Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
This is a book about climate change obviously which automatically makes it a hard read. Like the subject matter it's dark, scary, hopeless, and guilt inducing. This book is very informative and breaks down everything you would want to know about what the world might look like in the future with climate change. The information was good and I definitely learned things that were interesting and helpful. But the writing seemed very rambly and long winded. I wasn't a fan of the writing style. It also felt dense to me it wasn't a book I flew through it took me forever to get through. You have to go into this book with strong convections of hope and determination to make a difference because if you don't you could easily get overwhelmed and fall into a pit of why even bother. The ending wasn't as hopeful or didn't have as much of a meaning attached as I hoped. Overall this was an good book but only read if you're already interested in climate change. There are probably better books on climate change out there but I'm glad I read it. This is my first step into reading more nonfiction and reading more environmental works.
informative
medium-paced
This was a very informative read with a focus on what life will look like for humans in particular as climate change progresses. I’ll admit it was odd to read this during a pandemic. It makes a particular section of this book seem strangely prophetic, even though it was published less than two years ago. It also was a sort of weird relief from COVID anxiety to be able to focus on my climate anxiety instead.
There’s a lot of alarming possibilities in the not-so-distant future that Wallace-Wells brings up. Some of them I was aware of already, but there were many I hadn’t heard before. Hearing them (I listened to the audiobook for this one) piled on top of each other in the relentless way Wallace-Wells presents the information makes it all the more harrowing, even for the pieces of information I already knew.
I wouldn’t recommend this to people who are interested in learning about the science itself. I wasn’t looking for a book about climate science, but if I were this would not be the place to learn about it. This is more of a look at what life for humans on Earth will potentially look like. And we should care about that. We should care about the suffering of fellow humans. But he doesn’t ever tell us what he thinks we should do about any of it.
Overall, I found myself disappointed at the author’s inability to pick a side. He makes frequent calls for action and political will, but never really defines what actions or what we should do in terms of policy. While I do think this book is worth the read, I think it could have been so much stronger if that sort of thing had been included. I found it extremely frustrating at the end of the book where he gets so close to drawing conclusions in this area but dances around actually committing to anything.
Climate alarmism is necessary, but just sounding the alarm won’t fix the problem
There’s a lot of alarming possibilities in the not-so-distant future that Wallace-Wells brings up. Some of them I was aware of already, but there were many I hadn’t heard before. Hearing them (I listened to the audiobook for this one) piled on top of each other in the relentless way Wallace-Wells presents the information makes it all the more harrowing, even for the pieces of information I already knew.
I wouldn’t recommend this to people who are interested in learning about the science itself. I wasn’t looking for a book about climate science, but if I were this would not be the place to learn about it. This is more of a look at what life for humans on Earth will potentially look like. And we should care about that. We should care about the suffering of fellow humans. But he doesn’t ever tell us what he thinks we should do about any of it.
Overall, I found myself disappointed at the author’s inability to pick a side. He makes frequent calls for action and political will, but never really defines what actions or what we should do in terms of policy. While I do think this book is worth the read, I think it could have been so much stronger if that sort of thing had been included. I found it extremely frustrating at the end of the book where he gets so close to drawing conclusions in this area but dances around actually committing to anything.
Climate alarmism is necessary, but just sounding the alarm won’t fix the problem
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I really want everyone to stop whatever they're doing and read this book. After reading this book, climate change now overshadows all my other concerns. It is worse than I thought, and of course, I knew it was already currently happening but he compiles the data on current natural disasters in a way that clearly separates them from previous weather events.
I moved to Nebraska a year ago. Nebraska is not even mentioned in the book. And yet, we have what are apparently new permanent bodies of water since the flooding events that have occurred since I moved here a year ago. They look like lakes or little rivers and they've survived even our record-breaking hot summer. There were multiple floods in the Spring, and the flooding in March cost over a billion in damages, a lot of which I think has not actually been repaired. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/21/705408364/nebraska-faces-over-1-3-billion-in-flood-losses. The book was already out by then, but I bet we still wouldn't have made it into the book because so many more damaging weather events are occurring all the time now.
I moved to Nebraska a year ago. Nebraska is not even mentioned in the book. And yet, we have what are apparently new permanent bodies of water since the flooding events that have occurred since I moved here a year ago. They look like lakes or little rivers and they've survived even our record-breaking hot summer. There were multiple floods in the Spring, and the flooding in March cost over a billion in damages, a lot of which I think has not actually been repaired. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/21/705408364/nebraska-faces-over-1-3-billion-in-flood-losses. The book was already out by then, but I bet we still wouldn't have made it into the book because so many more damaging weather events are occurring all the time now.
I got 60ish pages into this book but couldn’t find the motivation to continue. It presents wonderful info but it’s a bit too dry for my needs right now.
3.5 ⭐️ Wallace-Wells does a great job of lyrically narrating the way we are living through a death spiral of environmental change of our own making. I’d rate it higher if the facts weren’t so depressing, but given that they are, this is a short read that we should put in more people’s hands.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
I recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about climate change, but who, for fear of despair or other reasons, haven't tried to understand what it really means for the planet and for our collective survival. Everyone should know where we're heading. This book gives you a vivid picture of our future, both best and worst case scenarios of it. Read it to be able to intelligently decide how much of your time you're willing to dedicate to prevent the worst.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
While this book is very interesting and absolutely necessary, it didn't seem to add any arguments I hadn't heard before. Would still recommemnd this to anybody who hasn't read a lot of climate related books.