2021-22 One Book Selection
"The Story of More" by Hope Jahren
The Office of the President & One Book One Northwestern are excited to announce Hope Jahren's The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here will be the reading selection for the 2021-2022 school year.
Welcome Message from Bill Miller
Welcome to One Book One Northwestern 2021-2022! This year's selection The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here, by geobiologist Hope Jahren, comes at the beginning of what many have called the critical decade for addressing climate change.
Our planet faces the dual crises of rapid climate change and biodiversity loss. Three quarters of the carbon dioxide emissions driven by humans has occurred since 1950. There has been nearly a 70% average decline of birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970. Jahren tells us that since 3800 years ago in Mesopotamia, when the global population was about 100 million, people have worried that the earth would not be able to provide enough food, water, and shelter for the growing population. She explains how tremendous advances in healthcare, sanitation, agricultural productivity, energy production and technological innovation allowed the population to reach more than 7 billion.
However, Jahren also tells us this growth has been associated with the industrialization of agriculture with excess use of chemical fertilizers and nutrient runoff, the wasting of edible food sufficient to adequately feed all undernourished people in the world, greatly increased consumption of fossil fuels, rapidly expanding production of diverse plastics and associated plastic waste, and inequitable resource extraction. Altogether, this has resulted in environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, a rapid rise in greenhouse gas levels leading to global temperature increases and sea level rise, and widespread disparities in access to resources across the US and around the world. We have years, not decades, to address these existential threats. When addressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 to, "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts," we need to ensure that populations already experiencing disproportionate impacts from climate change are not further disadvantaged by the policies implemented for adaptation and mitigation.
Jahren asks individuals and society to "Use less and share more." She reminds us that "we are endowed with only four resources: the earth, the ocean, the sky, and each other." There is tremendous interest among Northwestern students, faculty, and staff around the environmental, sustainability, and equity/justice issues raised by Jahren's book. As we read The Story of More together, I encourage you to participate throughout the year in the many activities and events associated with One Book.
