Chris Turner - How to Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World

It always takes what seems like at least a village or two to juggle the resources, working time and household duties to write a book, and this has turned out to be at least doubly true for writing one during a pandemic. Everyones personal COVID story is, Im sure, full of chaos, anxiety and heartbreak; for my household, with multiple immunocompromised members and a disabled child who hasnt been able to set foot in a physical school since March 2020, ours has been largely a story of constant improvisation amid mounting and waning waves of stress, during which we cobbled together multiple villages worth of friends, neighbours and family to help us manage childcare, paid work, the completion of my wife, Ashley Bristowes, brilliant memoir, My Own Blood, and not dying.

I lack the space and the clear memory for a full accounting, but if youre reading this and you were one of the many who brought us a meal or stopped by for a sanity check or took my son to the river to throw rocks and buy me another hour to work on this book, know that I am deeply grateful. And that the most powerfully transformative aspect of this whole catastrophe for me has been the constant reminder that there is nothing ever built by human hands more important to our collective survivalin a pandemic, in the climate crisis, in any circumstancethan a strong community full of compassionate people.

Among the many crucial members of my community as I completed this book were: my father-in-law, Bruce Bristowe; my parents, John and Margo Turner, who endured the grind of full quarantine so that they could welcome their grandson to Nova Scotia for several months of pandemic caregiving; Alicia Carvajal, the best caregiver my sons ever known; Catherine Mercer, who not only provided a vital online lifeline to my sons therapy through the darkest months of the pandemic but has gone above and beyond her professional duties often and with great joy and enthusiasm; Kathe Lemon, who set up the steady stream of neighbourly meal deliveries to our door when my wife was rendered immobile by a broken leg in the final weeks of this manuscripts completion; and the guys on the Banjo Hitters Slack, who know who they are and exactly how much of my nonsense theyve had to put up with.

The research and field reporting informing this book stretches across nearly twenty years, several other book projects, and numerous grants and fellowships, and was enhanced by the expertise and generosity of hundreds of colleagues around the world. Regarding the new research and reporting for this book, I am especially thankful to: the German government and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit for their gracious assistance with my media fellowship at the 2019 Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue; my colleagues at the Walrus magazine and the Walrus Talks lecture series for facilitating my attendance at GLOBE 2016 and 2020; and energy transition colleagues Merran Smith, Linda Coady, Dan Woynillowicz, Ed Whittingham, Philippe Dunsky, Zoe Caron, Gerald Butts, Mikael Colville-Andersen, the Smart Prosperity Institute, the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, Clean Energy Canada and the Pembina Institute. My gratitude as well to James Glave and Colleen Giroux-Schmidt for reviewing portions of the draft manuscript and offering timely factchecking help.

It has been a great joy to reunite for this book with the brilliant publishing team at Penguin Random House Canada, particularly Anne Collins, Matthew Sibiga, my editor, Craig Pyette, and publisher, Sue Kuruvilla. Im thankful as well for Leah Springates striking design work, the careful copy-editing eye of Gillian Watts, and the watchful proofreading of Tim Hilts.

Finally, I remain more grateful than I could ever adequately express for the love and support of my wife, Ashley Bristowe, and my children, Sloan and Alexander. Whatever optimism I have for this world and our collective future is built on a foundation of the joy they bring me every day.