WORLD WITHOUT END. By Jean-Marc Jancovici and Christophe Blain.
Pub; Particular Books, a Penguin Random House imprint. 2024. £25.
As I write this review our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has just been speaking at Cop 29 in Azerbaijan. At his press conference he said that the UK could meet its climate commitments without inconveniencing anyone’s lifestyles. If only he had read this book on the way there.
It will be wonderful to see the English version have the same impact as the original “Le Monde Sans Fin” which topped the French best-seller lists in 2022 with 500,000 copies sold.
Many of us are unlikely to have paid much attention to comic-books, but if the format appeals to the British - and American - public in the same way as it has to our French cousins, this book will be a hugely important tool in raising public awareness of the issues facing society; especially when they have leaders like our own disturbingly uninformed and complacent Prime Minister.
In France, Christophe Blain is a well known and highly regarded comic book author. The format is perhaps better known across the Channel, where it is exemplified by the satirical Charlie Hebdo. We Brits are much more familiar with its use in American fantasy ‘Superheroes’ rather than for serious commentary.
Jean-Marc Jancovici is an Associate Professor at engineering college Mines Paris and works in that critical area where ecology, economics and energy meet. He has written 8 books on climate and biodiversity issues and is a founding partner of low carbon business consultancy Carbone4 (www.carbone.com). He is also one of the founders of The Shift Project (www.theshiftproject.org). This think-tank is aimed less at policy makers than at persuading citizens to think about the need to change to less energy and resource-intensive lifestyles.
Jancovici sees lower consumption as essential, not just because humanity is absorbing too many resources and in turn emitting them in the form of pollution, from sewage to microplastics. He also argues that our demand for many materials is on the verge of outstripping supplies of everything from oil to copper and farmland. He wants the world to be aware of and prepared for this pivotal moment, which the world’s politicians, economists and media cannot, and probably will never, grasp before we have passed one or more catastrophic ‘tipping points’.
It is going to be very interesting to see how this book’s English language version sells. Perhaps we simply don’t have that same depth of informed citizen debate and activism as the French.
This hefty, large format hardback’s 192 pages follow the authors’ shared journey through time and space in understanding the challenges posed by the multiple crises both created by humanity over the past two centuries and now faced by us. As they address everything from agriculture to transport, Blain - recognisable in every depiction of himself by his prominent nose - is the novice. The history of the world’s current dilemmas is clearly explained to him by Jancovici, both in the form of simple text and clear charts.
Two other major characters feature prominently. One is a vast and voluptuous reclining Mother Nature. She rests her head in her hand, with her modesty protected by a luxuriant mass of red hair. She patiently explains to the pair her bounty and generosity on which we depend, yet which receives no consideration whatever from today’s politicians and economists.
The character which British and American readers would expect in a comic-book format is that figure with ‘super-human’ powers. He appears as Armor Man, which is essentially the ultra-powerful suit of armour donned by all of us to gain the near-magical multiplication in energy and strength which fossil fuels provide. It is compared with the feeble efforts of our own muscles or the thinly dispersed energy of wind and solar power. Because a single barrel of oil contains the same energy as five years of heavy physical individual labour, regular comparisons are made with how many cyclists would be needed to power, for example, a vacuum cleaner (20).
As an engineer, and especially a French engineer, Jancovici sees nuclear power as a better proposition than renewables. As he says, wind and sunshine cannot supply electricity ‘on demand’. With batteries to fill the night-time, cloudy and calm days, it becomes just another expensive source of electricity with similar demands for steel, concrete, copper and so-on.
He doesn’t address where all the Uranium will come from. Most of that consumed over the last 20 years has come from de-commissioned nuclear weapons. In many ways that is good news, but once that is gone the world’s main supplier of enriched Uranium is, awkwardly - Russia.
Despite the book’s apparently light-hearted approach, and despite the author’s relative enthusiasm for nuclear power its message could not be more clear. With a multitude of neat, easily-grasped charts and graphs it makes the entire field of energy, climate, pollution and depletion of raw materials, fresh water, farmland, forests accessible to a much wider debate.
It would be interesting to know how many people in France have responded to this book. They will certainly have thought, talked and argued about it at great length. But it would be nice to think that a fair few of them have, unlike our blinkered PM, adjusted their values and lifestyles.
By The Eco-Worrier
Bình luận