The stories we tell ourselves about the future.  Illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook “Despair is unproductive. It is also a sin.” That is the entry under “D” in Elizabeth Kolbert’s bold, stirring, and richly informative alphabetic call to action on the climate emergency, in which millions of lives are at stake. The piece, which includes dazzling illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook, begins with the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, who created the world’s first climate model, at the end of the nineteenth century, and made strikingly accurate predictions about the role that atmospheric carbon dioxide plays in warming the Earth. He failed, however, to predict either the disastrous consequences of such warming or the speed at which humans would cause it. “It’s easy now to poke fun at Arrhenius for his sunniness,” Kolbert writes. But the limits of his imagination remain the limits of our own, even today. “Here we all are, watching things fall apart. And yet, deep down, we don’t believe it.” With this urgent new piece, Kolbert offers us the tools to try harder—and to truly reckon with what we are facing. —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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