In twenty-six essays—one for each letter of the alphabet—the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
The Sixth Extinction
takes us on a hauntingly illustrated journey through the history of climate change and the uncertainties of our future.
Climate change resists narrative—and yet some account of what’s happening is needed. Millions of lives are at stake, and upward of a million species. And there are decisions to be made, even though it’s unclear who, exactly, will make them.
In
H Is for Hope
, Elizabeth Kolbert investigates the landscape of climate change—from “A”, for Svante
A
rrhenius, who created the world’s first climate model in 1894, to “Z”, for the Colorado River Basin, ground
z
ero for climate change in the United States. Along the way she looks at Greta Thunburg’s “
b
lah blah blah” speech (“B”), learns to fly an all-
e
lectric plane (“E”), experiments with the effects of extreme
t
emperatures on the human body (“T”), and struggles with the deep
u
ncertainty of the future of climate change (“U”).
Adapted from essays originally published in
The New Yorker
and beautifully illustrated by Wesley Allsbrook,
is simultaneously inspiring, alarming, and darkly humorous—a unique examination of our changing world.