In a world where being aware of issues is a civic duty, truthful information ought to be the most basic of our rights. Ecological awareness is no exception, so works like the recently published For Climate’s Sake!: A Visual Reader for Climate Change are increasingly normal.

As one can glean from the title, the book is primarily intended as a guide: a very complete manual for anyone interested in the problem of climate change, and wanting to be able to broach it in a simple and orderly way. Yet readers who already have exhaustive knowledge of the subject will not find a banal repetition of clichés, but a rigorous exposé complemented by an exquisitely selected arsenal of data, graphics, statistics and, naturally, beautiful and impactful photographs.

None of the crucial themes tackled by any presentation of climate change is left out in this publication, which offers doses of reality and conflict in equal parts. After a detailed run-through of the history of climate on our planet, it focusses on the real problem hidden behind climate change: the human drama. Page by page the book shows a succession of devastating floods, droughts, fires and deforestations that the globe has seen in the past decade. Finally, it offers a brief summary of the various summits and other international meetings that have tried to address the urgent problem at hand, with emphasis on the fact that all the agreements and protocols so far signed have in one way or another ended up as little more than ink and paper.