★★☐☐☐

• Full Title: How We’re F***ing Up Our Planet: The Facts Visually Explained
• Author: Tony Juniper
• Year: 2016 (mine was 2018 hardcover reprint)
• Pages: 207*
• Genre: Science, Environmentalism
• Publisher: DK
• ISBN 978-1-4654-7819-1 (hardcover)
• Author’s Wikipedia page

(* Not including glossary, index, acknowledgements)

 

Summary

This book, which my wife saw in the local library and thought I would enjoy, is full of facts, graphs, charts, and informational illustrations, as well as small blocks of text — all relating to the damage that humanity is inflicting on the very ecosystem we require to survive. It was originally published in 2016 as What’s Really Happening To Our Planet?, with a foreword by the Prince of Wales (I assume Charles, who has held the title since 1958). DK’s 2018 reprint (the version I read) doesn’t include the royal foreword.

Author Tony Juniper is an environmental activist, but also a scholar and political appointee in Britain. His doctorate degrees are honorary. He was named “Commander of the Order of the British Empire” in 2017, apparently a British title bestowed by the government which is just below that of “knight”.

 

Commentary On Style

The writing style is simple and general, bordering on generic:

“In many rich and more developed countries, growing numbers of people are becoming overweight or obese, while in many developing countries a large proportion of people are undernourished.”

— page 72

Each set of two facing pages has multiple blocks of text, organized as follows: (1) a large main headline, usually two to four words; (2) a smaller, but still bold-face subhead, usually about 30 words; (3) the primary text at normal size, around 100 words; (4) slightly smaller text, in a different font, to introduce the large graphics, also around 100 words; (5) several other text boxes splayed around the page in differing sizes.

Each page includes large color graphics, illustrating one set of facts or another (see example photo).

 

Did I Learn Anything?

I don’t think I learned anything. I assume this book’s intended audience is people who haven’t paid much attention to the environment, the economy, capitalism, ecology, biology, news about corporations or pollution, health, technology, or... just about anything. Except for some of the very specific numbers, much of this was old hat to me. (Environmentalism and climate change are my pet issues; it makes sense that I would be somewhat well-versed on the topic.)

 

Points Off For...

My points off are for two things: (1) using asterisks in the title and (2) the inner design.

If you want to use a word like “fucking” in your headline, I think you should use the word “fucking”. I want to note that “f***ing” isn’t a word in any human language. If you’re using the asterisks, that means you think it’s a word that shouldn’t be printed. If you think so, then use a different word.

The layout and design probably meets some ultra-modern standard for informational books, or “infotainment”, but it was disastrous for this old fellow just trying to read a book. (I should note here that Juniper isn’t responsible for the design. According to the copyright page, an entire team of designers had a hand in this, including Duncan, Rupanki, Janet, Clare, Joyce, Jamie, Ruth, Michael, Karen, Alex, and others.) I think I had trouble reading for the same reason I struggle to read comic books: my eyes don’t know where to go next. Unlike simple left-to-right, top-to-bottom text in traditional books, this one is all over the place. Obviously the giant headline is first and the subhead is second. But when I start reading the main text block, my eyes are drawn to the giant colorful illustrations. Sometimes there’s a text box over to the right, amidst the illustration, so I start reading that. But then there’s text within the illustration, and often under it or beside it. I’m jumping all over the place.

The illustrations, some of them quite imaginitive I admit, also remove points for me. Mainly because each one is a different kind of infographic, requiring the reader to first figure out how the chart/graph works, and then to figure out which kind of information it’s trying to portray. It was all very tiring.

 

On A Personal Note

While I’m not (and never will be) a single-issue voter, environmentalism (including climate change) would be that one issue for me. That’s why my wife thought I would be interested in this book, and why I gave it a go.

 

Conclusion

There is actually a lot of useful information in this book. Juniper’s research was impressively thorough — this is clear from the infographics throughout the book. For someone who is (1) kind of on the fence about environmentalism and (2) has a knack for reading comic-book-style hardcover nonfiction books, I think this tome would be perfect.

It was not enjoyable for me to read, and I likely wouldn’t recommend it.

 

 

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