Name: Maddie's review of We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer
Item: We Are the Weather
Rating: 4
Author: Maddie

Jonathan Safran Foer

The New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer re-evaluated his meat-based diet--and his conscience--in his powerful memoir and investigative report, Eating Animals. Now, he offers a mind-bending and potentially world-changing call to action on climate change. Most books about the environmental crisis are densely academic, depressingly doom-laden, and crammed with impersonal statistics. We Are the Weather is different--accessible, immediate, and with a single clear solution that individual readers can put into practice straight away. A significant proportion of global carbon emissions come from farming meat. Giving up meat is incredibly hard and nobody is perfect--but just cutting back is much easier and still has a huge positive effect on the environment. Just changing our dinners--cutting out meat for one meal per day--is enough to change the world. With his distinctive wit, insight, and humanity, Foer frames this essential debate as no one else could, bringing it to vivid and urgent life.

Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

We Are the Weather

Some people reject the fact, overwhelmingly supported by scientists, that our planet is warming because of human activity. But do those of us who accept the reality of human-caused climate change truly believe it? If we did, surely we would be roused to act on what we know. Will future generations distinguish between those who didn’t believe in the science of global warming and those who said they accepted the science but failed to change their lives in response? In We Are the Weather, Jonathan Safran Foer explores the central global dilemma of our time in a surprising, deeply personal, and urgent new way. The task of saving the planet will involve a great reckoning with ourselves—with our all-too-human reluctance to sacrifice immediate comfort for the sake of the future. We have, he reveals, turned our planet into a farm for growing animal products, and the consequences are catastrophic. Only collective action will save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat—and don’t eat—for breakfast.

Danny White

...replacing animal products with alternatives seems to be the only pragmatic way to reverse climate change before it is too late.

We dramatically overstate the role of science deniers, because it allows science acceptors to feel righteous without challenging us to act on the knowledge we accept.

When considering a loan, banks look at the applicant's debt-to-income (DTI) ratio. Most financial planners consider a debt-to-income ratio of 36 percent or lower to be healthy. ...Humanity has a DTI ratio of 150 percent, meaning we are consuming natural resources at a rate 50 percent greater than Earth's ability to replenish them.

We believe that the environmental crisis is caused by large outside forces and therefore can be solved only by large outside forces. But recognizing that we are responsible for the problem is the beginning of taking responsibility for the solution.

Climate change is not a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, which can be returned to when the schedule allows and the feeling inspires. It is a house on fire.

We are good at things like calculating the path of a hurricane, and bad at things like deciding to get out of its way.

Paulina 

Maddie

Daniel Toke Hansen

This book was not easy to get through, but none the less it's very inspiring reading. I've always hated the argument that the individual actions won't make any change and therefore we might as well just eat meat all the time, stop recycling and go crazy like there's no tomorrow. This book elegantly explains why and how we all play a part and together we can change the world just not right at once. All of our actions might rub off so it might as well be the good actions that we expose and these can lead to more and different actions. 

A sentence I for sure will take with me is: “Changing how we eat will not be enough, on its own, to save the planet, but we cannot save the planet without changing how we eat.”

Gisela Ayala 

Interesting and also scary. 

The first half of the book is pretty great and then he goes into all these statistics which scared the crap out of me (which is the whole point of course). But then last part was a bit repetitive. Major takeaway - we have to rethink about how we consume things for example, meat in the authors book in order to make any kind of impact in reducing the affects of climate change. 

I do wish there was a bit more advice in the book, but I found the statistics helpful.

This book isn’t a list of 10 Things You Can Do Now To Stop The Climate Crisis. It isn’t for the cold hard facts (but you can find that in the appendix).

This book is about relating to the common feeling of individual helplessness when it comes to the climate crisis. It’s a pub chat with a friend about our shared plight with one proposition to quell that helplessness: eat little to no animal products. That action has the biggest bang for your individual and our collective buck.

Yes, this book meanders. Some analogies don’t land. I think this made for a better total package given the overwhelming subject matter. It has rhythm where other books on the topic turn on the firehose.

This book isn’t a list of 10 Things You Can Do Now To Stop The Climate Crisis. It isn’t for the cold hard facts (but you can find that in the appendix).

This book is about relating to the common feeling of individual helplessness when it comes to the climate crisis. It’s a pub chat with a friend about our shared plight with one proposition to quell that helplessness: eat little to no animal products. That action has the biggest bang for your individual and our collective buck.

Yes, this book meanders. Some analogies don’t land. I think this made for a better total package given the overwhelming subject matter. It has rhythm where other books on the topic turn on the firehose.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

El libro es sumamente interesante, y esta al alcance de la comprensión de cualquiera, ademas es concreto, lo que también suma. Lei este libro, en mi búsqueda por escuchar las distintas voces, argumentos y evidencias. Hay cosas con las que estoy de acuerdo, como que tenemos que hacernos cargo del cambio climático y que se necesita un cambio, y otras con las que tal vez no estoy tan de acuerdo con el enfoque. Es uno de esos libros que necesitas digerir por un tiempo y después volver a él, para poder concluir sobre él y formarte una opinión mas completa del tema.

Patty Pforte

Beautifully written, with poetry and passion. It begins with moments of great sacrifice and then poses the task of eating vegan for the first two meals of the day. It uses a wide array of styles of writing to consider this sacrifice including arguing with himself! A great and powerful read!

Most books about the environmental crisis are densely academic, depressingly doom-laden and crammed with impersonal statistics. We are the Weather is different - accessible, immediate and with a single clear solution that individual readers can put into practice straight away. A significant proportion of global carbon emissions come from farming meat. Giving up meat is incredibly hard and nobody is perfect - but just cutting back is much easier and still has a huge positive effect on the environment. Just changing our dinners - cutting out meat for one meal per day - is enough to change the world. With his distinctive wit, insight and humanity, Foer frames this essential debate as no one else could, bringing it to vivid and urgent life.

We are the Weather

Flavia Louise

This book seems really conversational to me. I think that is one of its strengths. But teh way I am as a person also means that it is exactly the reason it wasn't really it for me. It seemed really repetitive at times. I still think it brings some valuable information.

'Read this book. Saving Planet Earth starts right here, right now' Stella McCartney From the bestselling author of Eating Animals, a brilliantly fresh and accessible take on climate change - and what we can do about it 'Climate change is the greatest crisis humankind has ever faced. It is that straightforward, that fraught. Where were you when you made your decision?' It is all too easy to feel paralysed and hopeless in the face of climate crisis, but the truth is that every one of us has the power to change history's course. We have done it before: making collective sacrifices to protect our freedoms, our families, our way of life. And we can do it again. In this extraordinarily powerful and deeply personal book, Jonathan Safran Foer lays bare the battle to save the planet. Calling each one of us to action, he answers the most urgent question of all: what will it take for things to change? It all starts with what we eat for breakfast. 'Eye-opening' New York Times Book Review 'Safran Foer's new approach gives me hope' Observer

Herb Bowie

I was not a fan. Have to admit that I skimmed a lot of it. 

Elena Garcia Navarro

I almost never tab books, but this one is full of them.

It was insightful, educational, eye-opening, alarming and hopeful at the same time. 

We are probably irremediably fucked, but that should never be used as an excuse to stop us from trying. A must-read.

Maddie &
We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer

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Maddie &We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer

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We Are the Weather by Jonathan Safran Foer