News outlets around the world have been talking about global warming for more than 50 years, yet we still debate its existence. In fact, Canadians Googled “climate change” more in September 2019 than ever before, according to Google Trends. Ziya Tong’s The Reality Bubble aims to show us how much information is in front of our eyes, and how much is not, by revealing how our everyday habits are sealing the fate of our planet.
Hidden truths in biology, society, and civilization frame this book. Tong dives deep into topics like food manufacturing procedures, pollution rates, energy production, and other aspects of modern life that most people choose to ignore.
Unless you are interested in environmental science, chances are you don’t know what flushing the toilet has to do with the polar ice caps, or why recycling isn’t enough to sustain our planet. The Reality Bubble drops the mic on those questions, providing information you may wish you had never learned along the way. And while the book is packed with years- worth of resources, a lot of the information likely won’t appeal to the average reader.
Tong uses extensive research to form an impending doom narrative. She backs up her points with footnotes on almost every page. However, not all of the sources seem credible, giving the impression that Tong is trying to provide information she may not have solid evidence for.
“The word ‘garbage’ isn’t proverbial: Mixed in with the grain can be an assortment of trash, including ground glass from light bulbs, used syringes and the crushed testicles of their young. Very little on a factory farm is ever discarded.”
Tong includes this information from a writer who fails to state his sources on this matter for Rolling Stone – a magazine that mainly covers music and pop culture.
One would assume an award-winning science journalist would use more suitable sources for such a fact-driven piece, such as one of the world’s top scientists that Tong claims in the book’s introduction to have spent more than a decade interviewing and learning from.
And while most of The Reality Bubble’s information does seem relevant, a book intended to spark change needs to keep the reader engaged. The science-heavy content is mostly easy to understand but starts to lose its meaning once it veers toward jargon in the final section. Tong’s climate-curious audience is likely more interested in learning about what we shouldn’t be eating than about an in-depth look at the invention of the metre.
“Stabilized using molecular iodine, the helium-neon laser defines the twenty-first century metre, as ‘the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.’”
Despite the nap that readers might take during the final chapters, they may try to finish The Reality Bubble in hopes of discovering some sort of a solution. However, the ending is unsatisfying. Tong doesn’t answer what we want to know: what now?
Tong is the vice chair of World Wildlife Fund Canada. She spent ten years showcasing her enthusiasm for the environment on Discovery’s Daily Planet. She helped launch several environmental groups and green branding non-profits and has travelled to over 70 countries. Needless to say, she’s the ideal candidate for writing a book on advising people about the state of the planet. Therefore, I assume the ending is intentional.
Chapter after chapter, Tong guides the blind towards the light only to leave us to find our own way out. The Reality Bubble is meant to unveil everything we’ve chosen not to see, perhaps in hopes we will see the errors in our past, and a solution in our futures. In order to help solve a problem, we must first understand it.
The format of the book seems to match its intention: the key insights and solutions are there, we need only look for them. Tong’s environmentally-interested audience can learn a lot from The Reality Bubble. What we do with that information is up to us.
