On a compelling and informative history of the climate crisis, the most pressing issue of our time. The next book I've chosen to read that's written by a woman is on the biggest challenge we're currently facing. I've read quite a few books on the subject and frankly, while I got the basic understanding of it, I tend to find the statistics rather overwhelming. This book, however, is different. It reads like an epic novel that goes through the stories of various individuals I had never heard of and their journeys. Not an easy read, but a very important one. ⁣
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Within the book, Alice Bell starts by telling the story of Eunice Newton Foote, an American scientist and women's rights campaigner who was the first to make the connection between carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere and the temperature on Earth. Through her storytelling that goes through various scientific, technological and political aspects, she explains clearly how understanding our history is important to shape our responses.⁣
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“The story of the climate crisis is, undoubtedly, the great tragedy of our time, but it’s a story of a lot more than that too. It’s the making of our modern world, for good as well as bad. For those of us who live in rich countries, it’s easy to take the flicking of a light switch for granted, but we have access to illumination (along with heat, food and transport) that our ancestors could only dream of. It’s a story of great minds, the pursuit of truth and courageous attempts to make the world better (as well as a dose of eccentricity and whimsy). It’s also a story steeped in colonialism, full of inequality, spin, snobbery and hubris. It showcases some of the best of humanity as well as the worst, and may well be the end of us.”⁣
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I actually feel hopeful about the future of our humanity after reading the book. It’s now my favourite book on the subject.

We’ve all copped on to the reality of climate change as the temperatures soar, cities are destroyed by flash floods and climate writing is in the mainstream and not just the periferies of science. The continual images of melting icebergs wasn’t “in our backyard” enough.

Earlier this year I enjoyed Bill Gates “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” and developed an unhealthy interest in cement😁. This new book by Alice Bell takes a different approach and appealed to the historian in me. Looking at the first writing on the subject (18th century!😲) to the more recent concern rising in the 1950s up to the current day. It’s not all doom and gloom and Bell’s book is hopeful for the future.

Alice Bell is a science writer and communications director at Possible, and describes herself as “part-time historian of the apocalypse, part time campaigner for a better future.” I’ve been looking forward to her book for a while, and here it is: Our Biggest Experiment – A history of the climate crisis.

I notice that in the US edition (available in September), there’s an extra word in the subtitle, and it’s called ‘an epic history of the climate crisis’. Perhaps it was left out for a more modest British readership, but epic is what we’re talking about here – an ambitious, panoramic history of how climate change went from rumour to fact to emergency.

There are various places that one could start a history of climate change, and this one starts in 1851 and the Great Exhibition – a celebration of the age of steam and industry with little sense of its downsides. Using the exhibition as a starting point, Bell tells us about the machines within its Crystal Palace, the stories of Boulton and Watt, the industrialists of the Lunar Society, pioneers of steam ships and railways.

As it progresses, the book weaves together histories of technology, fossil fuels, science and environmentalism. We meet inventors, oil tycoons, scientists and their breakthrough discoveries. Multiple stories are nested within the overarching narrative of climate change, such as the evolution of meteorology as a discipline.

It’s striking how much this is a story about British and American elites, mostly men, almost entirely white. The history of fossil fuels and thus climate change is inseparable from the power structures of the time. Other players enter the picture, but most of the relevant inventions, corporations and investment comes initially out of the global North. Climate change was set in motion by a relatively small group of people, with little idea of the eventual global ramifications.

Not that Bell is interested in blaming anyone, in what is an admirably balanced history. “I’m not going to offer you villains and heroes” she writes, with fossil fuel companies on one side and environmentalists on the other. Because it too reflects the power structures of the time, the roots of environmentalism are often dubious: eugenics, racism and colonialism are recurring themes in the early history of conservation told here.

Within the nested histories of Our Greatest Experiment are a panoply of fascinating stories, from failed technologies to scientific eureka moments. There are entrepreneurs and aristocrats, dogged activists and diplomats. Some overlooked figures get their moment, such as Eunice Newton Foote, who was the first to warn that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere could lead to global warming, right back in 1856. Or Ida Tarbell, whose fearless investigative journalism exposed the monopolising tricks of Standard Oil, and led to the break-up of one of the most powerful corporations in history. (If you appreciate a good book recommendation, then one of the book’s great joys is in the footnotes, where readers are frequently sign-posted to biographies or histories.)

If I had a quibble, it’s that the story of fossil fuels and industry concludes before we reach globalisation. That leaves out the big – as yet unresolved – twist to the climate story: how a rising Asia complicates the crisis. It began in Europe and the America, but it will be Asia that writes the final chapter on climate change, for good or ill. Our Biggest Experiment doesn’t cover this, though it’s not necessarily an oversight. “At some point you have to draw a line between history and ‘recent events'” writes Bell at the end. The book doesn’t venture much beyond the year 2000, because that’s slippery ground for a historian – “you don’t have the distance; it’s not been digested.” That’s fair enough, and a good reason to write a sequel in a few years’ time.

In short, I really enjoyed Our Biggest Experiment. Whether or not the word appears on your version of the front cover, it well and truly is an epic history. It traces the narrative line through a highly complex global crisis, a feat of storytelling that is as entertaining as it is illuminating.

Wow! This is the ultimate zeitgeist book! I thought this was going to be a plain history of climate change. Instead, it is a righteous polemic against colonialism, sexism, and the corrupting influence of megacorporations. The book neatly takes us through the history of modern energy production – stopping along the way to point out all the various inventions which where funded from the profits of slavery, the historical figures who ignored the women sounding the alarm about greenhouse gases, and the inherent racism in exporting pollution to poorer countries.

It’s a fun book to read – full of fascinating anecdotes and little diversions – sort of like an entertaining ramble from a professor. But it carries with it a deadly serious message. We’ve known for centuries that pollution is a existential threat to our life on this planet. We are conducting a massive geo-engineering experiment with no “control planet” to move to when catastrophe strikes.

We’ve mostly survived by placing the burden on developing countries – but that’s not sustainable, and thoroughly immoral.

Equal parts entertaining, enlightening, and infuriating. It will leave you better informed, and full of zeal to help fix things. The only downside is that it is lacking a detailed look at Nuclear power – the author acknowledges this flaw and does point to some excellent resources.

I thoroughly recommend this book. It casts a new light on everything you were taught in school about the industrial revolution, the development of electricity, and the future of our species.