Hannah Ritchie’s Clearing The Air is a must read for anyone interested in the challenge of greenhouse gases. She answers fifty common questions about how the world can make progress addressing climate change. Almost everyone can learn something from the book. You may have been able to answer some of the questions, but few people even in the sustainability field will have answers to all fifty. Information is key to recognizing progress, and Ritchie points to progress and uses that to highlight that we can make the world a better place.
There Will Be Challenges
If you haven’t read any Hannah Ritchie and you hear she writes about progress and has an optimistic viewpoint you might think that she isn’t well informed. That isn’t true. Ritchie uses data to show that we can make progress. She isn’t saying that this will just happen by magic. It is clear that lots of work is needed but progress is possible if we work at it. Ritchie’s book is perfect for someone who knows we need to take action but is at risk of despair and inactivity.
The book gives responses to those who say we can’t make progress. There are some classic questions you might get from those who don’t want to change. Ritchie gives you ways to answer those questions.
Every Question Has An Answer
She addresses questions that might stump someone who wants change.
Aren’t heat pumps hopeless in the cold? Answer: Heat pumps are less efficient in cold temperatures but do work; in fact they’re most popular in some of the coldest climates.
Ritchie, 2025, page 193
So, heat pumps aren’t magical, but they still work well enough in the cold. (To be honest, the technology does seem a little magical whenever I read about it). People in Finland and Norway are most likely to use them. You might not know much about Finland and Norway but you know that they aren’t warm and somehow their people aren’t freezing despite relying on heat pumps. Heat pumps work.
We Have The Minerals
Won’t the world run out of minerals. Answer: We already know we have enough of most minerals, and we keep finding more as we go looking for them.
Ritchie, 2025, page 167
If you are worried about rare earths take comfort in knowing that they aren’t particularly rare. China’s current dominance is more about a lack of planning in the US rather than some law of nature.
Lithium shortages, it is commonly said, will prevent us all having EVs. Yet, the US has loads of the stuff including one of the largest known deposits in the world in the McDermitt Caldera. There is loads more of it in friendly countries. It really isn’t lack of Lithium reserves that should stop any progress on climate change.
Information Is Key To Recognizing Progress
Part of the problem is that people who genuinely care simply don’t know what we have achieved. Information is key to recognizing progress and it is hard to get the reliable information that you need to address concerns about efforts to fight climate change. Reasonable points are made, but there are answers to the points. Yes EVs (electric vehicles) take more emissions to create — they rack up a “carbon debt”. That is true. But they payback the “carbon debt” relatively quickly. It isn’t wrong to say EVs create emissions (so if you can walk then do walk) but it is wrong to say they are just as bad as gas-powered cars.
Ritchie tells us how Rowan Atkinson (the comedian — Mr Bean, Zazu, Blackadder) shared his concerns about EVs. But they were simply wrong. Atkinson, who likely genuinely believed that EVs were causing more environmental damage than gas cars, helped misinform the British Left. (He wrote in The Guardian, a bit of a left-wing bible in the UK). People, who might be disposed to take positive action, end up thinking that we can’t get better as the proposed solution is as bad as the cure. Yes, no solution is perfect but the solutions we have are better than current systems. That is why we call them solutions.
Change For The Better Is Possible — It Is Already Happening
We don’t need miracles to save us. We already have a large number of the solutions that we need. We need well-informed people making good decisions to embrace the solutions. We need hard work from people who are motivated because they believe progress can happen. We need to roll out those solutions we have quickly and develop fixes for the remaining problems. It is quite possible. Ritchie will help convince many that this is true while giving them the information to convince others.
Next time you hear someone say we can’t address climate change. Ask them why and be ready with a Ritchie rebuttal to any misinformation that they are holding onto.
For more by Hannah Ritchie How To Make The World Better and Denial, Doom, Or Informed Optimism.
And her Substack https://substack.com/@hannahritchie
Read: Hannah Ritchie (2025) Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change — in 50 Questions and Answers, Chatto & Windus
