There Is No Planet B by Berners-Lee, Mike -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Half title Reviews Title page Imprints page Additional material Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Introduction

Welcome to a new era A handbook of everything When it’s all so global, what can I do? What values underpin this book? What can we aim for? Not the last word…

1 Food

How much food energy do we need to eat? How much food do we grow worldwide? What happens to the food we grow? Given the global surplus, why are some people malnourished? Why don’t more people explode from over-eating? How many calories do we get from animals? How much do animals help with our protein supply? Do we need animals for iron, zinc or vitamin A? How much of our antibiotics are given to animals?

What can I do and what can be done?

How much deforestation do soya beans cause? What’s the carbon footprint of agriculture? What are the carbon footprints of different foods? Should I go veggie or vegan? What can shops do about meat and dairy habits? What can restaurants do? What can farmers and governments do? How could one crop save us over half a billion tonnes CO2e?

What can I do? What can shops do? What can farmers do?

Is local food best? Where does fish fit in? When is a seabass not a seabass? How can we sustain our fish?

What can I do? What can shops do? What can governments do? What can fishermen do?

What food is wasted, where and how? How can we cut the world’s waste?

What can I do? What can restaurants do? How can shops help us cut waste?

Why don’t supermarkets care more about their waste? When food can’t be sold or eaten, what should be done with it?

What can I do?

How much food goes to biofuel? How many farmers does the world need? How can new technologies help feed the world? How can we produce enough food for 9.7 billion of us in 2050? Why do we all need to know our food supply chains? What investments are needed into food land and sea? Food action summary: What can I do and what can be done?

2 More on Climate and Environment

What are the fourteen things that every politician needs to know about climate change? What are the biodiversity stats? And why do they matter? What is Ocean Acidification and why does it matter?

What’s to be done and what can I do?

How much plastic is there in the world? Is fossil fuel better burned or turned into plastic?

3 Energy

How much do we use? How has our use changed over time? What do we use it for? Where do we get it all from? How bad are fossil fuels? How much energy comes from the sun? Can the sun’s energy be harnessed? How much solar power could we ever have? Which countries have the most sunlight? Which countries have the least sun per person? What about when the sun isn’t shining? How useful is wind energy? Which countries have the most wind per person? Why is sun better than rain? Is nuclear nasty? Would fusion solve everything? Are biofuels bonkers? Should we frack? Does more renewables mean less fossil fuel? What is the catch with energy efficiency? Given the catch, what can efficiency do for us? Why is cleaning our electricity just the easy part of the transition from fossil fuels?

How much fossil fuel can a kWh of renewable electricity replace?

How can we keep the fuel in the ground? Who has the most fossil fuel and how will they cope?

What does this mean for a global deal?

Will we need to take carbon back out of the air? How much energy are we on track to use in 2100? Can enough energy ever be enough? Energy solution summary Energy: What can I do?

4 Travel and Transport

How much do we travel today? How much travel will we want in the future? How many travel miles can we get from a square meter of land? How can we sort out urban transport? Will shared transport make life better or worse? Should I buy an electric car? How urgently should I ditch my diesel? Could autonomous cars be a disaster? Or brilliant? How can we fly in the low carbon world? Should I fly? Do virtual meetings save energy and carbon? How bad are boats? And can they be electrified? E-bikes or pedals? When might we emigrate to another planet?

5 Growth, Money and Metrics

Which kinds of growth can be healthy in the Anthropocene? Why is GDP such an inadequate metric? How do our metrics need to change? What metrics do we need to take more note of? What metrics do we need to downgrade? Can the free market deal with Anthropocene challenges? Which is better, the market economy or the planned economy? What is trickledown and why is it dangerous? Why might wealth distribution matter more than ever? How is the world’s wealth distributed? Why are most Americans so much poorer than most Italians? How has wealth distribution been changing? When is wealth distributed like the energy in a gas? (And when is it not?) How can human wealth become more like the energy in a gas?

What can governments do? What can businesses do? What can I do?

What should we invest in? How can these essential investments be funded? Why does the right tax make us better off? Do we need a carbon price? How expensive will carbon need to become? How should I spend my money?

6 People and Work

Does it all come down to population? What can I do to help with population? When is a ‘job’ a good thing? How much of a person should come to work?

What can I do?

Why would anyone work if they already had a citizen’s wage? What are my chances of being in prison?

7 Business and Technology

When is it good that an organisation exists? How can businesses think about the world? How can a business think systemically? What is a science-based target? What is so special when science-based targets are applied to the supply chain? Do we drive technology growth, or does it drive us? How can we take control of technology?

8 Values, Truth and Trust

What is the evidence base to choose some values over others? What values do we need to be the new global cultural norms? Can we deliberately change our values? What makes our values change?

How to cultivate the values that we need

At the personal level

Is there even such a thing as ‘truth’ or ‘facts’? Is ‘truth’ personal? Why is dedication to ‘truth’ more important than ever? What is a culture of truth? Is it possible to have a more truthful culture? What can I do to promote a culture of truth? What can journalists do to promote truth? What can politicians do? How can I work out who and what to trust? What are some bad reasons for placing trust? How can I tell whether to trust anything in this book?

9 Conclusion: Thinking Skills for Today’s World

What new ways of thinking do we need in the twenty-first century? How can twenty-first century thinking skills be developed? Where is religion and spirituality in all this? What questions were missing? What answers were wrong?

Big Picture Summary

Rising human power has taken us into the Anthropocene We have the opportunity to live better than ever The low carbon technologies we need are coming along nicely but on their own they won't help Anthropocene challenges are global, systemic and inescapably intertwined We need to stand further back from the problem and this entails slowing down more of the time We need a new system of economics fit for the twenty-first century Some types of growth are still healthy but others are not We will require globally shared values of respect for all people, for the planet, and for truth We humans urgently need to develop our thinking skills and habits in at least eight respects

What Can I Do? Summary

How can I help to create the conditions under which the world that I want to see becomes possible?

Appendix: Climate Change Basics

Point 1: A global temperature rise of 2 °C looks very risky but 1.5 °C much less so Point 2: As long as we don’t trigger a step change in the climate, temperature rise corresponds roughly with the total amount of carbon we have ever burned Point 3: Emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, have grown exponentially for 160 years Point 4: We have not yet dented that carbon curve Point 5: At the current rate of carbon emissions the remaining viable carbon budget for both 1.5 °C and 2 °C is dwindling quickly – despite some recent good news from the carbon modellers Point 6: It takes a long time to put the brakes on Point 7: All the fuel that gets dug up gets burned, so it has to stay in the ground instead Point 8: Many of the things we might assume will help haven’t Point 9: Growing renewables, whilst essential, won’t be enough to deal with climate change Point 10: We urgently need a working global agreement to leave the fuel in the ground Point 11: We need to manage other gases too Point 12: Extracting and burning fossil fuel has to become too expensive, illegal or both Point 13: The global deal will need to work for everyone Point 14: We need to take carbon back out of the atmosphere

Alphabetical Quick Tour

Aeroplanes Animal feed Anthropocene Balloon squeezing Biodiversity Biofuels Bullshit The Burning Question Business Carbon capture and storage (CCS) Carbon scrubbing (or direct air capture) China Climate change Coal Commuting Consumerism Cycling Democracy Determinism Developed countries Diets Double sided photocopying Economics Education Efficiency Electric cars Emissions Energy growth Enoughness Evolution (of humans) Experts Exponential growth Facts Fake news Farming Fish Food system Fossil fuel Fossil fuel companies Fun Fracking Gas (natural gas) Geo engineering Global dynamics Global governance Greed Greenwash Growth (see also Exponential growth and Energy growth) Hair shirts How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything Human denial Human psychology Ice Individualism tent Inequality Investment IPCC Jobs Kids (ours) Leadership Local food Maldives Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution Meat and dairy Media Methane Nuclear power Nuclear fusion Neuroscience Neoliberalism Ocean Acidification Oil Optimism bias Parents Personal actions Plastic Population Prison Refugees Rebound effects Renewables Rice Russia Shipping Shock Solar power Soya beans Space travel Spirituality Sticking plasters (band aids) Takeaways (takeouts), fast food and ready meals Tax Technology Trickledown Truth Two degrees Value of human life Violent death Voting Waking up Waste food Wellbeing

Notes on Units

Power and energy Distance Greenhouse gas emissions Weights Stuff I don’t use

EndNotes

Introduction 1 Food 2 More on Climate and Environment 3 Energy 4 Travel and Transport 5 Growth, Money and Metrics 6 People and Work 7 Business and Technology 8 Values, Truth and Trust 9 Conclusion: Thinking Skills for Today’s World Appendix: Climate Change Basics Alphabetical Quick Tour Notes on Units

Index

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