Humanity’s Moment by Joëlle Gergis | Black Inc.

Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope

Awards for Humanity’s Moment

  • Winner, Educational Publishing Awards Australia, Scholarly Book of the Year Award 2023
  • Shortlisted, Australian Book Industry Awards, Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year 2023
  • Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards, University of Queensland Nonfiction Book Award 2023
  • Shortlisted, Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability 2024

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About the author

Joëlle  Gergis

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer. She served as a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of Sunburnt Country: The History and Future of Climate Change in Australia. …

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Praise for Humanity’s Moment

‘I am in awe of Joëlle’s courage and clarity. This book is a gift to the world.’ —Jess Hill, author of See What You Made Me Do

'This is a rare achievement. Gergis draws on a vast body of scientific evidence to craft a book that is not only intellectually persuasive, but emotionally and personally compelling as well. This book belongs in the first rank of literature on the environment worldwide. Essential reading for anyone concerned about our future.' —Judges' Comments, Queensland Literary Awards

‘I've been waiting for an IPCC scientist to write this book. Where does someone charged with delivering the globe the stark existential truths find their hope; how do they navigate a path forward? How wonderful that Joëlle, a nature lover with a poet's sensibility, has been the one to do it.’ —Sarah Wilson, author of This One Wild and Precious Life

‘In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle Gergis, a leading climate scientist and gifted author, manages to unpack the science behind the climate crisis in a way that is authoritative, gripping, and very personal. Read her engaging, first-hand account of the latest UN climate report to have both hope and inspiration as we tackle the greatest challenge we have faced as a species.’ —Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor, Penn State University, author of The New Climate War

‘An important update on our climate problem.’ —Tim Flannery

‘A compelling account from deep inside the recent IPCC climate science assessment. The pages are stained with the author’s tears, hopes, heart and soul.’ —Professor David Karoly, University of Melbourne

‘Lucid, heartfelt, devastatingly clear-eyed but also inspiring in its passionate plea for change, Humanity’s Moment is necessary reading.’ —James Bradley

'[Gergis] lays out our planetary situation in stark and simple terms, in sentences and statistics that demand underlining, even if they seem too terrible to bear. This all makes for raw and urgent reading, but, in the vein of Julia Baird’s Phosphorescence, the book also offers hope: its final section conjures the ‘social tipping point’ needed to compel political action, reminding us of the roles we can each play.' —Kim Thomson, Books+Publishing

‘If there is only one nonfiction book you read this year, it really should be this one.’ —Kate Nicholson, Readings Online

‘ … important and urgent, inspiring and empowering. Whether you make it your only nonfiction book in 2022, or one of many, it’s clearly an essential read.’ —Alison Huber, Readings

‘This book by a leading scientist is powerful, urgent, passionate, and clear, an explanation of the science of climate change and the kind of changes with which we need to meet it, changes in our energy policy, politics, and very imagining of the natural world and humanity’s place in it. With its stubborn and well-grounded hopefulness, Humanity’s Moment is a tool for engagement, whether you’re new to the issue or could use some bolstering in your commitment.’ —Rebecca Solnit, author of Orwell’s Roses and Hope in the Dark

‘Scientists aren’t cyborgs – studying the climate crisis comes with a deep emotional burden. Joëlle Gergis has shouldered that burden and as a result has some useful ideas to share with the rest of us as we try to cope with the reality of what we’ve already done. It’s a key part of trying to limit the damage – physical and spiritual – going forward.’ —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

‘Humanity's moment is now! And this book offers a vital chance to seize it.’ —Ian McFarlane, Newcastle Herald

‘A bracing and a very timely read.’ —ABC Perth

‘I’m sure Humanity’s Moment sparked intense conversations before commissioning. Credit, then, to a publisher that has opted for urgency and gravity over entertainment and, of course, to an author who refuses to mollycoddle but instead provides genuine hope.’ —Kurt Johnson, The Age

‘[O]f all the climate-related books I found this year, one stood above the rest. Joelle Gergis’ Humanity’s Moment (Black Inc) is clear-eyed, wounded, humane and above all, honest. Not many books feel necessary, but here’s one that qualifies.’ —Tim Winton

‘Gergis patiently explains how science demands urgent remedial action.’ —Ian McFarlane, The Canberra Times ‘Reviewers picks: Best books of 2022’

‘Humanity’s Moment gives us an infrequent, almost forbidden insight into the emotional experience of a climate scientist undertaking this existentially phenomenal work’ —Rama Gaind, PS News

‘A timely and relevant study … Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope is … sorely needed and unreservedly recommended.’ —Midwest Book Review

‘This is a book that should be read by all, old and young, great and small in the political process; it will enlighten and inspire.’ —The Biologist

‘Taking her 'softly, softly' science-speak hat off, Gergis bares the facts in a heartrending story, while she battles work pressures and depression, sifting through all the damning evidence of society's neglect and the consequences, as her unpaid contribution to the IPCC consensus.’ —Tom Hunt, Canberra Times

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