Hope Jahren decamped from the United States for Norway in 2016, the same year Knopf published her brilliant, quirky, bestselling memoir, Lab Girl. The Wilson Professor and Researcher at the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics at the University of Oslo resumed her biochemical analyses. Last September, she turned 50.

That half-century interval plays a starring role in her new book, The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where To Go From Here (Vintage, March 3). Much of the book calculates from 50 years ago.

On a recent evening, Jahren jumped onto a Zoom call from her home study. Seated at her desk and framed by bookshelves, she twirled a glass of cabernet and took questions, her Minnesota accent carrying across an ocean.

This is a much longer title for your second book, no?

It came to me in the middle. This book was years and years of plowing through these big data sets: from governments, historical records, censuses, farm yields, Norwegian fishermen’s newsletters. And a pattern keeps repeating itself that I could sum up in one word: more. The pattern had a bottomless quality to it: more, I mean MORE [Jahren elongates the word and stretches the M].

I really wanted the reader to immerse themselves in the breadth and depth of the MORE. And it sounds good in the mouth—one word wraps around what you do every day. Since 1969, the total amount of energy that people use every day has tripled. The total amount of electricity that people use every day has quadrupled. Global fossil fuel use has nearly tripled. The production of plastics has increased tenfold.

In the opening pages, you write, “Most of the trees you see out your window were barely seeds in 1969.” What are you hoping to evoke?

I wanted this book to read like a story. I teach that way—let me tell you the story of when you let go of this ball and it falls to the ground, the physics of that. It’s the best way to have a story stick. Climate change isn’t this thing that big, bad corporations did; it’s the story of our lives, it’s the story of the meal I once ate with my dad as opposed to the one I just ate with my son….Learning is the most beautiful thing we do as people. I want the reader to walk away from this book a little different than when she walked in.

You appear to enjoy recapping various authorities crying doom around overpopulation through the centuries.

People were wringing their hands about overpopulation since forever. It seems sacrilegious to write a book about climate change that tries to be funny. But science is as beautiful and as flawed as any other human endeavor. And I write from a female perspective. I point out that mother pigs are working harder than they ever have. I talk about running a sewing machine. I use women’s symbols and experiences. A huge number of my readers are women. I love that. Science took me out of the world of women, but books brought me back.

Your tone is at odds with the one that many environmental writers take.

There is a big difference between teaching and preaching. I try to approach the reader with respect….I believe people can learn because I can learn. My job is to learn using integrity and care and then communicate this as honestly and clearly as I can. That’s where my job ends. I have to trust that people will come up with their own judgment. These are the principles that guide my life, that are so missing in the way we talk about climate change and its impacts.

Do you mean these conversations are dismissive, disrespectful, and politicized?

[Jahren laughs.] People have calcified into their positions—including scientists, and that’s really too bad. A lot of the dialogue about climate change is based on fear, and people don’t make good decisions when they are afraid. Making someone afraid is not the same as informing them. What comes of fear is often paralysis. And propaganda is an abuse of my profession. Why should someone write another book on climate change? Good grief, does Hope Jahren really need to write another one on climate change? I wanted to perhaps inspire courage instead of fear. That’s what I owe the people who educated me and took care of me all these years. [She pauses, draws a deep breath.] I’m getting very emotional here.

Your son is 16 now. Do you and he talk about Greta Thunberg?

Greta is an exceptional person; she is going to have an exceptional life. She is skilled beyond her years. But I find putting the impetus to deal with the biggest challenge of our generation on the heads of our children outrageously unfair. I am excited to hear what she has to say after she, say, graduates college. She is addressing this tremendously heavy burden that we have no right to lay on her.

Who do you hope reads this book?

I hope it gets to young people. I purposely left out the naughty language, which I was told was a problem with Lab Girl. I hope they read the book and read the world differently. Does it feel different when you drive your car or when you buy your plane tickets? I gave what I could [with this book], and I want to see what people give back.

I had people tell me I was naïve, but I was always taught love is a gift and hope is a duty and we can’t give up on the world we compromised. Every generation has to wrestle with the specter of its demise, and this is ours. In the end, we work with only four resources: Earth, sky, ocean, and each other. If we can refrain from overestimating the likelihood of failure, then we must not underestimate our capacity for success.

Karen R. Long manages the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for the Cleveland Foundation.