Walker, “Maya Angelou Dies: ‘You May Encounter Many Defeats, but

You Must Not Be Defeated,’ ” Independent, May 28, 2014,

https://www.independent.co.uk/ news/ people/ maya-angelou-dies-you-may-

encounter-many-defeats-but-you-must-not-be-defeated-9449234.html.

20. “Martin Luther King Jr.—Biography,” NobelPrize.org,

https://www.nobelprize.org/ prizes/ peace/ 1964/ king/ biographical.

21. Jonathan Swift, “The Art of Political Lying,” The Examiner, Nov. 9, 1710,

https://www.bartleby.com/ 209/ 633.html.

22. Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral, “The Spread of True and False

News Online,” Science, March 9, 2018, https://science.sciencemag.org/

content/ 359/ 6380/ 1146.full.

23. Carolyn Gregoire, “The Psychology of Materialism, and Why It’s Making

You Unhappy,” Huffington Post, December 15, 2013 (updated December 7,

2017), https://www.huffpost.com/ entry/ psychology-materialism_n_4425982.

24. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, “Confirmation Bias,”

https://www.britannica.com/ science/ confirmation-bias.

25. Ben Webster, “Britons Buy a Suitcase Full of New Clothes Every Year,”

Times (UK), October 5, 2018, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ article/ britons-

buy-a-suitcase-full-of-new-clothes-every-year-wxws895qd.

26. United Nations Climate Change News, “UN Helps Fashion Industry Shift to

Low Carbon,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,

September 6, 2018, https://unfccc.int/ news/ un-helps-fashion-industry-shift-

to-low-carbon.

27. Al Gore, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change (New York: Random

House, 2013), 159.

28. Christina Gough, “Super Bowl Average Costs of a 30-Second TV

Advertisement from 2002 to 2019 (in Million U.S. Dollars),” Statista,

August 9, 2019, https://www.statista.com/ statistics/ 217134/ total-

advertisement-revenue-of-super-bowls/.

29. Garett Sloane, “Amazon Makes Major Leap in Ad Industry with $10 Billion

Year,” Ad Age, January 31, 2019, https://adage.com/ article/ digital/ amazon-

makes-quick-work-ad-industry-10-billion-year/ 316468.

30. A. Guttmann, “Global Advertising Market—Statistics & Facts,” Statista,

July 24, 2018, https://www.statista.com/ topics/ 990/ global-advertising-

market/.

31. A great article summing up the research can be found here: Tori

DeAngelis, “Consumerism and Its Discontents,” American Psychological

Association, June 2004, https://www.apa.org/ monitor/ jun04/ discontents.

32. Ibid.

33. Tony Seba and James Arbib, “Are We Ready for the End of Individual Car

Ownership?” San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 2017,

https://www.sfchronicle.com/ opinion/ openforum/ article/ Are-we-ready-for-

the-end-of-individual-car-11278535.php.

34. A great article and podcast on this can be found here: Hans-Werner Kaas,

Detlev Mohr, and Luke Collins, “Self-Driving Cars and the Future of the

Auto Sector,” McKinsey & Company, August 2016,

https://www.mckinsey.com/ industries/ automotive-and-assembly/ our-

insights/ self-driving-cars-and-the-future-of-the-auto-sector.

35. Rosie McCall, “Millions of Fossil Fuel Dollars Are Being Pumped into Anti-

Climate Lobbying,” IFLScience, March 22, 2019,

https://www.iflscience.com/ environment/ millions-of-fossil-fuel-dollars-are-

being-pumped-into-anticlimate-lobbying/.

36. Eliot Whittington, “How Big Are Fossil Fuel Subsidies?” Cambridge

Institute for Sustainability Leadership, https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/

business-action/ low-carbon-transformation/ eliminating-fossil-fuel-subsidies/

how-big-are-fossil-fuel-subsidies.

37. Global Studies Initiative, “What We Do: Fossil Fuel Subsidies and Climate

Change,” International Institute for Sustainable Development,

https://www.iisd.org/ gsi/ what-we-do/ focus-areas/ renewable-energy-

subsidies-fossil-fuel-phase-out.

38. Mark Carney, “Breaking the Tragedy of the Horizon—Climate Change and

Financial Stability,” speech given at Lloyd’s of London, September 29,

2015, https://www.fsb.org/ wp-content/ uploads/ Breaking-the-Tragedy-of-the-

Horizon-%E2%80%93-climate-change-and-financial-stability.pdf.

39. The official website for the Network for Greening the Financial System is

https://www.ngfs.net/ en. See A Call for Action: Climate Change as a Source

of Financial Risk (NGFS, April 2019, https://www.banque-france.fr/ sites/

default/ files/ media/ 2019/ 04/ 17/ ngfs_first_comprehensive_report_-

_17042019_0.pdf.

40. Moody’s, “Moody’s Acquires RiskFirst, Expanding Buy-Side Analytics

Capabilities,” press release, July 25, 2019, https://ir.moodys.com/ news-and-

financials/ press-releases/ press-release-details/ 2019/ Moodys-Acquires-

RiskFirst-Expanding-Buy-Side-Analytics-Capabilities/ default.aspx.

41. Fatih Birol, “Renewables 2018: Market Analysis and Forecast from 2018 to

2023,” International Energy Agency, October 2018, https://www.iea.org/

renewables2018/.

42. RE100, “Companies,” http://there100.org/ companies.

43. David Roberts, “Utilities Have a Problem: The Public Wants 100%

Renewable Energy, and Quick,” Vox, October 11, 2018,

https://www.vox.com/ energy-and-environment/ 2018/ 9/14/ 17853884/

utilities-renewable-energy-100-percent-public-opinion.

44. Stefan Jungcurt, “IRENA Report Predicts All Forms of Renewable Energy

Will Be Cost Competitive by 2020,” SDG Knowledge Hub, January 16,

2018, http://sdg.iisd.org/ news/ irena-report-predicts-all-forms-of-renewable-

energy-will-be-cost-competitive-by-2020/.

45. United Nations Climate Change, “IPCC Special Report on Global Warming

of 1.5 °C,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,

https://unfccc.int/ topics/ science/ workstreams/ cooperation-with-the-ipcc/

ipcc-special-report-on-global-warming-of-15-degc.

46. Sunday Times Driving, “10 Electric Cars with 248 Miles or More Range to

Buy Instead of a Diesel or Petrol,” Sunday Times (UK), July 1, 2019,

https://www.driving.co.uk/ news/ 10-electric-cars-248-miles-range-buy-

instead-diesel-petrol/.

47. Christine Negroni, “How Much of the World’s Population Has Flown in an

Airplane?” Air & Space, January 6, 2016, https://www.airspacemag.com/

daily-planet/ how-much-worlds-population-has-flown-airplane-180957719/;

original analysis was carried out by Tom Farrier, an air safety specialist, on

Quora: Farrier, “What Percent of the World’s Population Will Fly in an

Airplane in Their Lives?” Quora, December 13, 2013,

https://www.quora.com/ What-percent-of-the-worlds-population-will-fly-in-

an-airplane-in-their-lives.

48. Liz Goldman and Mikaela Weisse, “Technical Blog: Global Forest Watch’s

2018 Data Update Explained,” Global Forest Watch, April 25, 2019,

https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/ data-and-research/ technical-blog-global-

forest-watchs-2018-data-update-explained; Gabriel daSilva, “World Lost 12

Million Hectares of Tropical Forest in 2018,” Ecosystem Marketplace, April

25, 2019, https://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/ articles/ world-lost-12-

million-hectares-tropical-forest-2018/.

49. Rhett A. Butler, “Beef Drives 80% of Amazon Deforestation,” Mongabay,

January 29, 2009, https://news.mongabay.com/ 2009/ 01/ beef-drives-80-of-

amazon-deforestation/; full report here: Greenpeace Amazon, “Amazon

Cattle Footprint, Mato Grosso: State of Destruction,” February 2010,

https://www.greenpeace.org/ usa/ wp-contentuploads/ legacy/ Global/ usa/

report/ 2010/ 2/amazon-cattle-footprint.pdf.

50. Herton Escobar, “Deforestation in the Amazon Is Shooting Up, but Brazil’s

President Calls the Data ‘a Lie,’ ” Science, July 28, 2019,

https://www.sciencemag.org/ news/ 2019/ 07/ deforestation-amazon-shooting-

brazil-s-president-calls-data-lie.

51. Yuna He, Xiaoguang Yang, Juan Xia, Liyun Zhao, and Yuexin Yang,

“Consumption of Meat and Dairy Products in China: A Review,”

Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 75, no. 3 (August 2016): 385–91,

https://doi.org/ 10.1017/ S0029665116000641.

52. David Tilman, Michael Clark, David R. Williams, et al., “Future Threats to

Biodiversity and Pathways to Their Prevention,” Nature 546, (June 1,

2017): 73–81, https://www.nature.com/ articles/ nature22900; Jonathan A.

Foley, Navin Ramankutty, Kate A. Brauman, et al., “Solutions for a

Cultivated Planet,” Nature 478 (October 12, 2011): 337–42,

https://www.nature.com/ articles/ nature10452.

53. EATForum, “The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health,”

https://eatforum.org/ eat-lancet-commission/.

54. Jean-Francois Bastin, Yelena Finegold, Claude Garcia, et al., “The Global

Tree Restoration Potential,” Science 365, no. 6448 (July 5, 2019): 76–79,

https://science.sciencemag.org/ content/ 365/ 6448/ 76.

55. Ibid.

56. World Agroforestry, “New Look at Satellite Data Quantifies Scale of China’s

Afforestation Success,” press release, May 5, 2017,

https://www.worldagroforestry.org/ news/ new-look-satellite-data-quantifies-

scale-chinas-afforestation-success.

57. United Nations Environment Programme, “Ethiopia Plants over 350 Million

Trees in a Day, Setting New World Record,” August 2, 2019,

https://www.unenvironment.org/ news-and-stories/ story/ ethiopia-plants-

over-350-million-trees-day-setting-new-world-record.

58. Roland Ennos, “Can Trees Really Cool Our Cities Down?” The

Conversation, December 22, 2015, http://theconversation.com/ can-trees-

really-cool-our-cities-down-44099.

59. Amy Fleming, “The Importance of Urban Forests: Why Money Really Does

Grow on Trees,” Guardian (U.S. edition), October 12, 2016,

https://www.theguardian.com/ cities/ 2016/ oct/ 12/ importance-urban-forests-

money-grow-trees.

60. Humans’ meat consumption has varied throughout history but has

generally been much lower than at present. Prehistoric humans ate

occasional scavenged carrion, while ancient Greeks and Romans consumed

between 20 and 30 kilograms per person per year. In the Middle Ages,

European consumption stood at 40 kilograms per capita per year, and in

the post-plague Renaissance, at 110 kilograms. During the Industrial

Revolution the average dropped to only 14 kilograms per person per year.

See Tomorrow Today, “A History of Meat Consumption,” video, Deutsche

Welle, January 18, 2019, https://www.dw.com/ en/ a-history-of-meat-

consumption/ av-47130648. Post-industrialization and -refrigeration, meat

consumption has steadily increased: from 20 kilograms per person globally

in 1960 to 40 kilograms per person globally today. Consumption is highest

across high-income countries (with the greatest meat-eaters residing in

Australia, consuming around 116 kilograms per person in 2013). The

average European and North American consumes nearly 80 kilograms and

more than 110 kilograms, respectively. (Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser,

“Meat and Dairy Production,” Our World in Data, August 2017,

https://ourworldindata.org/ meat-and-seafood-production-consumption.)

61. Areeba Hasan, “Signal of Change: AT Kearney Expects Alternative

Meats to Make Up 60% Market in 2040,” Futures Centre, July 16, 2019,

https://www.thefuturescentre.org/ signals-of-change/ 224145/ kearney-

expects-alternative-meats-make-60-market-2040.

62. Paul Armstrong, “Greenpeace, Nestlé in Battle over Kit Kat Viral,” CNN,

March 20, 2010, http://edition.cnn.com/ 2010/ WORLD/ asiapcf/ 03/ 19/

indonesia.rainforests.orangutan.nestle/ index.html.

63. Greenpeace International, “Nestlé Promise Inadequate to Stop

Deforestation for Palm Oil,” press release, September 14, 2018,

https://www.greenpeace.org/ international/ press-release/ 18400/ nestle-

promise-inadequate-to-stop-deforestation-for-palm-oil/. For further analysis

of Nestlé’s predicament and its response, see Aileen Ionescu-Somers and

Albrecht Enders, “How Nestlé Dealt with a Social Media Campaign Against

It,” Financial Times, December 3, 2012, https://www.ft.com/ content/

90dbff8a-3aea-11e2-b3f0-00144feabdc0.

64. Two extremely useful articles on this subject are Jonathan Rowe and Judith

Silverstein, “The GDP Myth,” JonathanRowe.org, http://jonathanrowe.org/

the-gdp-myth, originally published in Washington Monthly, March 1, 1999;

and Stephen Letts, “The GDP Myth: The Planet’s Measure for Economic

Growth Is Deeply Flawed and Outdated,” ABC.net.au, June 2, 2018,

https://www.abc.net.au/ news/ 2018-06-02/ gdp-flawed-and-out-of-date-why-

still-use-it/ 9821402.

65. United Nations, “About the Sustainable Development Goals,”

https://www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/ sustainable-development-

goals/. These goals are: No Poverty; Zero Hunger; Good Health and Well-

being; Quality Education; Gender Equality; Clean Water and Sanitation;

Affordable and Clean Energy; Decent Work and Economic Growth;

Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; Reduced Inequalities; Sustainable

Cities and Communities; Responsible Consumption and Production;

Climate Action; Life Below Water; Life on Land; Peace, Justice, and Strong

Institutions; Partnerships for the Goals.

66. Dieter Holger, “Norway’s Sovereign-Wealth Fund Boosts Renewable

Energy, Divests Fossil Fuels,” Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2019,

https://www.wsj.com/ articles/ norways-sovereign-wealth-fund-boosts-

renewable-energy-divests-fossil-fuels-11560357485.

67. 350.org, “350 Campaign Update: Divestment,” https://350.org/ 350-

campaign-update-divestment/.

68. Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson, “How Coal Titan Peabody, the World’s

Largest, Fell into Bankruptcy,” Washington Post, April 13, 2016,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/ energy-environment/ wp/ 2016/ 04/

13/ coal-titan-peabody-energy-files-for-bankruptcy/.

69. 350.org, “Shell Annual Report Acknowledges Impact of Divestment

Campaign,” press release, June 22, 2018, https://350.org/ press-release/

shell-report-impact-of-divestment/.

70. Ceri Parker, “New Zealand Will Have a New ‘Well-being Budget,’ Says

Jacinda Ardern,” World Economic Forum, January 23, 2019,

https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/ 2019/ 01/ new-zealand-s-new-well-being-

budget-will-fix-broken-politics-says-jacinda-ardern/.

71. Enter Costa Rica, “Costa Rica Education,” https://www.entercostarica.com/

travel-guide/ about-costa-rica/ education.

72. World Bank, “Accounting Reveals That Costa Rica’s Forest Wealth Is

Greater Than Expected,” May 31, 2016, https://www.worldbank.org/ en/

news/ feature/ 2016/ 05/ 31/ accounting-reveals-that-costa-ricas-forest-wealth-

is-greater-than-expected.

73. See http://happyplanetindex.org/ countries/ costa-rica.

74. For a helpful introduction to AI, see Snips, “A 6-Minute Intro to AI,”

https://snips.ai/ content/ intro-to-ai/ #ai-metrics.

75. David Silver and Demis Hassabis, “AlphaGo Zero: Starting from Scratch,”

DeepMind, October 18, 2017, https://deepmind.com/ blog/ alphago-zero-

learning-scratch/.

76. DeepMind, https://deepmind.com/.

77. Rupert Neate, “Richest 1% Own Half the World’s Wealth, Study Finds,”

Guardian (U.S. edition), November 14, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/

inequality/ 2017/ nov/ 14/ worlds-richest-wealth-credit-suisse.

78. Amy Sterling, “Millions of Jobs Have Been Lost to Automation. Economists

Weigh In on What to Do About It,” Forbes, June 15, 2019,

https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ amysterling/ 2019/ 06/ 15/ automated-future/.

79. Trading Economics, “Brazil—Employment in Agriculture (% of Total

Employment),” https://tradingeconomics.com/ brazil/ employment-in-

agriculture-percent-of-total-employment-wb-data.html.

80. For more information, see Olivia Gagan, “Here’s How AI Fits into the

Future of Energy,” World Economic Forum, May 25, 2018,

https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/ 2018/ 05/ how-ai-can-help-meet-global-

energy-demand.

81. David Rolnick, Priya L. Donti, Lynn H. Kaack, et al., “Tackling Climate

Change with Machine Learning,” Arxiv, June 10, 2019, https://arxiv.org/ pdf/

1906.05433.pdf.

82. PricewaterhouseCoopers, “What Doctor? Why AI and Robotics Will Define

New Health,” April 11, 2017, https://www.pwc.com/ gx/ en/ industries/

healthcare/ publications/ ai-robotics-new-health/ ai-robotics-new-health.pdf.

83. Nicolas Miailhe, “AI & Global Governance: Why We Need an

Intergovernmental Panel for Artificial Intelligence,” United Nations

University Centre for Policy Research, December 10, 2018,

https://cpr.unu.edu/ ai-global-governance-why-we-need-an-

intergovernmental-panel-for-artificial-intelligence.html.

84. Tom Simonite, “Canada, France Plan Global Panel to Study the Effects of

AI,” Wired, December 6, 2018, https://www.wired.com/ story/ canada-france-

plan-global-panel-study-ai/.

85. Richard Evans and Jim Gao, “DeepMind AI Reduces Google Data Centre

Cooling Bill by 40%,” DeepMind, July 20, 2016, https://deepmind.com/ blog/

deepmind-ai-reduces-google-data-centre-cooling-bill-40/.

86. United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW), “Equal

Participation of Women and Men in Decision-Making Processes, with

Particular Emphasis on Political Participation and Leadership,” report of

the Expert Group Meeting, October 24–25, 2005; Kathy Caprino, “How

Decision-Making Is Different Between Men and Women and Why It Matters

in Business,” Forbes, May 12, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/ sites/

kathycaprino/ 2016/ 05/ 12/ how-decision-making-is-different-between-men-

and-women-and-why-it-matters-in-business/; Virginia Tech, “Study Finds

Less Corruption in Countries Where More Women Are in Government,”

ScienceDaily, June 15, 2018, https://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/ 2018/

06/ 180615094850.htm.

87. United Nations Climate Change News, “5 Reasons Why Climate Action

Needs Women,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, April 2, 2019, https://unfccc.int/ news/ 5-reasons-why-climate-

action-needs-women; Emily Dreyfuss, “Here’s a Way to Fight Climate

Change: Empower Women,” Wired, December 3, 2018,

https://www.wired.com/ story/ heres-a-way-to-fight-climate-change-

empower-women/.

88. Thais Compoint, “10 Key Barriers for Gender Balance (Part 2 of 3),” Déclic

International, March 5, 2019, https://declicinternational.com/ key-barriers-

gender-balance-2/.

89. Anne Finucane and Anne Hidalgo, “Climate Change Is Everyone’s Problem.

Women Are Ready to Solve It,” Fortune, September 12, 2018,

https://fortune.com/ 2018/ 09/ 12/ climate-change-sustainability-women-

leaders/.

90. Project Drawdown.

91. Ibid.

92. Brand New Congress, https://brandnewcongress.org/.

93. Andrea González-Ramírez, “The Green New Deal Championed by

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Gains Momentum,” Refinery29, February 7,

2019, https://www.refinery29.com/ en-us/ 2018/ 12/ 219189/ alexandria-

ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal-climate-change; on female solidarity and the

recognition of U.S. female politicians for the suffragist movement: Sirena

Bergman, “State of the Union: How Congresswomen Used Their Outfits to

Make a Statement at Trump’s Big Address,” Independent, February 6,

2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/ life-style/ women/ trump-state-union-

women-ocasio-cortez-pelosi-suffragette-white-a8765371.html.

94. Natural Resources Defense Council, “Salt of the Earth, Courtesy of the

Sun,” January 30, 2019, https://www.nrdc.org/ stories/ salt-earth-courtesy-

sun.

95. Solar Sister, https://solarsister.org.

96. Laurie Goering, “Climate Pressures Threaten Political Stability—Security

Experts,” Reuters, June 24, 2015, https://uk.reuters.com/ article/

climatechange-security-politics/ climate-pressures-threaten-political-

stability-security-experts-idUKL8N0ZA2H220150624.

97. Laura McCamy, “Companies Donate Millions to Political Causes to Have a

Say in the Government—Here Are 10 That Have Given the Most in 2018,”

Business Insider France, October 13, 2018, http://www.businessinsider.fr/

us/ companies-are-influencing-politics-by-donating-millions-to-politicians-

2018-9.

98. Influence Map, “National Association of Manufacturers (NAM),”

https://influencemap.org/ influencer/ National-Association-of-Manufacturing-

NAM.

99. On the United States, for example, see Andy Stone, “Climate Change: A

Real Force in the 2020 Campaign?” Forbes, July 25, 2019,

https://www.forbes.com/ sites/ andystone/ 2019/ 07/ 25/ climate-change-a-real-

force-in-the-2020-campaign/.

100

. For more on Extinction Rebellion, see their website,

https://rebellion.earth/; Brian Doherty, Joost de Moor, and Graeme Hayes,

“The ‘New’ Climate Politics of Extinction Rebellion?” openDemocracy,

November 27, 2018, https://www.opendemocracy.net/ en/ new-climate-

politics-of-extinction-rebellion/.

101

. For more resources on civil disobedience, see “Civil Disobedience,”

ScienceDirect, https://www.sciencedirect.com/ topics/ computer-science/

civil-disobedience.

102

. Erica Chenoweth, “The ‘3.5% Rule’: How a Small Minority Can Change the

World,” Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, May 14, 2019,

https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/ news/ 35-rule-how-small-minority-can-

change-world.

103

. Fridays for Future, https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/.

104

. Jonathan Watts, “ ‘Biggest Compliment Yet’: Greta Thunberg Welcomes Oil

Chief’s ‘Greatest Threat’ Label,” Guardian (U.S. edition), July 5, 2019,

https://www.theguardian.com/ environment/ 2019/ jul/ 05/ biggest-

compliment-yet-greta-thunberg-welcomes-oil-chiefs-greatest-threat-label.

CONCLUSION: A NEW STORY

1. More on Sputnik from NASA: National Aeronautics and Space

Administration, “Sputnik and the Dawn of the Space Age,” October 10,

2007, https://history.nasa.gov/ sputnik/.

2. An analysis of this speech, fifty years on, can be found here: Marina Koren,

“What John F. Kennedy’s Moon Speech Means 50 Years Later,” The

Atlantic, July 15, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ science/ archive/ 2019/

07/ apollo-moon-landing-jfk-speech/ 593899/.

3. Space Center Houston, “Photo Gallery: Apollo-Era Flight Controllers,” July

2, 2019, https://spacecenter.org/ photo-gallery-apollo-era-flight-controllers/.

4. For an analysis of the “JFK and the janitor” incident and what it reveals

about inspiration and motivation, see Zach Mercurio, “What Every Leader

Should Know About Purpose,” Huffington Post, February 20, 2017,

https://www.huffpost.com/ entry/ what-every-leader-should-know-about-

purpose_b_58ab103fe4b026a89a7a2e31.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

THE PROBLEM

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Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. New York:

Bloomsbury, 2010.

Henson, Robert. The Rough Guide to Climate Change. London; Rough Guides,

2011.

Jamail, Dahr. The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path

of Climate Disruption. New York: New Press, 2019.

Jamieson, Dale. Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate

Change Failed—And What It Means for Our Future. Oxford: Oxford

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DESIGNING THE FUTURE: POLITICAL, SOCIAL, TECHNOLOGICAL, AND

CULTURAL CHANGE

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McKibben, Bill. Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? New

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Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a

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ECONOMICS

Assadourian, Erik. “The Rise and Fall of Consumer Cultures.” In Worldwatch

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Consumerism to Sustainability. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.

Jackson, Tim. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet.

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———. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. New York: Simon

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PERSONAL ACTION AND MOVEMENT BUILDING

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Berners-Lee, Mike. There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break

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Foer, Jonathan Safran. We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at

Breakfast. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

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NATURE

Baker, Nick. ReWild: The Art of Returning to Nature. London: Aurum, 2017.

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London: Chelsea Green, 2018.

Eisenstein, Charles. Climate: A New Story. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic

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Penguin, 2015.

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THE SCIENCE: USEFUL RESOURCES

Earth Observatory, NASA, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

National Geographic, nationalgeographic.com

Nature: Climate Change, nature.com

Our World in Data, Ourworldindata.org

ScienceAlert.com

ScienceDirect.com

Smithsonian Magazine, smithsonianmag.com

Skeptical Science: Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism,

https://skepticalscience.com/

Water Scarcity Atlas, waterscarcityatlas.org

World Health Organization, who.int

Drawdown.org: https://www.drawdown.org/ references

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