What We’re Reading in February

Our food systems are the primary driver behind global deforestation and the leading source of methane emissions. If you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a good chance you already know this. But Foer’s book is about more than just how agriculture is destroying the planet. 

He digs into what it really means to believe in climate change. Does it matter that so many people understand that the climate crisis is worsening if they don’t act on what they know? In one hundred years, will our descendants care who believed and who didn’t if history books are filled with collective inaction?

The book gives perspective to the importance of ordinary people changing their behaviors to overcome a massive challenge. Foer makes a parallel to World War II: it wasn’t the stateside collection of tin and rubber scraps for military reuse that won the war, nor was it the rationing of things like coffee and butter. It wasn’t even the factories that shifted production from lingerie and appliances to parachutes and defense equipment that cinched victory for the Allies. But the war could not have been won without these efforts wrought by the collective support of ordinary people. The same principle applies to the climate crisis.