More than six months after my book about climate change and what is to be done about it has appeared in print, and in good old English, there is not a sign of any interest in it. Not a single review of the book has appeared anywhere around the globe even though I have sent it to many an editor of a leading newspaper both in paper and electronic form. It is as though the book does not exist. Even more, it is as though climate change is but a figment of my imagination, let alone its repercussions. How is this possible?

Of course, the book could simply be too poor to pay it any attention. Pure gibberish. Why review it at all? Even a devastating review would thus be a waste of time. In short, why bother? My short biography at the end of the book shows that this verdict is not very likely to hold water, though. Given my superb education and quite successful academic career, I am not likely to come up with any writing that is this poor. At least a devastating review would thus be in order. But it is nowhere to be found on the World Wide Web.

The way I see things, my book about climate change and what is to be done about it fits no niche available at present. Neither its biting pessimism about the medium run, nor its mellow optimism about the long run, can find a home in any bookshop or library in existence. No editor that has handled it and glanced through it can find a place for it in his or her newspaper, either. It can find no market in today’s capitalism, that is. For it offers no way out, let alone a way that would require investment of any resources whatsoever.

In fact, it would have been a huge surprise if the book attracted attention on anyone’s part. The only reaction by a serious reader I can imagine would be rather terse: “Oops.” And that would be that. Which is why I reckon that a comedian could pick it up in the fullness of time. Or a group of comedians, such as Monty Python. My book would finally come to life, and there would be much laughter about the human species and its travails. The only trouble with these happy thoughts is that comedians of the sort I am envisioning are nowhere to be found nowadays, and for the reasons already mentioned. Oops, indeed.