Green Book Talk: Despite It All: A Handbook for Climate Hopefuls with Fred Pearce

Forty Years Reporting Climate Change, Making the Case for Hope

Fred Pearce has reported from eighty-seven countries as the long-time environment consultant for New Scientist, writing for the Guardian, the Washington Post and Yale Environment 360 along the way. Fourteen books on environmental and development issues sit behind him, translated into twenty-seven languages, among them When the Rivers Run Dry and The New Wild. His latest, Despite It All: A Handbook for Climate Hopefuls, published by Granta, sets out seven reasons for cautious optimism: nature recovering in unexpected corners, the population boom defusing itself, consumer societies nearing "peak stuff", and old knowledge pairing with new technology to correct course.

Shipston Library hosts the talk as a Bookfest special edition of Stourvale Action for the Environment's regular Green Book Talk series, bringing a working journalist's read on the evidence rather than the usual doom-laden headlines.

Four decades of reporting from the frontline of climate change gives Pearce a case for hope that few other speakers can back up with that much fieldwork.

Free entry, pre-booking essential.

Wednesday 23 September 2026 · Shipston Library and Information Centre, 12 Church Street, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire CV36 4AP · Starts 11am