3 "sincere, passion project, egoistic" stars !!!

Thank you to Netgalley, Rowman & Littlefield and the author for an e-copy. This was released May 2021. I am providing my honest review.

Once I decided that this was a sincere travelogue then my experience of this book improved drastically. Do not go in expecting neutrality and objectivity. This book is a beautifully written passion project written by a lovely man who writes beautifully but has many blind spots (as we all do).

This book serves as a very well written account of his experiences, armchair research and interviews that he put himself on to see for himself the impact of global warming, use of fossil fuels, capitalism and general opportunism have destroyed our beautiful earth and many of our fellow species. He travels through Latin America, the United States, parts of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Hong Kong and Japan. The author is also very passionate about music and honeybees so we are introduced in various ways to these topics as well. The adventure is exciting, informative and appears to be transformational for the author. I very much enjoyed visiting these places and people and learning more about microprojects and the bravery and compassion of a very small number of people who care deeply about our earth. All of this is five star amazing !

I struggled a great deal though with the authorial voice though. The author does a whole lot of humblebragging, promotes a whole lot of divisiveness through good/evil dichotomies, and uses a great deal of hyperbole (which is great for melodrama) but not for a book that has to have impact.
He attributes too easily the concepts of kindness, compassion or on the other hand malevolence that actually take away from the reading experience. He over-identifies with the downtrodden when he is clearly in the top 5 percent. He talks excessively of his own contributions to maintaining earth balance where these options taken are not available (mostly due to cost and time) to 95 percent of the world's population. He seems like a very well-meaning but self-centered fellow and this authorial voice really detracted (at times) to his message and mission.

A beautifully written and important message that was mitigated by the overuse of the authorial voice.

TOURING THE CLIMATE CRISIS by Osseily Hanna details his travel across five continents and 32 countries over six years. Hanna, a writer, photographer, and filmmaker, summarizes the experience as being "simultaneously perturbed by the magnitude of the problems I saw and inspired by the courage of those who are overcoming them." Hanna is an impassioned and colorful writer; for example, he says, "it felt as if each city I visited was at a different stage in a rehab clinic for hydrocarbon addictions." He uses geography to divide the chapters which detail his many observations (e.g., regarding America's reliance on gasoline powered vehicles or looking at wind energy innovations with a Danish scientist or mining operations in South Africa). Hanna effectively utilizes the voices of those he met to build empathy and to contrast the lived experience in the Global North and Global South. Roughly a fourth of the book provides extensive notes, a bibliography and index – valuable aids to student researchers.

First off, huge thank you to NetGalley and the team at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book I see myself recommending time and time again in the future to friends, family, and anyone who will listen. I hate to admit I haven't read many environmental books in the past, but this one was an excellent place to start. Having studied the travel and tourism industry, the title is what really stuck out to me, and made me want to pick up this book.

Research wise, it would have been easy for Hanna to conduct interviews via phone or a video chat, but the personal connections he made over the 6 years are what brought his research to life. "Touring the Climate Crisis" is just as much a humanitarian book as it is an environmental one.

And while it is not a particularly long book, Hanna does a fantastic job of directing the reader to humanitarian/environmental crises happening across the Globe. He physically cannot write about each and everyone one of them, but he makes the reader care enough to go out and do their own research. I constantly was jotting notes down to look stuff up, which I think is a sign of a good non-fiction book.

Some sections I felt read a bit too much like an academic paper, but they never dragged on and the information provided was engaging and important. So if you are not accustomed to reading academic papers/writing, definitely do not be scared off, just maybe take a little bit more time with those sections, because they are 100% worth it!