The Climate Book: Greta Thunberg

This a sensational book, horrifyingly candid with chapters covering all the key subjects which have combined towards the current catastrophic situation, such as the melting of the 2 ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica, the jet stream and the Atlantic "conveyor belt" current, warming oceans and rising seas, the boreal and temperate forests, health impacts arising from heat and pollution, and the myth of recycling. This excellent "Climate Book" outlines categorically and in carefully considered and thorough detail, the dire situation facing Planet Earth and the very existence of humanity itself. Reading this book has made myself, along with surely hundreds of thousands of other people, realise the extreme reality of the crisis. I found 2 points especially abhorrent, firstly that the powerful players in the fossil fuel industry such as ExxonMobil and BP, have known all about global warming and their industry's impact thereon since the 1970's, but instead of explaining to the world the dilemma, have deliberately used "an army of" PR experts to instil doubt about the science in the public mind. The second shocking point I wish to outline is the policy adopted by the world's major polluters such as Coca Cola, Nestle and Unilever, of deflecting attention from themselves and instead blame the global public for the deluge of plastic waste created as a result of their manufacturing processes. Each Section includes an Introduction by Greta herself, followed by articles written by leading climate scientists, activists and eminent climate people. This is a book to be read and re-read; the unfortunate aspect, which is covered in the book, is that the majority of the planet's population are unaware of the scale of the probable irreversible dilemma at this point in time - although people in all the countries throughout the globe have noticed ecological and natural changes of some form in their habitats, or wilder climatic conditions or disasters. A critical conclusive point made by Greta Thunberg, is that whilst the logging industries, the airlines, the car manufacturers and the meat and dairy producers are all guilty in respect of the causes of the crisis, their purpose is to make money, not to inform citizens about the state of the biosphere. The book states that our inability to stop the climate and ecological crisis is as a result of an ongoing failure by the media to communicate the true extent of the challenges currently faced by global warming, historical emissions and the drastic lifestyle changes necessary to avert disaster. Instead, the media has allowed the people in power to create a gigantic greenwashing machine designed to maintain business as usual for the benefit of short term economic policies, and have failed to hold those responsible for the destruction of our biosphere accountable, effectively acting as gatekeepers of the status quo. It is crystal clear that drastic societal changes to our global lifestyle including vastly reducing agricultural meat production, manufacturing processes, car travel, air travel, sea freight, human consumption and significantly scaling back the global economy itself. There also requires to be leadership of our countries which focusses upon and prioritise the environment over economic growth. The alternative, which is where we are absolutely definitely headed by maintaining our current lifestyles, is a significantly warmer and potentially uninhabitable world i.e. Extinction / Apocalypse. This is the best and the worst book I have ever read!

This is an excellent book providing a wealth of information about climate change from a large number of international authorities on the subject, all carefully put together with commentary from Greta Thunberg. There are over 70 chapters on different topics. Each chapter is only a few pages long making it easy to read in bite sized chunks. I would highly recommend it to everyone, particularly those not familiar with the many interrelated and wide ranging aspects to climate change.

A very interesting collection of climate change experts essays. Excellent for the study of climate analysis

The case for our climate crisis is simply and carefully laid out! This book will educate you in the basics that we all need to know. Our elected officials need to know what is presented and act on it! BTW, I bought this, the UK edition as being preferable to the USA edition. For whatever the reasons, the American version has Greta's articles on dark paper, making it very hard to read. Not to mention, the graphs and illustrations are poorly reproduced in washed out colors. The UK version is a delight to look at, and clearer to read and take-in. So buy the UK version! Hey, American publisher, what the hay? Do Greta proud by doing her book right!

Fantastic, must-read book.

It was written because Thunberg didn't have anywhere to point people who weren't clear what the problem was. It's important because it has in one place a huge set of (98) short essays (2-10-ish pages) that deal in undeniable facts. But it's a miserable read, occasionally made more miserable by Thunberg's provocative language ("they knew. they all knew"), and should come with a mental health warning as it's really no fun at all -- I only say this because after a few chapters it's very tempting to give up and I will be super surprised if the number of people who actually read all nearly-100 essays will be more than double digits. It's possibly more useful as a reference text to point and extract information about specifiic things "What does Thunberg and team have to say about topic x". For those who want something more solution-focused and action-oriented, you might like the drawdown.org solution framework which has science behind dozens of potential solutions and their modeled impact.

The Climate Book is exceptionally well put together and very readable, albeit difficult to do so in that it shows so clearly what a mess homo sapiens has created and what is truly at stake for the planet and the species that we share it with. It can easily be read in bite size pieces and is excellently pitched in terms of comprehensible scientific detail. Whatever your cultural, religious, political or economic beliefs and biases are I would encourage you to set them aside and read this book, if only for the sake of any children you may have or are contemplating. You will then at least, if nothing else, be informed and aware.

As I write this review, the world is in the middle of COP27 and Climate Change. THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY IS HERE! Thank you to Greta Thunberg for this beautiful, extensive and well thought-out book rightly printed on FSC certified paper. It is a compilation of mini-articles/essays by world renowned experts and voices in the Climate Change debate. These articles are arranged in a sensible and logical order, as they dissect and assesses the cause, impact and proposed solutions of Climate Change. Greta herself interacts with the book contents in an editorial fashion, her articles interspersed among the others. Although Greta Thunberg is already recognised the world over, I believe that she deserves special recognition for bringing this book together. Born in 2003, through this book, she shows a perception and drive that should motivate all of us. This is not hero-worship but it is giving praise where praise is due. This book should NOT be on everybody's shelf, like many others, but by everybody's side, used and referrred to frequently till its pages are well-read and understood, maybe even beyond the book's sturdy binding gives way. I believe that this book should be the winning NON-FICTION BOOK OF 2022, and beyond. This book deserves 10 stars, not just 5!!!