“We have done well so far and will continue to do well in the future.”
Data mining offers hope to modern people facing the reality of the climate crisis.

Hannah Leach, a senior research fellow at Oxford University's Martin School and associate editor of Our World in Data, has compiled her research on the climate crisis by accumulating vast amounts of data on climate, energy, population, and ecosystems into a single book, organized into seven themes: atmosphere, climate change, forests, food, biodiversity, plastic, and overfishing.
The book, which caused a stir upon its publication by criticizing both the apocalyptic pessimism and the conspiracy-driven optimism surrounding environmental issues, can be summarized as follows.
First, humanity is currently facing a serious environmental crisis.
Second, however, there are many misunderstandings about its diagnosis, and efforts to improve the problem are hindered as misguided environmental movements spread as common sense.
Third, if we strip away the polluted statistics and interpretations, we see that humanity still has a chance to change its future.
In this book, the author, as a "scientist," goes beyond informing us of the reality of today's environmental problems based on specific statistics and extensive data, and distinguishes between "fake environmental movements" and suggests "real environmental movements" that can be practiced in everyday life.
If you're curious as to why he insists that "scientists never say there's no hope," follow this book.

Climate change researchers aren't saying there's no hope.
Most climatologists I know have children.
They study and think about climate change every day.
What is clear is that they have not resigned themselves to the fact that humanity will face the end of climate change within 100 years.
They believe there is still time left to create a future worth living for their children.
As NASA's Dr. Kate Marvel put it, "I strongly disagree with the idea that our children's future is bleak, and I don't believe it, scientifically or personally."


Since 1990, the annual child mortality rate has been reduced by more than half.
This is a tremendous achievement.
But when I post this fact on an online community, I get replies like this.
“So you’re saying it’s okay that 5 million children die every year?” Of course not.
The fact that so many children are still dying is a serious problem that the international community must address.
We've made incredible progress, but we still have a long way to go.
As Oxford University professor Max Rogers said, “The world has become a better place, but it is still a terrible place.
But it can definitely get better.”
--- From "The World Has Not Ended Yet"

I once thought we were living in the most unfortunate time in human history, but now I believe we are living in the best of times.
If someone had said this to me eight years ago, I would have laughed.
Actually, when I first saw the video of Hans Rosling telling this story, I thought, 'I guess I'm the only one living on another planet.'
As recently as the 1970s, about 35 percent of people in developing countries did not get enough calories.
However, in 2015, this figure fell to 13 percent.
In 2020, 75 percent of the world's population had access to clean, safe water.
This is a 15 percent increase from 60 percent in 2000.
The percentage of the population with access to electricity reaches 90 percent.
--- From "Chapter 1: The First Era of Sustainability"

I am neutral on what energy sources we should use instead of fossil fuels.
The environmental movement is divided into two camps over energy sources to replace fossil fuels.
One side is pro-nuclear power, the other side is pro-renewable energy.
In fact, nuclear energy is one of the safest energy sources.
When measured per unit of electricity produced, mortality rates are very low for nuclear, solar, and wind power, and the differences between energy sources are not that significant.
If it reduces mortality rates, it doesn't matter which low-carbon energy source we switch to.
It is important to stop using fossil fuels at all costs.


The most effective way for individuals to practice is to avoid the temptation to engage in behaviors that may seem environmentally friendly but are actually not.
While such a way of life may feel “natural” and “fundamental,” the actual data shows that it is often the opposite, destroying the environment.
The beginning of the environmental movement is not to be fooled by the illusion that we are protecting the Earth.

--- From "Chapter 2 Air Pollution: The Real Way to Find Clean Air"

Unless there is an unexpected and massive technological revolution, it is clear that temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Almost every climate scientist I know agrees with these projections.
That doesn't mean they don't try.
If there had been no climate policies implemented so far, the average temperature of the Earth would have risen by up to 4 to 5 degrees.
Scientists know that every tenth of a degree matters and is worth fighting for.


The world already peaked its per capita carbon emissions a decade ago.
Most people are unaware of this fact.
In 2012, global carbon emissions peaked at 4.9 tons per capita.10 Since then, per capita carbon emissions have been gradually decreasing.
It's definitely decreasing, although not as fast as we expected.
This signals that total carbon emissions, not just per capita emissions, have also peaked.
In a world with a steadily growing population, this is true by any metric.
Carbon emissions increased sharply in the 1960s and 1970s, and continued to increase sharply in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Scientists estimate that if everyone around the world increased the proportion of plant-based foods on their plates, the amount of greenhouse gases produced by food production could be cut in half.
However, people who do not consume enough animal protein do not need to refrain from eating it.
Also, increasing your intake of plant-based foods doesn't necessarily mean you have to become a vegetarian.
The media constantly taunts us with guilt about environmentally harmful foods, but if we were to eliminate all of them from our diets, the reality is that there wouldn't be much left to eat.


Those who will suffer the most from climate change are the citizens of the poorest countries and low-income workers.
They also have very limited resources to adapt to climate change.
In the sweltering heat, you have to run the air conditioner all day to be able to bear it.
I know this claim will be controversial in environmental discourse, as air conditioning systems require a lot of energy.
But my opinion remains unchanged.

'Moral licensing' refers to the psychological phenomenon of trying to justify other actions based on one's previous good deeds.
This also applies to environmental movements.
When asked what the most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is, people often answer with things that actually have little effect, such as recycling, reading e-books instead of paper books, eating only organic foods, and using paper bags instead of plastic bags.
We often overlook things that actually work, like reducing meat consumption, switching to electric vehicles, and investing in low-carbon energy.

--- From "Chapter 3 Climate Change: It's Not Too Late to 'Lower the Earth's Temperature'"

In 2017, Ben & Jerry's stopped producing products containing palm oil.
Because palm oil has been a scourge of the food industry that everyone hates.
But even though palm oil, deforestation, and food are complex issues, we tend to be lured into simplistic messages that play on our emotions.
Palm oil is produced at a rate of 2.8 tons per 10,000 square meters.
Olive oil can only be produced at 0.3 tons per unit area, and coconut oil at 0.26 tons per unit area.
It is not a good alternative to palm oil.
Replacing palm oil with other products would require cutting down more forests.


Deforestation is usually linked to agriculture.
About three-quarters of the causes of forest destruction are due to conversion of primary forests for agriculture and livestock or creation of plantations for the pulp and paper industry.
The most overwhelming cause among them is the beef industry.
Clearing forests to create pastures for cattle accounts for more than 40 percent of global deforestation.
However, it is unlikely that people will stop eating beef completely, so realistic solutions are needed.
For example, consuming meat from grain-fed cows or reducing beef consumption by just 25 percent.
If we want to get people to cut down on their meat consumption, we need to offer simple and enjoyable ways to do so.
For example, suggestions like 'one day a week, have a meatless lunch' are made.

--- From "Chapter 4 Deforestation: To Save the Trees, You Must See the Forest"

One of the most chilling claims about environmental destruction is that the world's soils are degrading so rapidly that they will be unfit for farming by 2074.
This claim has made the front pages of The Independent and The Guardian several times and has been repeatedly cited by environmental groups.
So how did the number "60 years" come about? No one knows.
The Food and Agriculture Organization, which first mentioned this, has never provided any evidence to support this claim.


"If all the world's food production were distributed equally to everyone, how many calories would each person consume? Raise your hand if you think you'd eat 1,000 calories."
All the students raised their hands.

“People who think they can eat 1500 calories keep raising their hands.”
Then, 10 to 20 percent of the students lowered their hands.

...
“3500 calories?”
The last student also put his hand down.
“If all the food produced in the world were divided equally among everyone, we could all eat at least 5,000 calories a day.
In other words, we are currently producing enough food to feed more than twice the world's population.”
Yet, the number of people worldwide who do not consume enough calories remains very high, at one in ten.


About one-third of the food produced worldwide is simply wasted.
When we think of food 'waste,' we usually picture rich people throwing their leftover food into the trash.
However, most food waste occurs during the supply chain, and this is called 'loss'.
There are many ways in which food can be 'lost'.
Sometimes, the wrong farming equipment is used, the crops are left in the field unharvested, or they are damaged during transport.

I am in no way against local produce.
There are many reasons why people eat food from their region.
It could be to support local farmers or because you want to know where your food comes from.
All of these reasons are valid.
However, the claim that eating local produce produces less carbon is not valid.
We encourage people to eat local produce because transporting food also emits greenhouse gases, but the carbon emissions from transporting food only account for 5 percent of the carbon emissions from food production.


Organic farming is beneficial for promoting biodiversity, especially protecting various insects.
If you compare 10,000 square meters of organic farmland to 10,000 square meters of conventional farmland, the organic farmland will be healthier from an ecological perspective.
However, the biggest disadvantage of organic farming is that crop yields are relatively low.
In other words, more land is needed to grow crops organically.
This soon creates new contradictions and sparks debate about the best way to conserve biodiversity.

--- From "Chapter 5 Food Problems: How to Eat Well and Live Well Without Destroying the Earth"

Biodiversity is necessary for human survival.
This is generally true, but not always.
While there are species with clear functional value, there are also species with unclear functional value.
Ecosystems are complex places.
The needs and dependencies between species are intertwined.
Humans don't understand this.
We view biodiversity loss as a charitable cause rather than a core element of future goals.
I don't think we'll put as much direct effort into biodiversity issues as we do other environmental issues.

Is humanity truly heading towards a sixth mass extinction? To answer this question, we must examine two criteria that define a mass extinction: 75 percent of species going extinct and a period of two million years.
About 1.4 percent of mammals have gone extinct since 1500.
According to one study, vertebrates are becoming extinct at a rate 100 to 1,000 times faster than we expected.
There's more bad news.
If we compare the modern extinction rate to the five previous mass extinction events, we are already far ahead of them.
The answer to the question, "Is humanity heading for the sixth mass extinction?" can only be "yes."
However, this bleak outlook assumes that species will continue to go extinct at the same rate as they have over the past 500 years.

--- From “Chapter 6 Biodiversity Degradation: Sharing the Earth with Wild Animals”

Even for recycled plastics, it is rare for them to be recycled more than once or twice.
We tend to think of recycling as the holy grail of environmentalism.
But in reality, plastic cannot be recycled over and over again.
In terms of the general 'physical' recycling practiced in most countries today, yes.
When people say they recycle plastic bottles, they think they are being reborn as other plastic bottles, but in reality, they are just being used to make lower-quality products.
Recycling does not prevent waste from being created; it merely delays the process.
_

Until a few years ago, Asia was by far the largest importer of plastics.
70 to 80 percent of all plastic waste ends up in Asia.
But this proportion has fallen sharply since Asian countries, fed up with the way developed countries dispose of their own waste, stopped importing it.
Today, Europe is the largest importer of plastic waste.
For example, Germany exports plastics to neighboring countries such as the Netherlands, Turkey, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic, but it also imports significant quantities of other types of plastics.


Disposable plastic bags are a sin for environmentalists.
We've all experienced the pain of arriving at the grocery store only to realize that we left our grocery bags at home.
In fact, data shows that occasional plastic bags aren't that big of a problem.
In fact, disposable plastic bags are better than some alternatives in many ways.
To match the carbon footprint of a plastic bag, a paper bag would have to be used three or four times, while a cotton bag would have to be used hundreds of times.
The same is true for other environmental aspects, such as water use, acidification, and nitrogen pollution.

--- From "Chapter 7 Marine Plastic Waste: The Sea Submerged in Human Traces"

Seaspiracy became one of the most-watched shows on Netflix that year.
People around me also said things like the documentary claims, “By the mid-21st century, all the fish in the sea will have disappeared!”
So where did the claim that "the oceans will dry up" come from? In 2006, Boris Worm and his co-authors published a paper in Science.
The press focused on just one sentence in the paper.
“By the middle of the 21st century, it is predicted that all currently exploited taxa will have collapsed globally.” However, in fisheries science, “collapse” has several definitions.
The term Boris Worm uses refers to a situation where catches fall to 10 percent of their historically high levels.
A new study by Worm and Hilborn, published in Science in 2009, found that, on average, fish stocks did not decline.
However, this conclusion received no media attention.


The way we discuss 'fish' is different from the way we discuss other wild animals.
There are two perspectives on fish.
One perspective, taken by most environmentalists and ecologists, is to view fish as animals in their own right.
Their goal is to restore wildlife populations to pre-human levels.
Another perspective is to view fish as a resource.
Millions of people eat fish, and hundreds of millions of people catch fish for a living.
For them, 'sustainability' means catching as many fish as possible each year while managing fish populations so that they do not decline further.
This is in line with the concept of sustainability in the Brundtland Report.


Throwing away accidentally caught creatures into the ocean is called "discarding," and 10 percent of the world's catch is discarded this way.
The situation has improved, with 20 percent of fish caught being discarded as recently as the 1960s, but it is still not zero.
One of the reasons why we were able to reduce the amount of waste is because the market value of seafood has been increasing.
Above all, the European Union has implemented a landing obligation system that requires all fish loaded onto ships to be 'landed', making it impossible to indiscriminately dump the fish caught.

--- From "Chapter 8 Overfishing: The Plundered Earth, the Empty Sea"

There are many different opinions about the direction we should take.
There are heated debates over issues such as 'nuclear energy or renewable energy', 'bicycles or electric cars', and 'strict veganism or flexible vegetarianism'.
These debates, which approach solutions in an all-or-nothing fashion, are unproductive and do nothing to solve the problem.
As far as I know, we're all on the same side.

--- From "Conclusion: So we will save this Earth"