Though the book is well written, it does not add anything to what we already know... and this review is too short for NetGalley.

The book is written in essay form, some personal, some informative. Its purpose is to highlight the changing climate, there are pages of facts and figures. Also, if you read his previous book, one would know he advocates not eating animals not their by products. Something, by the way, which he admits having trouble doing, and his subsequent guilt after so doing.

Anyone who believes in climate change can see how it is already affecting the weather in different parts of the world. Most agree something must be done, scientists telling us this matter is urgent and we have very few years left to change the horrible scenarios they are predicting. I found the strongest arguement he makes is that if doesn't directly impact someone personally, they are unwilling to act.

"Is there anything more narcissistic than believing the choices you make affect everyone? Only one thing: believing the choices you make affect no one."

He makes many valid points, but at times it became repetitive. That he believes strongly is without doubt, we all should. I though, think we need our government and corporations to take the lead, guide us, change the way they are doing business. I eat meat once a meat. Are the six days I don't going to make a big difference? No, I don't think so, I think we've passed the point of little things making a difference, we now need big things, big actions. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening anytime soon.

ARC from Netgalley.

This book was incredibly frustrating. I like Jonathan Safran Foer. I appreciate what he’s trying to do here. And most importantly, I agree with his overarching message. We need to care more collectively about the state and future of the planet. There are things we can each do to lessen the burden on our natural resources. Climate change is an issue that requires immediate, decisive and immense attention. But I’m not reviewing political topics, I’m reviewing a book written on one. And this just wasn’t effective at much of anything except making me want to get Mr. Foer to stop rambling vaguely about the climate.

At many points I didn’t feel like I was reading an actual book. It’s one part science fact-dump and one part devolving Reddit thread. If you aren’t familiar with how Reddit works, in this case it’s one random thought in response to another, linked by an unspoken “....And another thing!” The book is split into five parts, with each part containing a multitude of essay-like mini-chapters, many with too-clever titles. Individually they can seem offbeat, but collectively they’re just goofy. He doesn’t really make points, but paraphrases or quotes verbatim the words of influential figures at the head of other powerful movements.

And again, I get what he’s going for. I agree with his urgency, but am left gaping at his thought process. The climate crisis is incredibly severe, but do pages and pages lamenting about World War II or the American Civil Rights movement do anything to make this point? Is Rosa Parks really the perfect analogy for what you’re trying to accomplish here? You can’t just compare two injustices as if they’re the same thing. ‘Economic inequality is the Holocaust.’ See? That doesn’t offer any insight or tangible solution. It doesn’t reframe the way I think about either thing. It just makes me think about the Holocaust and muddles the meaning of whatever you’re comparing it to. Add in the anti-modernity diatribes, like his strange admonishment of selfies, and some may be less inclined to take proactive action after reading what this author-turned-advocate has to say on the subject.

As far as intended content, I do have a bit of a problem with that too. Public perception is huge. Especially since the public has been gaslit by corporations, industries, politicians and certain media outlets into doubting scientists and our own lying eyes for years. Major moves can be made by large groups of people motivated to change the world for the better. But there is simply too much onus put on people to fight a system designed to minimize their impact. Why not start with the industries and companies who profit from the death of the planet as opposed to the people already vulnerable to the negative effects we’re already seeing? Why is electing representatives that create legislation with these things in mind dismissed by the author as something that simply ‘makes us feel better’? In this way, Jonathan Safran Foer isn’t any better than the only TV network he criticizes for being counterproductive to the movement, which, inexplicably, is MSNBC. (Is he confused? Did he forget Fox ‘News’ exists? Where they seemingly breed millionaire climate-deniers?)

So much of the time Foer keeps saying “we” to make his points. “We are”, “we need”, “we must”; what he really means is ‘you’. This book is purely instructional, and no amount of common man pronouns are going to shake the feeling that a privileged person who has the luxury to consider the ethical implications of his dinner is telling people who may not be able to afford food that they aren't doing enough to save the world. As a vegetarian (one who doesn’t dabble in airport burgers...wtf Jonathan?), I understand there’s no point in demanding people make the same dietary decisions I do. It’s not practical or helpful. What is useful, though, are alternatives, incentives and awareness. Corporations need to be regulated and face steep consequences if in violation. Electric vehicles and alternative power need to be economically advantageous options. Don’t force regular people to make hard choices. You may not like what they choose.

The best I can say for this book is that at least it’s trying to to talk about the subject, which I guess earns a couple of participation stars in the awareness column. I guess this means I probably shouldn’t check out Eating Animals if it’s anything like We Are the Weather, or else it might turn me back into an omnivore.

The book's general idea is so important and needs to be adressed more often and louder. It is, in a nutshell, the idea of everybody going vegan (or at least 2/3 vegan - no animal products before dinner) in order to gain a collectively large change for the better on all things climate. Yes sure, there's emmissions from cars and industry and flights and politicians who refuse to act or even believe and what not, but these things aren't the topic of this book.

This book adresses people who say "But what does it matter what I, the singular person, can do? Does it matter at all? It's only me!" And maybe you're already recycling. Maybe you've cut your car drives by half or switched to public transport completely. Maybe you're only buying wooden toys for your child. And while all this is well and filled with good intentions, it only helps so much. Plus: Not everybody can ditch their car completely. Changing the diet as suggested, on the other hand, would make a great impact. Plus, everybody can theoretically do it. That's basically what this book is about. Only, it fails to fully show why. It scratches on the surface, but it doesn't bring its intended message across.

And I love Foer's general argument. I longed for it. I was even ready to embrace this book with open arms because I also often miss the ecological factors when veganism is discussed. Don't get me wrong, ethical reasons for going vegan are all fair and legit and also important, no doubt. And yet, the economical side gets overlooked way too often, and given the way this planet is headed, we can't afford neglecting it. So here I was ready for Foer to preach to the choir aka me. And it started out great only to end in... something akin to insignificance. Here's what happened:

Part 1: Foer takes his time with presenting his general idea to his readers. The first part is long, very essay-like, and serves as a very excessive opening statement. I loved it. Foer uses all kinds of different examples of individuals working together for a greater good and overcoming serious situations thanks to (not only, but also) these "community efforts". He also gives examples on his spin of "knowing" vs. "believing" and that, in the end, it doesn't (only) matter if you know something or not - it's believing in things that put you to action. The examples range from historical to very personal, from overview to introspective, he switches back and forth and builds up his argument slowly. Like a painter putting several seemingly unconnected dots onto a blank canvas, you watch him work, see things coming together and, in the end, have a full picture. Only shortly before the end, Foer brings all his strands together to present his real intention of this book. I liked how he did that and enjoyed that first part very much.

Part 2: A few pages with hard facts. 3-5 facts per page, thematically grouped, dealing with climate change and livestock and/or how one infuences the other. Not much new in here for me personally, but I liked the stark contrast between the rather philosphical, long part 1 and the "in your face"-presentation in part 2. I was ready to get moving! Bring it on!

Part 3: This is where things went off track for me. Part 3 was very much like part 1, style-wise, many of the examples recurred. Only, this part had a different angle, it was more a "call to action"-sort of text. Only, it was too tame for that. Also, repeating the style from part 1 lessened the effect and made part 1 look less special in retrospect.

Part 4: Is a long interview of Foer with himself/his soul. He's playing Devil's Advocate with himself. This is where he lost me. See, Foer's big trouble is that he's having a hard time going vegan completely, which, obviously, would be the best solution. But he can't do that, his creavings for meat and dairy every now and then are too big. So he indulges in burgers and such. Not often, but he does. And every so often in his book, he writes about his own troubles with this, well, sort of hypocrisy, tries to explain it, to justify it. Part 4 is mostly about this inner conflict. And while this is all very honest and open, it also weakens his own part as author and gives room for critics such as: who is he to teach me if he's having such a hard time living by his own doctrine? I missed motivation. I missed optimism, at least in that regard, seeing as the general outlooks are pessimistic enough. Instead I felt like the author confessing his sins and lust to me, but who am I to give him absolution and why? I was really at a loss here.

Part 5: Final part, but instead of wrapping things up, I got another chapter like a mix of parts 1 and 3, same style, same examples, more family matters including a personal letter to Foer's children (asking them for absolution, too?) and then the book just ended. No closing stament. No conclusion.

There's a huge appendix with sources and bibliography, but it isn't easy to navigate since the text itself offers no footnotes. Readers have to find the source for themselves in the appendix. It's manageable but rather uncomfortable and I'd wished for better reader service here. Before the actual sources, there's another longer appendix dealing with facts on climate change and diet/livestock, and that's where the input is. That's what I missed in the actual book (and even there, imho Foer focusses too much on why certain studies are different than on the actual numbers).

Another current book on climate change is "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming" by David Wallace-Wells - it was written after a New Yorker's essay of the same name became hugely popular. Foer quotes from that essay, and I somehow feel that he tried to do what David Wallace-Wells did: Write a powerful essay and "add" a book dwelling on that essay's theme. And well, if Foer's book had been the essay only - part 1, with maybe the short fact based part 2 added - it would've worked perfectly as such: A powerful, moving, capturing essay. As a repetitive book that offers not much more insight that the opening statement, it sadly, sadly, sadly felt flat for me. I'm not even sure Foer helped the movement, be it to help fight climate change, to spread veganism/more conscious consumption of animal products or a combination of both.

Finally, Foer often refers to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" movie. He praises the general message of the movie but critises it for two points: First, leaving the whole food/diet/mass farming/nutrition factor out of the equotation - Foer's book got that covered (well, in parts). But he also critisises the movie's ending, the "calls for action" being too soft, too uninspired, too less: "Talk to your parents" or "Writer to your governor" or what not - these actions might make you feel good, as if you've done something, but they hardly change anything. And what can I say? In a way, that's pretty much how I felt about Foer's book. I'm really at a loss and baffled by how little it inspired me.

It's still an okay read = 2 stars, but in the end, I can't recommend it wholeheartedly. And oh, how I wish I could!

There are +200 reviews on Goodreads already, so I'll just say this is good, not great. Good info but disjointed at times and potentially preachy. I obviously (rightfully) connected with a lot of people. I guess I was seeking more "answers".

I really appreciate the NetGalley advanced copy for review!!

So... I cried.

Full disclosure: I always cry at those very rare moments when some portion of humanity actually does the right thing. And when that right thing is exploited or overturned. Especially those moments from the 1930s and 40s which saw the highest highs and lowest lows in human behavior, sometimes even in the same humans.

Foer invokes many WWII moments in his discussion of how we are all involved in climate change, both its causes and its (potential) resolutions. Will humans rally the way wartime citizens did, letting their income be taxed, their food rationed, their windows darkened at night? The author shares his own struggles to believe in climate change in a way that actually changes his actions. He looks at everything from Thanksgiving celebrations to polio immunizations to trace how change really happens in society. Can this wave get started with climate change? Or are we the Polish villagers who do nothing as the Nazis approach?

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a digital ARC.

We Are The Weather is urgent, infuriating, terrifying, and humbling. 

The thing about Jonathan Safran Foer is that he is an absolute master of the aesthetic aha! moments, the sentences that feel so true that you know you've always felt them but nobody else has put them together quite like that. 

Foer's latest work of non-fiction is a fierce rebuttal of the nihilistic attitude that individual action is not effective enough to make a difference in the climate disaster that we are racing towards. He instead uses historical examples and personal experiences to reinforce the idea that while some things won't win the war, the war still can't be won without them. 

The war, in this case, being human survival on this planet. 

This book is not easy to read -- it's not supposed to be. It's a call to action. It's frustrating and challenging, but its fact-based earnestness and self reflective dialogue has the potential to change the way you view your role in this high-stakes battle for the future of the human race. 

I feel pretty depressingly well-read on the subject and still learned a lot, including new framing of the problem in my own mind - and now feel more motivated than ever to make changes in my lifestyle. I think more people who feel educated in climate science to make personal changes in their lives that are hard and necessary. In the future, will people be able to tell the difference between those who did not believe and those who believed and did nothing?

This week Greta Thunberg's impassioned accusation, "you have stolen my dreams and my childhood" by talking about "money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," brought many to tears...and others to attack the sixteen-year-old activist. We don't want to hear Thunberg because we don't want to accept her vision of the future.

We have heard the reasoned arguments and warnings. Most people accept climate change as scientific fact. In the popular film An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore warned, "We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource." But the political will has not been there and many deny the scientific studies as fable.

The first Earth Day I purchased a "Give Earth a Chance" pinback button at the information table set up in my high school hallway. I took ecology in college, recycled when we had to cart everything to centers, limited the use of our car (when we turned in our lease we had totaled 8,000 miles over three years).

"Most people want to do what's good for the world, when it doesn't come at personal expense."~from We Are The Weather

But we also eat eggs and cheese and use the air conditioner and furnace. Some things are easier to give up, and some things we cling to. I can't tolerate high temperatures and without air conditioning, I am a mess. Michigan has experienced more 95 degree days than ever, and we are told it will get worse. I think about it all the time, how we may need to install a bathroom in the basement when we need to escape to its coolness because the a.c.will be illegal or limited or unaffordable.

In We Are The Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast, Jonathan Safran Foer argues that people just don't "feel" the threat of climate change; we think of it as some apocalyptic fantasy set in the future. Like Justice Felix Frankfurter when he learned of the Warsaw Ghetto and concentration camps responded, "I must say I am unable to believe what you told me...My mind, my heart, they are made in such a way that I cannot accept it." The good justice believed, and he was horrified, but it was too much for him to fathom it was real.

Foer's book is, in essence, a long discussion with us, and himself, on how difficult it is to get to where Thunberg is: a deep commitment based on a sense of personal and existential threat of death.

We are killing ourselves. We are committing suicide. We can change our behavior and it can affect the weather and, perhaps, save our lives, our children's lives.

Foer offers individuals how to change the future through personal action. Walk, bicycle, instead of using cars. (check; my husband walked to work much of his career.) Avoid flying (check; I've only flown a few times my entire life), have one child less (check; we have one). Dry clothes on a clothesline instead of in a dryer. (Done that, had the stiff underwear to prove it. But I do have an energy-efficient dryer.)

And eat a plant-based diet (kinda, sometimes).

Our first year of marriage we bought Diet For a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe. Some of those recipes remain regular favorites in our house, such as Mexican Pan Bread. Later we collected Moosewood Restaurant's cookbooks and added more delicious recipes. We fell into the cooking of our childhood when raising a picky-eater child. But after he left for college, I read Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma and we became strict vegetarians for three years...then, living with our son again fell back into buying more meat.

I am now in a dilemma. We are trying to get animal products back out of our diet, but I am told to increase my protein. I don't like tofu or those awful shakes. I have been buying local eggs from a farm market--is that ok? Then, there is my husband's deep and abiding love for cheese.

Foer informs that agriculture, mostly animal agriculture, accounts for 24% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. And we know those animals require huge amounts of food which takes up lots of land and energy and water, and factories to process animals into meat, and trucks to get the meat to markets. Plus, factory farming of animals creates environmental problems and pollution. Last of all, eating animal products, as my doctor has emphasized, is bad for our individual health.

Where is the 'upside' of eating meat?

It appears to come down to grilled steaks taste so good vs. save our life and humanity.

"We are the flood, and we are the ark," Foer concludes. Our fate is in our own hands.

And so we struggle on to overcome our desires and the ease of tradition as our children accuse our complacency costs their future.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Climate change is a topic we hear about practically everyday and many of us want to do something about it, but don't know what to do. The author of this book wrote an educational and enjoyable read that lays out the facts about climate change and what individuals can do about this issue. The author's attention to detail and extensive research made this an informational read that anyone can enjoy.

If you would like to gather more knowledge related to the environment and climate change, consider reading the newly published WE ARE THE WEATHER by Jonathan Safran Foer. Building on his earlier best-selling work, Eating Animals, Foer now shares essays related to how "Saving the Planet begins at Breakfast." He divides the short pieces into five sections, and early on he writes about WWII when "ordinary people joined together to support the greater cause" and encourages his readers to take action beyond recycling and changing their driving habits. Overall, his message deals with the ability of individuals to reduce their carbon footprint by eating less meat, but it is often a rambling musing about the situation. As Foer himself writes, "this is a book about the impacts of animal agriculture on the environment. Yet I have managed to conceal that for the previous sixty-three pages." However, his book will be worth a look from those who are exploring impactful personal action in the face of government apathy. There is no index to help researchers, but the text does include an appendix, notes and an extensive bibliography; WE ARE THE WEATHER received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

By turns beautiful and lyrical, Jonathan Safran Foer writes about the world we live in. Foer's voice is convincing and poetic as he weaves an important message for us to consider about taking care of the life we have and the planet we live on. The writing is informational and accessible...and accomplished in a lovely way.

Jonathan Safran Foer's writing is fabulous and his early chapters compelling. However, this book descends into statistics and lists which immediately lost me on his journey.