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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
This was just a good way to multiply my anxiety about climate change... great. But seriously, this packs a bunch of information and it was so much that I feel like I want to reread it at some point, physically because I want to make sure I truly retain everything. Unless you are very prone to panic attacks and already have a lot of stress about climate change, I would recommend this.
Powerful. It was a slow read and it made me cry a few times; nevertheless, by the end of the book, I had hope again. It is indeed much worse than we think, the science is apparent - it opened my eyes to many things (in the ways warming will change our lives) I hadn't considered before. Definitely read the book, check the references and spread the word.
I read this in conjunction with Jeremy Rifkin's, "The Green New Deal." Wallace-Wells basically gives us a warning of what is happening now and what is going to happen if we don't take action to protect the climate. If you're not scared as you read it, then you're not actually reading it.
It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all.
This book was terrifying. It completely altered my understanding of climate change and the consequences that await us if we do not act now.
This book was terrifying. It completely altered my understanding of climate change and the consequences that await us if we do not act now.
2019's "The Uninhabitable Earth" is that rare book in which, by the time the paperback edition comes out (around a year to a year and a half after the hardback here in the US), the entire thing feels like it needs an update.
There is a new afterword attached to this paperback, but even that was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, the record setting wildfires in both Australia and the US, the record-setting Atlantic hurricane season, the "inland hurricane" the midwestern US experienced last August, and the ever increasing number of devastating floods, landslides, etc, that took place in 2020.
So it is that many passages here read like outdated newspaper headlines. Oh yeah, those wildfires from 2018 were bad. The worst ever, in fact. Until 2020, that is.
This isn't your typical book on the topic of climate change either. Because David Wallace-Wells is a self-professed optimist. If you don't read the whole of this book, it's worth at least reading the brilliant 40-page intro, "Cascades," in which DWW mentions that he and his wife just had a child.
Take that, climate alarmists!
But DWW, as he often reminds us, is alarmed too. He's just not as alarmed as some people. He still has hope.
Hope probably sells more books than doom, at least in the nonfiction category. Most of the books in the climate genre go something like this, "that happened, this is happening, that will happen, kiss the planet goodbye because, barring a miracle, we've waited too long to right the ship!" but DWW skips that last part, replacing it with, "there is hope specifically because things are going to soon be so bad that governments will be forced to take drastic action." It's an interesting message, hope through collective despair, but I'm not sure I share DWW's optimism that the governments and corporations of the world are just going to reverse course when they see how bad things are getting.
Aren't things already bad? Maybe other countries are taking gradual steps toward addressing climate change, but that's not nearly enough, and other countries — namely China and the US, the two greatest contributors to global warming — aren't even pretending to do anything. Amid record wildfires, hurricanes, heatwaves, a deadly pandemic, etc etc etc, what more has to happen before anything resembling appropriate measures are enacted? Do Miami and Hong Kong have to be swallowed up by the sea?
DWW aims some of his fire at out-and-out climate pessimists too, including those, like the author [a:Paul Kingsnorth|406864|Paul Kingsnorth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1507092300p2/406864.jpg], who would appear to cheer the climate crisis on, believing that humanity has brought it on itself — which it most certainly has.
DWW would certainly not agree with the deep cynicism shared by the characters in Paul Schrader's 2018 film "First Reformed," in which the pastor of a small church in upstate New York becomes radicalized by an environmental activist into believing the only solution is violence toward those companies culpable for global warming.
It's just hard, as a reader, to read page after page of increasingly dire predictions steeped in hard research only to be comforted at the end that somehow, possibly, things might still be alright if companies and governments at long last recognize the error of their ways. Perhaps I've misread DWW's basic message there, but I just don't buy it.
Maybe I've become too cynical myself, but while the science that "The Uninhabitable Earth" cites is sound, and its predictions terrifyingly believable, the evidence for DWW's optimism seems in woefully short supply. Unfortunately, we have no other choice but to believe that we can still stop the worse from occurring, even if we have to just take that on faith.
There is a new afterword attached to this paperback, but even that was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, the record setting wildfires in both Australia and the US, the record-setting Atlantic hurricane season, the "inland hurricane" the midwestern US experienced last August, and the ever increasing number of devastating floods, landslides, etc, that took place in 2020.
So it is that many passages here read like outdated newspaper headlines. Oh yeah, those wildfires from 2018 were bad. The worst ever, in fact. Until 2020, that is.
This isn't your typical book on the topic of climate change either. Because David Wallace-Wells is a self-professed optimist. If you don't read the whole of this book, it's worth at least reading the brilliant 40-page intro, "Cascades," in which DWW mentions that he and his wife just had a child.
Take that, climate alarmists!
But DWW, as he often reminds us, is alarmed too. He's just not as alarmed as some people. He still has hope.
Hope probably sells more books than doom, at least in the nonfiction category. Most of the books in the climate genre go something like this, "that happened, this is happening, that will happen, kiss the planet goodbye because, barring a miracle, we've waited too long to right the ship!" but DWW skips that last part, replacing it with, "there is hope specifically because things are going to soon be so bad that governments will be forced to take drastic action." It's an interesting message, hope through collective despair, but I'm not sure I share DWW's optimism that the governments and corporations of the world are just going to reverse course when they see how bad things are getting.
Aren't things already bad? Maybe other countries are taking gradual steps toward addressing climate change, but that's not nearly enough, and other countries — namely China and the US, the two greatest contributors to global warming — aren't even pretending to do anything. Amid record wildfires, hurricanes, heatwaves, a deadly pandemic, etc etc etc, what more has to happen before anything resembling appropriate measures are enacted? Do Miami and Hong Kong have to be swallowed up by the sea?
DWW aims some of his fire at out-and-out climate pessimists too, including those, like the author [a:Paul Kingsnorth|406864|Paul Kingsnorth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1507092300p2/406864.jpg], who would appear to cheer the climate crisis on, believing that humanity has brought it on itself — which it most certainly has.
DWW would certainly not agree with the deep cynicism shared by the characters in Paul Schrader's 2018 film "First Reformed," in which the pastor of a small church in upstate New York becomes radicalized by an environmental activist into believing the only solution is violence toward those companies culpable for global warming.
It's just hard, as a reader, to read page after page of increasingly dire predictions steeped in hard research only to be comforted at the end that somehow, possibly, things might still be alright if companies and governments at long last recognize the error of their ways. Perhaps I've misread DWW's basic message there, but I just don't buy it.
Maybe I've become too cynical myself, but while the science that "The Uninhabitable Earth" cites is sound, and its predictions terrifyingly believable, the evidence for DWW's optimism seems in woefully short supply. Unfortunately, we have no other choice but to believe that we can still stop the worse from occurring, even if we have to just take that on faith.
Premise was cool but honestly it was just statistic after statistic and it all kind of ended up going in one ear out the other.
The first half of this book is very firmly 2 stars and the latter half is a strong 4 stars, so that landed me squarely at 3 stars overall.
The first half I could have done without. Wallace-Wells dedicated each chapter to specific types of climate disasters (eg heat death, hunger, drowning, etc) and iteratively explained what the world would look like at 2, 4, 6, and 8 degrees of warming (spoiler: they’re all very, very bad). I didn’t feel as though I learned much about the fate of the world and didn’t feel like he offered much of a solution or remedy for any of the issues - so I was hesitating to understand what exactly he was trying to invoke. Just a sense of panic that might catalyze my call to action? Not sure.
The second half was much more compelling and thought provoking. He centered it around the socio-political ramifications of warming and the ideological approaches to the future. It was much more intellectual and philosophical in nature, which led to higher engagement. It ranged from the recent historical examples of climate affecting global politics like the Syrian refugee crisis to cosmological theories of extraterrestrial life and what that might indicate about our own fate.
At the end of it all, I’m not sure exactly what he was hoping to get across. It was hard for me to tell if he was just trying to be alarmist and raise the facts of the matter or invoke deep, existential thought about who we are as a species and our role on this planet. He tried to straddle both, and I wish he had picked a lane and ran with it from the start (and specifically the latter lane of the two).
The first half I could have done without. Wallace-Wells dedicated each chapter to specific types of climate disasters (eg heat death, hunger, drowning, etc) and iteratively explained what the world would look like at 2, 4, 6, and 8 degrees of warming (spoiler: they’re all very, very bad). I didn’t feel as though I learned much about the fate of the world and didn’t feel like he offered much of a solution or remedy for any of the issues - so I was hesitating to understand what exactly he was trying to invoke. Just a sense of panic that might catalyze my call to action? Not sure.
The second half was much more compelling and thought provoking. He centered it around the socio-political ramifications of warming and the ideological approaches to the future. It was much more intellectual and philosophical in nature, which led to higher engagement. It ranged from the recent historical examples of climate affecting global politics like the Syrian refugee crisis to cosmological theories of extraterrestrial life and what that might indicate about our own fate.
At the end of it all, I’m not sure exactly what he was hoping to get across. It was hard for me to tell if he was just trying to be alarmist and raise the facts of the matter or invoke deep, existential thought about who we are as a species and our role on this planet. He tried to straddle both, and I wish he had picked a lane and ran with it from the start (and specifically the latter lane of the two).
I picked up this book to get a better understanding of climate change. Sadly most of the concepts I had already come across, what was left is how these concepts work though in different domains of human life. I'm not convinced this book will convince climate sceptics, assuming such a book would be possible. I was expecting more "climate science for lay-people". Hoping to get out an argument for immediate action. I felt it was a little too speculative for that.
Therefore this to me felt like a book that just drones "its bad, it's bad, it's bad." Like a particularly repentant priest.
Yes, I know, it's bad.
Positively now. What I was able to take away from the book is that every degree counts, therefore there is no use in conceptualizing a 'point of no return'. There is no point where it can't get worse. Which means the earlier we act the better, but never throw in the towel. This is a good lesson for people actually convinced of the deverity of climate change, but who feel paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the task that lays aheas of us.
Therefore this to me felt like a book that just drones "its bad, it's bad, it's bad." Like a particularly repentant priest.
Yes, I know, it's bad.
Positively now. What I was able to take away from the book is that every degree counts, therefore there is no use in conceptualizing a 'point of no return'. There is no point where it can't get worse. Which means the earlier we act the better, but never throw in the towel. This is a good lesson for people actually convinced of the deverity of climate change, but who feel paralyzed by the sheer magnitude of the task that lays aheas of us.