Bestselling comic, World Without End, rips the fossil fuel economy apart – and controversially embraces nuclear power

A skydiver stares up at his parachute. It’s on fire. Hurriedly, the skydiver pulls out his spare … but hesitates. There is something spooky about the spare parachute, with its lime-green glow. The vibes are off. Playing it safe, the skydiver casts his spare parachute into the clouds. Then he reveals his trusty knitting needles. As the ground rushes up to meet him, he frantically starts knitting yet another parachute.

This is one sequence in World Without End, the 200-page non-fiction comic created by climate scientist Jean-Marc Jancovici and cartoonist Christophe Blain. Knitting a parachute in mid-air is a metaphor for speculative climate solutions. Sure, smart cities and green hydrogen might help eventually, but there just isn’t time to find out. It’s a great example of the power of the medium: absurd imagery communicating urgent ideas.

World Without End is a hugely impressive feat, unfolding as a dialogue between its creators. Jancovici assumes the role of scientist and educator. Blain is the nervous student, adding jokes, mischief and pop culture references to lighten the heavy scientific detail.

The original French edition, Le Monde sans Fin, was a surprise smash hit, sailing up through the bestseller lists faster than global temperature rises.

In our research on climate communication, my collaborators and I emphasise the importance of experimenting with all kinds of media, including comics and games.

It’s also crucial to offer models for action, and here’s where World Without End falls down a bit. After a majestic tour of energy and climate science and policy, the shift to “What can I do?” feels anticlimactic.

Suddenly, we are in the well-trodden territory of individual behaviour changes: eating less meat, opting for trains over planes. However, the book also hints at other models of action. The real answer to “What can one person do?” is to join with other people, and work collectively at every level – your workplace, your community, your voting constituency, your country, your global networks.

World Without End isn’t just a straight translation of the French original. It has been tweaked for its new audience. This is welcome, though some tweaks feel a bit slapdash. “To understand the difference 5 degrees can make, we need to go back … to the 20th century!” Huh? In the original French, it’s clear that we must go back thousands of years, not just a few decades, to see this difference. “Ça, c’est l’Europe du XXᵉ siècle … Ça, c’est la même Europe, il y a 20 000 ans” (“This is 20th century Europe … That’s the same Europe, 20,000 years ago”).

The backdrop is the political reality of Trump’s reelection. Innovative climate communication is worth celebrating. But no matter how great it is, communication alone can’t resolve issues that are rooted in material social and political conflicts.

Trump’s triumph is projected to pump the equivalent of four extra gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere by 2030. That’s more than the combined emissions of the 100 lowest-emitting nations of the world.

On the other hand, there is now a short- and long-term economic logic working in favour of renewable energy. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is funnelling benefits to Republican-voting areas. Energy transition may gain traction even in regions traditionally hostile to climate action.

A nuclear solution?

What about that spooky green spare parachute that the skydiver unwisely abandoned? For Blain and Jancovici, that represents nuclear power. It may not be perfect, but at least they know it works. We need it now, so let’s not get spooked.

While it deserves credit for debunking some myths, the book’s take on nuclear power has downsides. A little man with a moustache and a beret and a baguette tucked under his arm, exclaims: “Our cheeses may stink, but our nuclear stations don’t!” Unsurprisingly, he’s nowhere to be seen in the original French edition.

If there’s ever a Japanese edition, he’ll probably vanish again. Implicitly, it’s Fukushima that “stank”. Why is Monsieur Stereotype strutting around at all? Maybe to soften the message that “this chain of events could never happen in France,” which sounds a bit hubristic. Sure, the nuclear energy industry has learned lessons from past tragedies, but it will also keep innovating, and new tech may bring new risks.

Nuclear faces other challenges too. When you factor in the entire fuel chain, from mining uranium from the Earth to decommissioning power stations decades later, it looks less green. The success of nuclear depends on stable, long-term political and financial support – an issue the book highlights but doesn’t resolve.

At one point, Jancovici even seems to attack wind energy for cutting into nuclear revenue, making maintenance harder to fund. All of this really stems from Jancovici’s frustration with Germany’s recent nuclear phase-out. But it reads as a broader defence of nuclear, including speculative breakthroughs.

These distinctions matter, because the biggest challenge in climate communication today may not even be denial. Even Trump has described climate change as a “serious subject” that is “very important” to him.

The biggest challenge may be overconfidence in speculative technologies. Nuclear contributes just 3-4% of global energy, similar to wind and solar, yet some Silicon Valley billionaires are banking on endless cheap, clean energy just around the corner.

Meanwhile, technologies like geoengineering and negative emissions technologies such as direct air capture and biochar are strangely absent from World Without End. These technologies can suck carbon out of the sky, but have achieved little so far. At a guess, Jancovici might call them more yarn for the parachute-knitting project. Knit, baby, knit.

Despite a few quibbles, World Without End deserves a spot on your holiday shopping list. Feedback loops are key to climate change. As ice melts, less sunlight reflects, so more ice melts – and feedback loops also explain surprise bestsellers. When all your friends are talking about a graphic novel, you’re more likely to buy it and spread the word too. If World Without End can spread its provocations to the Anglophone world, that would be utterly fabulous.