I was trying to find something else to title this blog post, because I’m fairly certain I may be pretty close to infringing on several copyright laws right now. It’s a phrase I’ve seen multiple times recently, on leaflets, posters, badges, and most recently as the title of a book. This blog post is mainly about that book, and in the age of social media and paid advertisements I feel like I’m required to state that I’m not being paid to promote this book. However, the book is important. The actual title of the book is “There Is No Planet B: A Handbook For The Make or Break Years.”
I bought it less than a week ago, when I was looking for some kind of light background reading for the university course I’m starting in October (because, yes I am that kind of nerd). The blurb made it sound like it would be something that was right up my street, and related to a topic that I brought up a couple of months ago on my blog, about how hard trying to work out the best way to help save the planet was (if anyone’s interested you can read that here). This book sets it all out in easy to understand manner.
It doesn’t just look at climate change from one perspective, but from many different fields and areas such as food, energy, travel, money, and provides advice for many different types of people who may read the book, from individuals, to politicians, to businesses. This broadness is both comforting and terrifying at the same time. Knowing what little bits you can do as an individual is helpful, but seeing how much more needs to be done on a much larger scale is almost terrifying. It makes you feel helpless and powerless.
I could tell you that it’s not all bad news. But the reality is that the planet is dying and fast. We just don’t know exactly how fast. We have a critical point that once we hit we won’t be able to turn back from, no matter what we do. And that point? Well in good news is that scientists believe it’s no longer in the next 3 years as originally thought, the bad news is that in all likelihood it’s going to be in 2030 or 2040. We all dream of growing old and dying peacefully at the age of 80 right? At the moment it’s looking like I’ll be lucky to even hit 50. Quite frankly I don’t want that.
I’m hoping that this university course I’m undertaking will allow me to conduct research into the things touched on within this book, maybe even with the author himself. And now I realise I sound much more of a nerd than I ever thought I’d become, but this stuff is important. It doesn’t just affect me, or the people that live in my village, or even my country, it affects people across the globe. It’s so much bigger than all of us, and it’s sometimes overwhelming to even think about. In fact reading this book whilst in the middle of a pretty deep depressive episode was not one of my smartest of ideas. If you want a cheery book, this unfortunately is not it.
But if you want to know how you as an individual, or business owner, or politician, can do your bit, even if it is just a little bit, to help the planet. Then this book is for you.
Sophie x
A Place of Mine 