The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here

by Hope Jahren

It makes sense that the most effective and long-lasting mechanism for curbing global population growth revolves around an elimination of gender inequality.

Take corn, for example. Those of us who grew up in the Heartland already know that a cornfield produces more than grain. It is the set and stage of our lives, it is the living furniture of our backyards. It’s where you play hide-and-seek on Sunday afternoon while the grown-ups are still eating potato salad and it’s not yet time for pie. It’s where you pick up two garter snakes at the same time, one in each hand, to prove to your brother that you aren’t afraid. Eventually, it’s the place where you park the old Ford at midnight and boast to your friends that you can’t wait to leave this little town, while you stare up at the cold stars, wondering why growing up has to also mean leaving home.

Starvation is caused by our failure to share what we produce, not by the earth’s ability to provide.

Using less and sharing more is the biggest challenge our generation will ever face.

As a solution, energy conservation by its very definition requires the least effort of any approach. It is a strong lever by which we could pull ourselves back into alignment with a future that our grandchildren might survive. There’s only one problem: driving less, eating less, buying less, making less, and doing less will not create new wealth.

I am hopeful because history teaches us that we are not alone. During centuries past, women and men railed helplessly against overwhelming forces that poisoned the wells, spoiled the crops, and robbed them of their loved ones.

Do not be seduced by lazy nihilism. It is precisely because no single solution will save us that everything we do matters.

Our history books contain so much—extravagance and deprivation, catastrophe and industry, triumph and defeat—but they don’t yet include us. Out before us stretches a new century, and its story is still unwritten. As every author will tell you, there is nothing more thrilling, or as daunting, as the possibilities that burst from a blank page.