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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
The earth is warming, it’s largely our fault and billions of people will suffer as a result. That’s the bad news. The worse news is we already have the knowledge and technology to slow the warming and mitigate a great deal of suffering, but we refuse to act. The problem is political, not technological. Hopefully, we will rectify our myopia soon.
informative
I mean, holy god. What I want to say: “Everyone must read this book,” but that feels unfair because it’s so goddamn depressing and scary. Maybe that makes it more essential? I don’t know - it’s a whirlwind of a book. It is so clear, accessible, detailed, and chilling. Our earth is in so much unfathomable trouble. This book made me feel like an cardboard-wielding apocalypse crier in Washington Square Park. I would tell my friends, “Did you know Miami will be underwater by 2050, pretty much without a doubt?” This book made it hard to have friends. (Just kidding, mostly.)
“Cascades” is so freaking scary. “The Climate Kaleidoscope” is an unprecedentedly eye-opening set of essays, some of which changed my life. The first chapter of “The Climate Kaleidoscope” is called “Storytelling,” and it’s an essay that should be required reading for every creative writing, drama, film making, and entertainment student in America.
If you care about the earth and are ready to care abut the earth in a way more profound than you thought possible, read the hell out of this book. Read it as fast as you can.
“Cascades” is so freaking scary. “The Climate Kaleidoscope” is an unprecedentedly eye-opening set of essays, some of which changed my life. The first chapter of “The Climate Kaleidoscope” is called “Storytelling,” and it’s an essay that should be required reading for every creative writing, drama, film making, and entertainment student in America.
If you care about the earth and are ready to care abut the earth in a way more profound than you thought possible, read the hell out of this book. Read it as fast as you can.
Amazing book. The afterward is clutch, too - talking about how much changed between finishing the manuscript and publishing the book. After almost a year of pandemic this book looks especially prophetic.
After reading this I let out a long, "fuuuuuuu*k". Climate change is not a game y'all-- this ish is very serious. I've been wanting to read a book about climate change for awhile and this was a perfect find for that. The first half of this book was great. The chapters were short and gave a deep dive into various climate related disasters (storms, famine, etc). Each chapter was long enough to get a good sense of the issue but not too long that I got overwhelmed. The back half of the book was...weird? Like I'm not really sure if it was necessary and I'm still unclear of the point. During one siting I was just reading along and I must have blacked out because all of a sudden we're talking about aliens, haha. Yeah, I didn't know what was going on there.
My other disappointment is that Wallace-Wells briefly mentioned that he had a child during the writing of this book, which must have been wild. I mean you're basically writing about the end-times while bouncing a little one on your lap--how?! I would have loved for that to be explored more. How does he not lose hope in the world that his children and grandchildren are going to inherit? Of course, I don't need to know all this man's business because I know that wasn't the purpose of the book. But still. It would have been interesting to apply some of the things he was talking about to his own lived experiences.
Overall, would highly recommend.
My other disappointment is that Wallace-Wells briefly mentioned that he had a child during the writing of this book, which must have been wild. I mean you're basically writing about the end-times while bouncing a little one on your lap--how?! I would have loved for that to be explored more. How does he not lose hope in the world that his children and grandchildren are going to inherit? Of course, I don't need to know all this man's business because I know that wasn't the purpose of the book. But still. It would have been interesting to apply some of the things he was talking about to his own lived experiences.
Overall, would highly recommend.
informative
reflective
dark
informative
slow-paced
First part of the book amazing, couldn't get into second section.
Wallace-Wells research and writing is refreshing. Anybody who can see my list from this year knows that it's chock-full of literature about climate change and what to expect. Much of the reading I've done this year and past has been doomsaying and lecturing, others have espoused some hope but heavily touched with defeat and sadness. This book is somewhat different in how it lays out its thesis. Judging without being preachy, presenting facts with a morbid wit but without ire, this books more or less matter-of-factly lays out the case that the anthropocene is facing an existential threat with open arms, that the hopelessness slowly descending on all of us does not have a foundation in cynicism but realism, that we are all going to have to accept our changing world and possible the elimination of our species, and that all of that should not only be a rallying cry for collective action, but also a wake-up call that, at some level, we need to be resigned to this fact if we are unwilling to change. Hard to explain the tone of this book, but I found myself reading it voraciously, taking in its dark prophecies, but somehow not feeling nihilistic or depressed about it. Perhaps closer to fatalism, a realization that I will fight my hardest to prevent this while simultaneously accepting that this may just be a fight that we lose. Highly recommended for everybody, because a reckoning of our century of bad habits is on the horizon, and those of us who were old enough to coast through those carefree times, even those of us on the extreme young end of that, owe it to ourselves, our current co-occupants, and our future generations to be educated and fight like hell to stop it.