41 pages • 1 hour read
Hope JahrenThe Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
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BetaPart 1, Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Life”
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Our Story Begins”
Jahren provides a glimpse into her personal journey, which she will reference throughout the text. She was born in 1969 in a rural community in Minnesota, lived and worked in Hawaii, and now resides in Oslo, Norway. Jahren uses the year of her birth as a touchstone to discuss change over time. 1969 was also the year that the Cuyahoga River caught fire, helping to spur environmental awareness in the United States.
In 2009, Jahren began developing a college course about climate change, which prompted her first deep dive into this daunting topic. While researching content for the course, she concluded, “I see the country of my birth moving backwards” (7). Worried, fearful, but also armed with a clear understanding of the big picture, Jahren then sat down to write this book. “So if you’ll listen,” she writes, “I’ll tell you what happened to my world, to your world—to our world. It changed” (8). The primary problem is this: Humans from certain regions of the world have learned to consume such a significant amount of fossil fuels, meat, and other goods that we are destroying the planet in the process.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Analysis
A number of “I” statements that illuminate Jahren’s childhood, familial background, and career make it clear from the start of Chapter 1 that the author’s personal story will play a large role in this book. 1969, in particular, is a critical year that features throughout the text. Jahren mentions 1969 so often that it is clear she purposefully sought statistics from that year to feature in the book.
From the outset, Jahren’s authorial voice is acerbic, dry, and witty. In questioning her ability to teach students about climate change, she admits, “I thought about the car I’d driven to work that morning, and how it leaked oil terribly, and wondered what business I had in telling anybody anything” (6). Acknowledging her own shortcomings, Jahren adopts a self-deprecating tone. This approach demonstrates to the reader that Jahren is not judging individuals for their harmful consumerist decisions—indeed, she has made the very same ones—but instead encouraging everyone, including herself, to make smarter choices for the environment.
