Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

by Hannah Ritchie

Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it’s having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference.

We should be more ambitious about how we imagine our cities, towns and transport systems in 2040 or 2050. They could be built around pedestrians and cyclists, not cars.

Simply cutting out beef and lamb (but still keeping dairy cows) would nearly halve our need for global farmland. We’d save 2 billion hectares, which is an area twice the size of the United States. That is, by far, where the biggest saving comes from. And it doesn’t mean that we all need to go vegan.

Our ancestors were never sustainable because they never achieved the first half – meeting the needs of the current generation. Half of all children died, preventable disease was common and nutrition was often poor.

We’ve travelled through seven big problems, looking at where we are, how we got here, and what we need to do next. For every one of them, we’re either at the turning point to a lower impact, or have already passed it.

Move to renewable or nuclear energy to improve air pollution and climate change; eat less beef to improve climate, deforestation, land use, biodiversity and water pollution. Improve crop yields to benefit the climate and humans.

first is to get involved in political action and vote for leaders who support sustainable actions.

second thing we can do is vote with our wallets.

The final thing you can do is to think about how you spend your time.