Hannah Ritchie
Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes Sustainability by Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of her, and revises in public when they say something she did not expect.
Hannah Ritchie did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsThree in four people globally live in a country led by someone over 65.
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Their wordsLeaders are often a lot older than the populations they govern.
- 5 weeks earlier
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Their wordsYoung people tend to be happier than older generations, but not in the Anglosphere
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Their wordsThis pattern of the young being much happier is concentrated in post-communist countries: Croatia, Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, and Bulgaria.
- 10 days earlier
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Their wordsReservoirs are not automatically cheaper than desalination plants.
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Their wordsThe problem is that reserving desalination for emergency situations does not seem to work well.
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Their wordsSupplying drinking and household water through desalination is really quite cheap, and uses far less energy than I’d have guessed.
- 13 days earlier
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Their wordsIf the UK is to survive water-starved summers in the future, it will need to build more reservoirs and plug holes in our existing pipelines at the same time.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com
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Their wordsThere is also a clear rationale for why privatisation would lead to a drought in reservoir-building.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com
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Our reading
Britain has a systemic problem building large infrastructure projects, including reservoirs
Their wordsI think Britain has a real problem with building almost anything, from train lines to houses, and reservoirs to energy infrastructure.
↗The UK needs to build more reservoirshannahritchie.substack.com
- 6 months earlier
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Their wordsRemoving subsidies would raise meat prices a little, but only by cents to tens of cents per kilogram.
↗Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsAgain, you cannot pay for the externalities by pulling subsidies (there is nothing there to pull
↗Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsSimply making fossil fuels more expensive without having affordable alternatives just makes energy more expensive, which hits the poorest hardest.
↗Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
People do not switch from meat to cheap plant protein as they get richer; they switch the other way.
Their wordsAcross much of the world, the opposite is happening: people are switching from these plant-based staples to meat and dairy as their incomes rise.
↗Do subsidies make meat much cheaper?hannahritchie.substack.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsAs I’ve written about extensively, people consistently underestimate how many others in their country “believe” in climate change or support action on it.
↗Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apartsustainabilitybynumbers.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsWhen someone is asked to reflect on their own life, they draw on a wide range of experiences. When people are asked about “the world”, they recall a very small number of recent events (the availability bias).
↗Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apartsustainabilitybynumbers.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsBut I do believe that deep-seated, blanket fatalism (which is stronger than pessimism) about our countries, systems and world is unhelpful if we want to improve things.
↗Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apartsustainabilitybynumbers.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsOnly 17% of those who got no correct answers on historical development changes thought the world would be better off. 62% of those with more than five correct answers did.
↗Many people are individually optimistic but think the world is falling apartsustainabilitybynumbers.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 5 weeks earlier
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Their wordsMy argument is simple: for the first time in history, we can improve human wellbeing while reducing our environmental impact.
↗Can we break the human development-environment trade-off?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsBy this broader definition, humans have never been truly sustainable.
↗Can we break the human development-environment trade-off?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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energyclimate changebatteriessustainability
Their wordsThe rapid drop in renewable energy costs in the last decade (alongside huge improvements in battery technologies) has started to break this deadlock.
↗Can we break the human development-environment trade-off?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsHere, I always emphasise that it is an opportunity, not an inevitability. There’s no law that says this will happen.
↗Can we break the human development-environment trade-off?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsThat’s because most clean energy jobs are in deployment and maintenance rather than manufacturing, and since higher costs slow down the rollout of renewables, increasing prices reduces the total number of people working in clean energy (even if the number working in manufacturing increases).
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsBut, China mainly dominates these markets because it has produced a long-term industrial strategy for these technologies and has honed an optimised, modern supply chain as a result.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsAnother factor that is killing Europe’s competitiveness — not just for batteries but for many industrial products — is the high electricity costs.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Our reading
Forced labour in Chinese clean-energy supply chains is real, and it is not why the goods are cheap.
Their wordsBut my point is that this is still not the reason (or is only a very small reason) why these goods from China are cheaper than elsewhere. The main driver of lower labour costs has been automation; not having a human worker at all.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsBut you cannot support these programs while calling out China for “cheating” for doing the same.
↗Why are solar panels and batteries from China so cheap?sustainabilitybynumbers.com 5th of 5 in this piece
- 9 days earlier
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Their wordsUnless you’re an extreme power user, asking AI questions every day is still a rounding error on your total electricity footprint.
↗What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT?hannahritchie.substack.com
- 5 months earlier
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Their wordsWhat stands in the way is energy demand. Growing crops indoors is energy-intensive. So we’re really swapping a land problem for an energy one.
↗Vertical farming: a local solution for greens, but not feeding the world any time soonhannahritchie.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsWithout some crazy technological breakthrough, cereals are are going to be an outdoor-only crop for a long time.
↗Vertical farming: a local solution for greens, but not feeding the world any time soonhannahritchie.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece