Jonathan Safran Foer: Without pointing finger

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When the grandmother of literary star Jonathan Safran Foer fled her Polish village from the Nazis, she did so because she felt she had "to do something". The others saw the danger, but no one went with her. The grandmother survived as the only one, all other family members were murdered.

This is one of two historical events that Foer keeps coming back to in his new non-fiction book on the climate crisis. The second is that of Polish secret agent and underground fighter Jan Karski, who made a difficult trip to the United States in 1943 to speak with, among others, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

Karski reported on the Warsaw ghetto and the Belzec extermination camp, hoping they would do something about the horror he had seen with his own eyes. Frankfurter, himself a Jew, said, "I'm not saying he's lying, but I do not believe him, my mind and heart are made so that I can not accept that." He now knew the facts but did not want to believe - and did not act.

Selfiesticks and pollen sticks

Over the course of the book, Foer repeatedly refers to both historical events in order to illustrate how people close their eyes to what they do not want to accept. Dare to make a drastic comparison like this, the non-action of people during the Holocaust and the doing nothing of people in terms of climate change, may well only, who, like the author himself, lost relatives during the Second World War.

Many stories that the author tells in his book in order to avoid the climate crisis, seem farfetched at first, but turn out to be clever thoughts of a "around the corner" thinker. So Selfiesticks are the perfect symbol for the self-representation that prevails in our world, at the same time also linked to climate protection: Because the Selfie also includes the long-distance travel to Bali or New York heard ("Look what I do"). Pollen sticks, on the other hand, with which humans pollinate flowers instead of bees, are the symbol of the planet's crisis ("See what happens when nobody does anything").

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Jonathan Safran Foer
We are the climate !: How to save our planet at breakfast

Publishing company:

Kiepenheuer & Witsch

Pages:

336

Price:

EUR 22,00

Translated by:

Stefanie Jacobs, Jan Schönherr

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To which Foer specifically wants to go, he comes only after about eighty pages to speak: the effects of industrial livestock. He has collected many facts about this, such as Americans eating 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving and 70 percent of the world's antibiotics being used in mass animal trafficking.

Given these figures, what the author suggests to his readers for world preservation is comparatively simple: do not eat animal products before supper. He writes that eating part-time vegan is more climate-friendly than a completely vegetarian diet and saves 1.3 tonnes of CO 2 per capita per year.

No World Saver non-fiction book with finger pointer

Despite current eco trend: One can well imagine that many inhabitants of rich industrialized countries will not respond to this proposal with enthusiasm. Because the water is not up to their necks. Not yet. Maybe some of them will read "We are the climate" because it is entertaining and instructive at the same time - not a world-saving non-fiction book with a hint.

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Maybe they will even find Jonathan Safran Foer likeable because he does not sell himself as a showcase climate saver. He flies, he lives in a big house, he is the father of two sons. Because he seems so authentic (read an interview with him) and even told that he, the author of "Animals Eat", a passionate plea against mass animal husbandry , meat renunciation is often difficult: on stressful reading tours he has about at airports now and then Eat burger, simply because it did "good".

In order to save the earth or at least to prevent the worst, everyone had to change something on a small scale. According to Foer, the most effective measures against climate change are "plant-based diets, the abandonment of cars and air travel and fewer children". That would also mean: less ego, fighting habits. The opposite of a selfie, so to speak.