Paperback, 210 pages
English language
Published May 21, 2020 by Vintage.
Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. The Story of More is her impassioned open letter to humanity as we stand at the crossroads of survival and extinction. Jahren celebrates the long history of our enterprising spirit--which has tamed wild crops, cured diseases, and sent us to the moon--but also shows how that spirit has created excesses that are quickly warming our planet to dangerous levels. In short, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions--from electric power to large-scale farming and automobiles--that, even as they help us, release untenable amounts of carbon dioxide. She explains the current and projected consequences of greenhouse gases--from superstorms to rising sea levels--and the science-based tools that could help us fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of warming and a capsule …
Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. The Story of More is her impassioned open letter to humanity as we stand at the crossroads of survival and extinction. Jahren celebrates the long history of our enterprising spirit--which has tamed wild crops, cured diseases, and sent us to the moon--but also shows how that spirit has created excesses that are quickly warming our planet to dangerous levels. In short, highly readable chapters, she takes us through the science behind the key inventions--from electric power to large-scale farming and automobiles--that, even as they help us, release untenable amounts of carbon dioxide. She explains the current and projected consequences of greenhouse gases--from superstorms to rising sea levels--and the science-based tools that could help us fight back. At once an explainer on the mechanisms of warming and a capsule history of human development, The Story of More illuminates the link between our consumption habits and our endangered earth, showing us how we can use less and share more. It is the essential pocket primer on climate change that will leave an indelible impact on everyone who reads it.
An emotionally moving piece combining global data with personal reflections and narrated with as much feeling as this tragic and frustrating topic utterly deservers. The personal connection both breaks up the denser technical material and reminds us that this affects everyone in the deepest ways possible. This one is going back at the bottom of my reading list, for sure.
A no-nonsense, no-jargon primer on how we got to climate change through the lens of human population, food, and energy. Hope Jahren’s voice is one of a gentle, wise friend urging the reader to integrate their values and their actions in an effort to use less and share more.
Long version: jdaymude.github.io/review/book-the-story-of-more/
A quick perspective on climate and consumption, based on an undergraduate class so well tuned to connect and motivate questions about our values and actions. Short chapters on how much more we use in various aspects of life (food, energy, travel), and the inequities and mismatches in global lifestyles, risks, and partial solutions. "Use less and share more". The appendix is on aligning your own values and actions - individual changes, but perhaps the basis for changing institutions too.
