Not the End of the world

Not the end…yet!

I’m sitting in the sun, it’s not quite the burning sun of mid summer, more the gentle, comforting warmth of october but an october sun in Greece. Poros I can really recommend it.

Here I am, a week after my Cologne Marathon on some R and R, there’s nothing I HAVE to do. So I am reading books in the sun.

Not the end of the world sounds like the kind of book that is puuting on a brave face before an impending disaster.

It’s not!

Like a lot of people, I am interested in the fate of the world, the fate of mankind and whether I can continue, like everyone else I am fortunate to know, enjoying life. Let’s be clear, there are a lot of people not that lucky. My parents set me up and I did a bit myself but lets be honest, its luck. Lucky to be born to good parents in a relatively wealthy land, lucky to get education and health care. Lucky somebody cared.

This book deals with the upcoming end of the world that we so are often keen on mentioning. So before I get into it, the book left me feeling that not only was I lucky but my luck might not be running out soon. The end of the world might have to wait.

Open any newspaper and you are going to get your dose of political bad news. The book doesn’t deal with that per sei. Watch the news or browse through social media and it’s hard to avoid the sunami of environmental disasters heading our way and / or have occured in the last couple of years. The book DOES deal with that. I’m already used to consuming environmental stories from the excellent George Monbiot . He has some excellent narratives. You won’t find many narratives here though. Hannah deals with data. Yes the D word! The gold bullion of the 21st century and currency of Zuckerberg et al. Hannah Ritchie works for Our world in data , an absolute Mecca for data nerds, but is it the truth? I’ve absolutely no idea except that when one considers a lot at things over a suitable length of time then patterns emerge that become truth or do we think that the sun just might forget to come up tomorrow! I mean, it might not but I’m backing it to and so is the data. Bad analogy, I know but I’m pretty much a sucker for data followed by science. Which brings me to another point. I’m not a scientist, an environmentalist or a data scientist. The book is full of all those elements and I found myself thinking, is that actually true And then you see a chart or a graph. Almost every page is illustrated by graphs. Colleen should make an illustrated version of the book, I bet Hannah would love that!

I really recommend that if you’re interested in the environment, read the book. I’d love to know what you think. Me, I’m left with the same thoughts pre run event. This is going to be hard, I might not make it, I’ve trained enough, I feel good, I think I’ll make it. Perhaps we might just make it. I even got a running reference in!

I’m avoiding quoting from the book because they’re spoilers and you might get a completely different feel than I did.

Enjoy!