In the more than 500-page book, the climate, ecology and sustainability crisis is to be dealt with holistically. “My hope is that this book will become a kind of reference book for understanding these different, closely intertwined crises,” said Thunberg. “It covers everything from melting ice shelves and ice caps to the economy, from fast fashion to species extinction, from pandemics to islands that are sinking, from deforestation to the loss of fertile soil, from water scarcity to tribal peoples’ sovereignty, from the future From food production to carbon budgets – and it reveals the actions of those responsible and the failures of those who should have conveyed this information to the citizens of the world long ago.”
It is a gathering of around a hundred scientists who present their knowledge from the fields of ecology and economics, biology and meteorology, geophysics and mathematics, oceanography and climatology, psychology and philosophy. Thunberg’s contributions are the guide through the thick book, which is illustrated with diagrams and graphics, but this thread is not red, but blue: Thunberg’s essays are highlighted in light blue. The 19-year-old is the leading figure and will present the book in a worldwide live stream on Sunday evening as part of the London Literature Festival.
backgrounds
The “Climate Book” aims to provide comprehensive and clear information. Therefore, there is a basic part that explains “how the climate works”, how humans and nature interact, what role which gases play in the atmosphere and when climate change was actually discovered (namely already at the end of the 19th century, how US geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer describes).
But then we quickly get down to business and the changes that can be seen everywhere. Johan Rockström from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research writes regarding tipping points and feedback loops and his institute colleague Stefan Rahmstorf regarding ocean warming and sea level rise. We learn regarding droughts and floods, sea warming and ocean acidification, microplastics, the jet stream and terrestrial biodiversity. The British biologist Goulsen (“Dumb Earth”) tells us something regarding insects, the Swede Örjan Gustafsson, professor of biogeochemistry in Stockholm, regarding permafrost.