Book Read Free

We Are the Weather

Page 22

by Jonathan Safran Foer


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  Walters, Daniel. “What’s Their Beef? More and More Americans Are Becoming Vegetarians.” Transitions. Accessed February 5, 2019. https://www.whitworth.edu/Alumni/Transitions/Articles/Calling/TheyretheOtherWhiteMeat.htm.

  Weisman, Alan. “Earth Without People.” Discover, February 2005. discovermagazine.com/2005/feb/earth-without-people.

  Wilder, Emily. “Bees for Hire: California Almonds Become Migratory Colonies’ Biggest Task.” … & the West Blog, Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University, August 17, 2018. https://west.stanford.edu/news/blogs/and-the-west-blog/2018/bees-for-hire-california-almonds-now-are-migratory-colonies-biggest-task.

  Williams, Casey. “These Photos Capture the Startling Effect of Shrinking Bee Populations.” Huffington Post, April 7, 2016. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/humans-bees-china_us_570404b3e4b083f5c6092ba9.

  Wilson, Michael. “His Body Was Behind the Wheel for a Week Before It Was Discovered. This Was His Life.” New York Times, October 23, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/nyregion/man-found-dead-in-car-new-york.html.

  Wise, Irvin L., and Lester M. Hall. Distorting contact lenses for animals. U.S. Patent 3,418,978, filed November 30, 1966. https://patents.google.com/patent/US3418978?oq=patent:3418978.

  Wise, Jeff. Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

  Wolf, Julia, Ghassem Asrar, and Tristam West. “Revised Methane Emissions Factors and Spatially Distributed Annual Carbon Fluxes for Global Livestock.” Carbon Balance and Management 12, no. 16 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13021-017-0084-y.

  Worland, Justin. “Climate Change Used to Be a Bipartisan Issue. Here’s What Changed.” Time, July 27, 2017. time.com/4874888/climate-change-politics-history/.

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  Acknowledgments

  This book began with a conversation Ev Williams and I had in 2017. Soon thereafter he introduced me to Abbey Banks. The two have been generous partners throughout this process and helped me to believe that significant change is possible.

  Simone Friedman is, as my grandmother would have said, “a force of nature.” Her energy, wisdom, ambition, and optimism bring even the most idealistic visions within reach. The first step toward making the necessary changes in our lives is knowing what changes are needed. Because of Simone’s work, along with that of Manny Friedman and EJF Philanthropies, the all-important connection between climate change and animal agriculture is finally in the public consciousness.

  I hired Tess Gunty as a research assistant, but she quickly became my first reader, and ultimately my collaborator. Every sentence of this book benefited from her thoughtfulness.

  I can’t think of any subjects that are more complex and controversial than the planetary crisis and our food choices. Hunter Braithwaite’s vigilant fact-checking was indispensable.

  I was in communication with numerous climate science experts while writing this book. I am thankful for all the time, information, and knowledge they shared. Brent Kim, Raychel Santo, and Jeff Anhang deserve special mention.

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux has once again reminded me of how lucky I am to be a writer. I am particularly grateful to Scott Auerbach, Rodrigo Corral, Jonathan Galassi, M. P. Klier, Spenser Lee, Jonathan Lippincott, Alex Merto, June Park, Julia Ringo, and Jeff Seroy.

  As much as anything else, this book is a
bout home. Nicole Aragi and Eric Chinski have been my literary home for almost twenty years. Thank you.

  ALSO BY JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER

  FICTION

  Here I Am

  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

  Everything Is Illuminated

  NONFICTION

  Eating Animals

  OTHER

  Tree of Codes

  Joe (with Hiroshi Sugimoto)

  The Long Never (with Hiroshi Sugimoto)

  Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence: A Libretto

  AS EDITOR

  A Convergence of Birds

  New American Haggadah

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Here I Am, and of the nonfiction book Eating Animals. His work has received numerous awards and has been translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  I.  Unbelievable

  The Book of Endings

  No Sacrifice

  Not a Good Story

  Know Better, No Better

  Be Leaving, Believing, Be Living

  Hysterical

  Away Games

  Writing the Word “Fist”

  Sticks

  A Wave

  Feel Like Acting, Act Like Feeling

  Where Do Waves Begin?

  Open Your Eyes

  Ours Alone

  Show Your Hands

  II.  How to Prevent the Greatest Dying

  Degrees of Change

  The First Crisis

  The First Farming

  Our Planet Is an Animal Farm

  Our Population Growth Is Radical

  Our Animal Farming Is Radical

  Our Eating Is Radical

  Our Climate Change Is Radical

  Why Greenhouse Gases Matter

  Climate Change Is a Ticking Time Bomb

  Because Climate Change Is a Ticking Time Bomb, Not All Greenhouse Gases Matter Equally

  Why Deforestation Matters

  Not All Deforestation Matters Equally

  Animal Agriculture Causes Climate Change

  Animal Agriculture Is a/the Leading Cause of Climate Change

  It Will Be Impossible to Defuse the Ticking Time Bomb Without Reducing Our Consumption of Animal Products

  Not All Actions Are Equal

  Not All Foods Are Equal

  How to Prevent the Greatest Dying

  III.  Only Home

  Mapping Our Vision

  Home Is Almost Always Imperceptible

  Glimpses of Home

  Glimpses of Ourselves

  Mortgaging the Home

  A Second Home

  Glass

  First Home

  Final Home

  IV.  Dispute with the Soul

  V.  More Life

  Finite Resources

  The Flood and the Ark

  That Is the Question

  After Us

  Life Note

  Appendix: 14.5 percent / 51 percent

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jonathan Safran Foer

  A Note About the Author

  Copyright

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  120 Broadway, New York 10271

  Copyright © 2019 by Jonathan Safran Foer

  All rights reserved

  First edition, 2019

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following previously published material:

  Excerpt from “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene,” by Roy Scranton, from The New York Times. © 2013 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  Excerpt from “Raising My Child in a Doomed World,” by Roy Scranton, from The New York Times. © 2018 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used under license.

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71252-5

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  *An explanation of these different calculations can be found in the appendix.

 

 

 


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