From the Publisher
The first edition won the 2012 Green Book Festival Award
“Deftly blends intelligence with entertainment, perhaps creating a unique genre: a page-turner for the climate-conscious.”—Publishers Weekly
“A user-friendly reminder of our environmental impact... [that] will find an audience among patrons concerned about climate change.”—Booklist, STARRED review
“An easy, often amusing read…Readers can enjoy the fun as Berners-Lee reveals the carbon footprints of hundreds of elements in our lives.”—Kirkus Reviews
Praise for There Is No Planet B
“I can’t remember the last time I read a book that was more fascinating and useful and enjoyable.”—Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body
“There is no Planet B is a massively entertaining compendium of bite-sized facts … It’s also massively important, given the current state of the planet.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and American Earth
“There is no Planet B is a rallying cry for a generation worried that they will inherit a world shorn of nature’s wonders and of the freedoms and opportunities we take for granted… [this book] will go a long way to ensuring the planet we hand on may just be liveable.”—Adrian Barnett, New Scientist
“Who should read There is no Planet B? Everyone. Mike Berners-Lee has written a far-ranging and truth-telling handbook that is as readable as it is instructive.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Kirkus Reviews
2022-01-18
An up-to-date life guide for carbon-conscious readers.
In this “extensively revised and updated” edition of his 2010 book, How Bad Are Bananas, Berners-Lee offers an easy, often amusing read. Unfortunately, despite the traditional what-we-can-do-to-fix-it final chapter, the end result is not more than mildly encouraging. Since the author wrote Bananas, the global climate crisis has gotten much worse. Temperatures are rising faster than predicted; weather has deteriorated; trees are flowering sooner than they should; polar ice is melting, and sea levels are rising. The author adds that humans produced 56 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, and emissions continue to rise, “as if humans had never noticed climate change.” The average American has an annual carbon footprint of 21 tons, while the global average is just over seven. Berners-Lee proposes five tons as a sensible goal. This may sound impossible, but he reminds readers that America is a very unequal society, and the extremely wealthy drive the average up by their “carbon-profligate lifestyles.” However, since a single commercial flight from New York City to Seoul burns around 4.7 tons, many readers will remain doubtful. With the unpleasantness out of the way, readers can enjoy the fun (at least at the beginning) as Berners-Lee reveals the carbon footprints of hundreds of elements in our lives, starting small—tap water, email, a paper bag, a diaper; then moving up to a roll of toilet paper, washing dishes, driving a mile, taking a bath, using a smartphone—and ending with the big stuff: making a ton of steel, a plane flight, space travel, wildfires, wars, deforestation. Ending on the traditional positive note, the author shows more good sense than usual. Individual efforts (recycling, bicycling) are trivial, but we should do them to create a new norm. If enough of us live within our carbon budget, wasting it (the norm today) will become uncool.
More bad news about climate change but entertaining and often practical.
