This is a companion book to a BBC series, and as such it is relatively easy to read. Abundant pictures interrupt the text, and many of them are gorgeous. The book itself contains a large amount of information, though of course much of it is out of date 11 years in the future. Still, it is attractive, easy to read, and the few editing errors will make you cringe without making the book unreadable. Of course, being what it is, the information tends to be superficial, intended for a television audience more than a reading public. For those who find actual scientifically written books with dense walls of text difficult to plow through, this might be the book you are waiting for, if you are sitting on the fence (though if this book convinces you, you probably are too easily swayed, since the evidence is, by design, superficial and does not actually deal in depth with the complex issues and evidence). The book lost half a star for suggesting (in the final pages) that the planet can actually support nine billion people. Even at starvation levels, that is unlikely to last for long. ( )