How Are We Going to Explain This?

**Unedited proof: additions to come, currently denoted in grey – rather than black – text.**

'I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most important books I've read this year.' - Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists

'A fine account of where we stand, and where we could go if we wanted to!'' - Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, and activist

'Explaining the climate story clearly and convincingly: Jelmer Mommers can do it like no other.' - David Van Reybrouck, author of Congo

Over five years covering climate change, Jelmer Mommers has learned that the subject is a great way to ruin a conversation. Most people prefer to look away, which is understandable when we discuss climate change as an apocalypse. But the crisis does not offer a definitive end. There are always ways we can mitigate, prevent, and reverse the damage.

Drawing on the latest climate science, Jelmer Mommers describes the current state of the climate and how we got here, sketches possible futures if we act and if we don't, and explains common misconceptions about the crisis - from outright denial to fatalism. He then shows what we can do - individually and collectively - to address the crisis, from taking trains rather than flying short distances to ensuring our pensions aren't invested in fossil fuels to pushing governments via activism and elections to build renewable power plants. No-one is too small to help.

This is a book for everyone who is looking away or is resigned to an imagined fate. And, unlike so many other 'climate change books', it promises to make the reader laugh and leave them with both hope and a plan. Because there will be future generations who we will have to explain ourselves to, and if we make the wrong choices they may be very very angry.