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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
A giant terrifying look at what may come with an infinitesimally small nugget of hope in the center.
challenging
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
Save yourself eight hours of aggravation and avoid purchasing the Audible version of this book. The author is a horrible reader and the entire book sounds like an advanced undergraduate student attempting to sound erudite at an academic conference.
Beyond that, I found this book mostly in the alarmist, doomsday vein that constantly veered back and forth between worst case scenarios and more hedged bets on what our future will hold. He also seems to blame capitalist, free-market economies for the majority of our climate change problems while giving the command economies of the twentieth century a free pass on carbon contributions.
The author comes across as smug by filling the narrative with unnecessary name dropping, theory dropping, run-on sentences and run-on paragraphs. I doubt this book will convince climate change deniers and offers little in the way of solutions for climate change activists. Well, he does seem to believe that “governments can do something about it if they only try.”
What a let down.
Beyond that, I found this book mostly in the alarmist, doomsday vein that constantly veered back and forth between worst case scenarios and more hedged bets on what our future will hold. He also seems to blame capitalist, free-market economies for the majority of our climate change problems while giving the command economies of the twentieth century a free pass on carbon contributions.
The author comes across as smug by filling the narrative with unnecessary name dropping, theory dropping, run-on sentences and run-on paragraphs. I doubt this book will convince climate change deniers and offers little in the way of solutions for climate change activists. Well, he does seem to believe that “governments can do something about it if they only try.”
What a let down.
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
An extremely important topic, but not very readable. The first section serves as an introduction to climate change. The majority of the book focuses on what may happen after several degrees of warming. Each chapter has a different focus - for example, there is a chapter on water/melting ice caps/flooding, a chapter on air pollution, a chapter on famine, a chapter on increased wildfires, etc. The last section of the book is a kind of review of different theories regarding the political reaction in a hundred (or several hundred) years - will the rich buy up all the resources, or will we band together as an entire planet to save ourselves, what will happen to the climate refugees, etc. For such an engaging topic, this book was extremely dry, but managed to feel pretty incendiary at the same time. The most valuable and sobering part for me was reading the hard data on increasing environmental effects over the last hundred years or so. There has been a measured increase in nearly every kind of natural disaster that we track. The "what-ifs" and political speculation is not as helpful as seeing the hard data of what our consumption has done to our planet. I recommend with reservations, because the data is interesting, but I'll be looking for another better-written book about climate change.
It's one of those few books I'd give a blanket recommendation for--no exceptions. Meticulously researched and well composed, it's an all-encompassing, honest and straight to the point account of what we, collectively, are facing.
A spectacularly well researched account of what will happen to the world due to climate change.
Trigger warning for lots of things, most of the book can be highly upsetting and distressing. Basically, the author outlines multiple different ways in which we will die and suffer as climate change continues to destroy, and how we are doing very little to stop it.
This book provides the most comprehensive, accessible literature search on climate research that I have ever seen before. The studies and findings are discussed comprehensively, including details here and there about the scientists and the context in which these studies have been conducted (with very little detail on the methodology of the studies - which is in my opinion is largely a good thing and makes the book easier to read). The horde of research is meticulously categorised into a text that actually makes sense. However, the large amount of studies does make the text occasionally long-winded.
This book is a very impactful view into what the world will look like as we approach 2 to even 8 degrees of warming. How millions of people will suffer, how cities will disappear under water and how everything in planet Earth from air to mud will become dangerous to humans. Largely the book is a sad tale of everything that can happen - and it doesn't sound at all good. These chapters can be highly anxiety inducing to get through so do consider this before you embark on a journey to find out what awaits us.
The Uninhabitable Earth is one of those books that will follow me for a long time to come. No one action will save us from the doom ahead. Basically we have to do everything - stop big corporations from continuing their destroying of the planet, change politics, change our individual habits like diet, the way we buy things and how we use transport, change our energy supplying systems, change the way we cultivate food.. The list goes on. Although fighting climate change is a big topic - the author doesn't put much focus on it. For someone who claims to not be pessimistic, this book is incredibly bleak (maybe because even an optimist sees our future as bleak??).
One thing that will definitely stay with me is this: the author emphasises that it isn't the planet that will be destroyed, it's us humans and the other species that we currently share the planet with. Even if we entirely mess things up and cause everything and everyone to die on Earth - the planet will simply take thousands of years and then recover. And the process will start anew. It is important to keep in mind that by protecting the world, we are in fact trying to protect ourselves and other species. Unless with hit the planet with some scifi level weaponry - it will go on. Let's make sure that our species as well as so many others around us also do.
There were some things I wish this book had done. The author is pretty cruel against many solutions coined in media (like improving technology will save us and that we can leave this planet and go live somewhere else). I think the harsh tone is warranted but it is a bit off-putting. We ain't going to solve stuff if we just sit here calling each other stupid for our delusions.
The book touches on that the author doesn't like people calling other environmentalists' hypocritical for not doing something - but - if I heard right (I listened to the audiobook and couldn't find the place again when I searched for it later), the author knows the awful things we are head towards and still proclaims that they are not a vegetarian, they don't recycle, and that they have two children. I find this pretty annoying, not because an individual person isn't vegan, but because in a way the author is giving a permission to anyone reading the book to do those things as well. Especially when the entire point is that the threat is so big (it's already here) that we need to do everything in our power to stop us rolling straight into an apocalypse. I wish the author had discussed individual choices in more detail, especially as they so nonchalantly joke about not making a difference in their own life. This information is enough to scare me into taking action, why not them?
Trigger warning for lots of things, most of the book can be highly upsetting and distressing. Basically, the author outlines multiple different ways in which we will die and suffer as climate change continues to destroy, and how we are doing very little to stop it.
This book provides the most comprehensive, accessible literature search on climate research that I have ever seen before. The studies and findings are discussed comprehensively, including details here and there about the scientists and the context in which these studies have been conducted (with very little detail on the methodology of the studies - which is in my opinion is largely a good thing and makes the book easier to read). The horde of research is meticulously categorised into a text that actually makes sense. However, the large amount of studies does make the text occasionally long-winded.
This book is a very impactful view into what the world will look like as we approach 2 to even 8 degrees of warming. How millions of people will suffer, how cities will disappear under water and how everything in planet Earth from air to mud will become dangerous to humans. Largely the book is a sad tale of everything that can happen - and it doesn't sound at all good. These chapters can be highly anxiety inducing to get through so do consider this before you embark on a journey to find out what awaits us.
The Uninhabitable Earth is one of those books that will follow me for a long time to come. No one action will save us from the doom ahead. Basically we have to do everything - stop big corporations from continuing their destroying of the planet, change politics, change our individual habits like diet, the way we buy things and how we use transport, change our energy supplying systems, change the way we cultivate food.. The list goes on. Although fighting climate change is a big topic - the author doesn't put much focus on it. For someone who claims to not be pessimistic, this book is incredibly bleak (maybe because even an optimist sees our future as bleak??).
One thing that will definitely stay with me is this: the author emphasises that it isn't the planet that will be destroyed, it's us humans and the other species that we currently share the planet with. Even if we entirely mess things up and cause everything and everyone to die on Earth - the planet will simply take thousands of years and then recover. And the process will start anew. It is important to keep in mind that by protecting the world, we are in fact trying to protect ourselves and other species. Unless with hit the planet with some scifi level weaponry - it will go on. Let's make sure that our species as well as so many others around us also do.
There were some things I wish this book had done. The author is pretty cruel against many solutions coined in media (like improving technology will save us and that we can leave this planet and go live somewhere else). I think the harsh tone is warranted but it is a bit off-putting. We ain't going to solve stuff if we just sit here calling each other stupid for our delusions.
The book touches on that the author doesn't like people calling other environmentalists' hypocritical for not doing something - but - if I heard right (I listened to the audiobook and couldn't find the place again when I searched for it later), the author knows the awful things we are head towards and still proclaims that they are not a vegetarian, they don't recycle, and that they have two children. I find this pretty annoying, not because an individual person isn't vegan, but because in a way the author is giving a permission to anyone reading the book to do those things as well. Especially when the entire point is that the threat is so big (it's already here) that we need to do everything in our power to stop us rolling straight into an apocalypse. I wish the author had discussed individual choices in more detail, especially as they so nonchalantly joke about not making a difference in their own life. This information is enough to scare me into taking action, why not them?