Skip to content

Environment

Mike Berners-Lee's solution for the polycrisis may be just too hard

A Climate of Truth is a penetrating and enlightening analysis of the many crises we face. But it demands impossible standards of flawed human beings, finds Graham Lawton

By Graham Lawton

26 March 2025

TOPSHOT - A boy rides past as smoke billows from a burning garbage dump, in Lahore on November 1, 2024. (Photo by Arif ALI / AFP) (Photo by ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images) — Pollution like the smoke seen at this garbage dump in Pakistan is part of an ongoing polycrisis
ARIF ALI/AFP via Getty Images

A Climate of Truth
Mike Berners-Lee (Cambridge University Press UK: On sale now US: On sale from 10 April)

Mike Berners-Lee admits he is worried about getting bad reviews for his new book, which criticises sections of the UK media for having editorial agendas effectively set by their owners. In the readable but dispiriting A Climate of Truth: Why we need it and how to get it, he points the finger at the BBC, Rupert Murdoch’s empire, the …

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Receive a weekly dose of discovery in your inbox! We'll also keep you up to date with New Scientist events and special offers.

Sign up

Unlock this article

or

Existing subscribers

More from New Scientist

Explore the latest news, articles and features

Environment

Sea level will rise fast even if we limit global warming to 1.5°C

News

Free

Technology

Attempt to reach expert consensus on teens and phones ends in argument

News

Free

US East Coast faces rising seas as crucial Atlantic current slows

Environment

US East Coast faces rising seas as crucial Atlantic current slows

News

Free

Old landfill rubbish revealed in sea cliffs by coastal erosion on Walney Island, UK

Environment

Toxic waste is spilling onto beaches as rising seas erode landfills

News

Subscriber-only

1

How the US military wants to use the world's largest aircraft

2

Supergiant crustaceans may cover more than half of the deep-sea floor

3

How an ancient alchemy technique is transforming modern chemistry

4

Earliest galaxy ever seen offers glimpse of the nascent universe

5

AI hallucinations are getting worse – and they're here to stay

6

Sea level will rise fast even if we limit global warming to 1.5°C

7

Astronomers double down on claim of strongest evidence for alien life

8

The most – and least – satisfying jobs out there, according to science

9

US East Coast faces rising seas as crucial Atlantic current slows

10

Alien megastructures would likely self-destruct before we spot them