Tom Heap - 39 Ways to Save the Planet

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First published by Witness Books in 2021

Copyright Tom Heap 2021

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design by Blacksheep
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ISBN: 978-1-473-53279-3

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As Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger fought to pass the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act and the low carbon fuel standard, and delivered greater protection of nature. Today, improving the environment is a core purpose behind both the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy at the University of Southern California and the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative. Every year he hosts the Austrian World Summit, bringing together politicians, business people and thought leaders to tackle climate change.

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves isnt just a fantastic line from Terminator its a philosophy we can all use in our lives.

The Terminator franchise portrays the apocalypse of machines trying to control our lives. It depicts a frightening, dystopian, uninhabitable world. But heres the thing: the Terminator movies did not dwell on the hopelessness of the situation. No, they focused on human will and human hope. In fact, when Sarah Connor warned the world about the coming robot apocalypse, they put her in an insane asylum.

I think it is important that we channel optimistic thinking into the current environmental movement instead of just freezing people with doom and gloom that they dont really understand. Yes, there is reason for alarm. Yes, it is true that we see the problems getting bigger and bigger, from wildfires and floods to shellfish boiling in their shells to water that isnt safe to drink and air that isnt safe to breathe. Yes, we are in a crucial moment.

But I believe we need to also share the hopeful stories of heroes terminating pollution all over the world, creating jobs and helping future generations breathe easier.

Thats why I love this book. Its right there in the title: 39 Ways to Save the Planet. 39 solutions, 0 doom. You will learn about different visionaries all over the world who have been working without much fanfare to solve our pollution crisis.

This is exactly what we need to show the people that we are in control.

Because lets be honest: we need the people to create our clean energy future, we need them to solve the pollution crisis that kills more than 7 million people each year and we need them to be a part of our environmental crusade.

We keep waiting for the governments of the world to solve this problem, but what we really need is the people of the world to solve this problem. Every great movement has enlisted the people the civil rights movement, the anti-apartheid movement, the womens suffrage movement and the Indian independence movement. The environmental movement is no different and that is why I think this is such an important book for this moment in time. With so much writing on the climate crisis focused on the crisis, this book is focused on the solutions the people can get behind.

Across the globe, enterprising individuals are finding solutions to the challenges in front of us. They are turning to nature, technology, classrooms and their own homes to create clean energy, reduce emissions and pull carbon from the air. You cant help but feel inspired by the innovators chronicled in this book. You will love reading about the computer scientist who is using artificial intelligence to build robots that can service wind turbines miles out at sea. Or the former consumer products executive who has developed an inexpensive and much safer nuclear power plant. Or the professor who is working to de-gas cows. Or the teacher in Zimbabwe who is fighting climate change by educating girls about sustainable farming. Each of the 39 case studies in this book is inspiring and provides the reader with optimism for our future.

Its time for all of us to stop talking to people about what they have to lose and start talking to people about what they have to win. We need to recycle our white flags, terminate our doom and gloom, and start building a real movement with a foundation of optimism and hope.

Dont know where to begin? The book youre holding right now is a good place to start. I know that youll be both awed and inspired by the people and projects youll read about here.

Because good things are happening. We can be the change, and we can save the world.

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. So lets make ours a clean, green, healthy fate.

Climate change is a real and present danger to human civilisation on this planet, yet this book could have been titled 39 Reasons to Be Cheerful because it reveals the women and men delivering solutions.

During 25 years of reporting on the environment, countryside and science I have become unshakeably convinced of the severity of what we are facing but I often feel the stories of those who are solving this most wicked of problems are being ignored. This struck me as odd, not simply because there are inspiring and novel things to discover out there, but because solely focusing on the gloom is disempowering. In a war and some say we need a war footing to defeat climate change public morale is maintained by headlining success and sidelining setbacks. In the fight against climate change, we appear to be doing the reverse, leaving many people feeling anxious and helpless. Now, I am not recommending ignoring the bad news but lets at least hear and cheer the many things that are going right: that way they grow. That is the motive behind filling this book and the BBC Radio 4 series that it accompanies with untold stories of ingenuity and redemption.

In mid-2021, as I complete this book, I have never felt such a buzz surrounding the need to tackle climate change. This is obviously exciting but also surprising as the clamour for action has grown alongside the more immediate threat of the COVID-19 pandemic; you might have expected dealing with daily death tolls to have shunted climate threats back down the track. Why this hasnt happened would probably fill another book but here is a trio of positive thoughts. We have learnt greater respect for science, and scientists want climate action. Governments have enacted sweeping policies to limit the impact of the coronavirus so they now feel emboldened to protect people long term through the rollout of tougher rules and targets to cut carbon. The third is a more slow-burn phenomenon: business seems to have reached a tipping point of realisation that there is now more money to be made in solving climate change than ignoring it.