Not the End of the World

This “eye-opening and essential” book (Bill Gates) will transform how you see our biggest environmental problems—and explains how we can solve them.

• Carbon emissions per capita are actually down
• Deforestation peaked back in the 1980s
• The air we breathe now is vastly improved from centuries ago
• And more people died from natural disasters a hundred years ago?

• "Not the End of the World is eye-opening and essential. With comprehensive data and sometimes counterintuitive conclusions, Hannah Ritchie does for the environment what Hans Rosling did for health. She argues that we shouldn’t be nostalgic for a time when half the global population died before adulthood, and she makes a convincing case that things are getting better—even though there’s so much more to do. I hope people around the world read this book, understand our planet isn’t a lost cause, and get inspired to help fix it."
  Bill Gates, author of How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
• "The climate and environmental crisis now has its Hans Rosling. Hannah Ritchie has charted an invigorating, inspiring, often surprising tour of recent human history and the many marks of progress it contains. Will the world make good on that optimism in the future? That is up to the rest of us."
  David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth
• "I find it hard to express how much I love this book. Hannah Ritchie brilliantly picks up where Hans Rosling left off. Her book shines with practicality and positivity. It will banish your feelings of doom, help you focus on what’s really important, and make you want to be a part of the most effective solutions to our greatest challenges. Let's get this book into the hands of as many policy makers, politicians and fellow citizens as possible."
  Rutger Bregman, author of Humankind
• “An unmissable myth-busting book to save our planet— read it.”
  Tim Spector, author of Food For Life
• “Data is a superpower. Let Hannah Ritchie show you the world as it really is. Then go out and change it for the better.”
  Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees
• "An inspiring data-mine which gives us not only real guidance, but the most necessary ingredient of all: hope . . . truly essential"
  Margaret Atwood, TED2023
• “Ecopragmatism at its best shines throughout this book... The surprising message in the data is that human civilization is far along toward solving planetary problems. Hannah Ritchie shows how building on the successful trends can finish the job.”
  Stewart Brand, founder of Whole Earth Catalog and author of Whole Earth Discipline
• “Such a clear-eyed view of the state we're in, giving a sharp picture of the challenges ahead, and an inspiring vision of the problems we've already solved. Everyone who reads it will learn a lot – I did.”
  Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up
• “A refreshingly upbeat guide to achieving sustainability. Ritchie attacks cynicism, doomerism and apathy with a barrage of data revealing the extent of our progress and illuminating the best paths ahead.”
  Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century
• “A refreshing perspective on the problems that the world faces, providing plenty of optimism while not sugar-coating the deep structural challenges at the root of it all.”
  Helen Czerski, author of Blue Machine
• “Some deny there are environmental problems, others deny that we can solve them. Hannah Ritchie reveals that they are both wrong.”
  Johan Norberg, author of In Defense of Global Capitalism and Progress
• "Combining scientific expertise with convincing statistics, an Oxford researcher offers an antidote to do-nothing doomsayers...This book is a refreshing change and, as a call to further action, puts forward a sensible, equitable agenda."
  Kirkus Reviews
• “Every policymaker on the Left and the Right should read the new book Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan.”
  Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner