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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
This is a non-fic about the dire situation the world is in. Environmental collapse isn’t a pessimistic possible future, it is present. I’ve read is as a part of March/April monthly read at Non Fiction Book Club group.
The book tells a huge number of anecdotes about how the climate change already affecting humsan lives and how it can affect them in a future. So far it is preaching to a choir, I fully agree that the danger is already present even if I haven’t knew a lot of examples he made, like the fact that in the sugarcane region of El Salvador, as much as one-fifth of the population—including over a quarter of the men—has chronic kidney disease, the presumed result of dehydration from working the fields they were able to comfortably harvest as recently as two decades ago. Or that an 8-million-year-old bug brought back to life in 2007 and it is possible that as polar ice sheets are melting, we can get diseases unseen for centuries and even predating humans.
However, while I’m not a specialist in many spheres he covered, I dabble a bit in economic history. So, when he introduces ideas by Andreas Malm and others that our high standards of living are due to tapping reserves of fossil fuels, he says that “doctrinaire economists would argue there is much more to the equation of growth” for the rest of the chapter he treats this idea as a gospel truth, and not something now on margins of mainstream economics. This throws a shadow on other things he says.
Definitely a worthy read.
The book tells a huge number of anecdotes about how the climate change already affecting humsan lives and how it can affect them in a future. So far it is preaching to a choir, I fully agree that the danger is already present even if I haven’t knew a lot of examples he made, like the fact that in the sugarcane region of El Salvador, as much as one-fifth of the population—including over a quarter of the men—has chronic kidney disease, the presumed result of dehydration from working the fields they were able to comfortably harvest as recently as two decades ago. Or that an 8-million-year-old bug brought back to life in 2007 and it is possible that as polar ice sheets are melting, we can get diseases unseen for centuries and even predating humans.
However, while I’m not a specialist in many spheres he covered, I dabble a bit in economic history. So, when he introduces ideas by Andreas Malm and others that our high standards of living are due to tapping reserves of fossil fuels, he says that “doctrinaire economists would argue there is much more to the equation of growth” for the rest of the chapter he treats this idea as a gospel truth, and not something now on margins of mainstream economics. This throws a shadow on other things he says.
Definitely a worthy read.
informative
slow-paced
emotional
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
Audio book. It was incredible and .... grim. Makes me more mad than I already am lol
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
THERE IS NO PLANET B!
Reading this book, I felt that it's relevant without a doubt. People can argue over causal links and the science not always being 100% accurate but climate change is here. Well, it always has been but now we are beginning to see the consequences. The author has considered pretty much every aspect of climate change and it's consequences for the planet and most importantly, our species. Are the facts scary? Indeed, it's the sort of stuff that is bound to induce some sort of existential dread. Good thing that it all has been thoroughly researched and presented in a digestible manner. The main takeaway is this: We need to take definitive action or else the future generations are going to bear the brunt.
Reading this book, I felt that it's relevant without a doubt. People can argue over causal links and the science not always being 100% accurate but climate change is here. Well, it always has been but now we are beginning to see the consequences. The author has considered pretty much every aspect of climate change and it's consequences for the planet and most importantly, our species. Are the facts scary? Indeed, it's the sort of stuff that is bound to induce some sort of existential dread. Good thing that it all has been thoroughly researched and presented in a digestible manner. The main takeaway is this: We need to take definitive action or else the future generations are going to bear the brunt.
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
“A state of half-ignorance and half-indifference is a much more pervasive climate sickness than true denial or true fatalism.”
I’ve watched DiCaprio’s environmental documentary Before the Flood before reading this. What Wallace-Wells explores within these pages continue to emphasise and extend upon my current understanding of climate change. He does this largely by quoting a list of statistics that demonstrate how devastating the effects are on our societies, oceans and air. He talks about the impacts on our social behaviour, on the economy (and how economic greed certainly perpetuates this cycle of devastation), and how climate change is, very much so, a political tug-of-war.
Personally, I found some parts of his rhetoric repetitive. I am also not a huge fan of endless lists of statistics. However, undeniably, this book was extensive in its research, especially for readers who have not dwelt too much on the topic of climate change and are interested in examining its effects on the modern world.
I also appreciated his summative contemplation at the end of the book – that “only a universe compatible with our sort of conscious life would produce anything capable of contemplating it like this”. Personally I enjoyed that more than the examination of the impacts on our current world.
Giving this book a 4.5 star rating.
I’ve watched DiCaprio’s environmental documentary Before the Flood before reading this. What Wallace-Wells explores within these pages continue to emphasise and extend upon my current understanding of climate change. He does this largely by quoting a list of statistics that demonstrate how devastating the effects are on our societies, oceans and air. He talks about the impacts on our social behaviour, on the economy (and how economic greed certainly perpetuates this cycle of devastation), and how climate change is, very much so, a political tug-of-war.
Personally, I found some parts of his rhetoric repetitive. I am also not a huge fan of endless lists of statistics. However, undeniably, this book was extensive in its research, especially for readers who have not dwelt too much on the topic of climate change and are interested in examining its effects on the modern world.
I also appreciated his summative contemplation at the end of the book – that “only a universe compatible with our sort of conscious life would produce anything capable of contemplating it like this”. Personally I enjoyed that more than the examination of the impacts on our current world.
Giving this book a 4.5 star rating.
Good book but here's some criticisms:
Criticism 1: China, by all means considered the lynchpin of the developing world, has made enormous progress on climate change which refutes the notion that it’s not a problem of capitalism.
Criticism 1.1: What we call the socialist world was wiped out before climate change became the preeminent threat that we now see it as, it’s absurd to judge the socialist world of the 1920s to 1980s on the same standards by which we judge the capitalist world today, one of the two had widespread awareness of the problem.
Criticism 1.2: America should take a great portion of the blame regardless of current emissions because the neoliberal capitalist order, pervasive among modern nations, has been the predominant world order since at least the 1990s.
Criticism 2: The Republican Party doesn’t have to directly control emissions outcomes to set bad examples, undo good ones, plus they are the first engineers of the laissez-faire policy fucking us up since Reagan.
Criticism 3: America and the other industrialized nations were contributing the climate change much longer than the developed world, of course the developed world isn’t doing any better on combatting climate change considering how many resources it lacks.
Criticism 4: References to Atlantis always set off alarm bells, Atlantis is purely mythological and that kind of pseudo-history shouldn’t be in any serious book.
Criticism 1: China, by all means considered the lynchpin of the developing world, has made enormous progress on climate change which refutes the notion that it’s not a problem of capitalism.
Criticism 1.1: What we call the socialist world was wiped out before climate change became the preeminent threat that we now see it as, it’s absurd to judge the socialist world of the 1920s to 1980s on the same standards by which we judge the capitalist world today, one of the two had widespread awareness of the problem.
Criticism 1.2: America should take a great portion of the blame regardless of current emissions because the neoliberal capitalist order, pervasive among modern nations, has been the predominant world order since at least the 1990s.
Criticism 2: The Republican Party doesn’t have to directly control emissions outcomes to set bad examples, undo good ones, plus they are the first engineers of the laissez-faire policy fucking us up since Reagan.
Criticism 3: America and the other industrialized nations were contributing the climate change much longer than the developed world, of course the developed world isn’t doing any better on combatting climate change considering how many resources it lacks.
Criticism 4: References to Atlantis always set off alarm bells, Atlantis is purely mythological and that kind of pseudo-history shouldn’t be in any serious book.
I first encountered David Wallace-Wells writing in [b:The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018|37570447|The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018|Sheila Heti|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532659086l/37570447._SY75_.jpg|59181715], where his NY Mag essay of the same name as this book was compiled. I remember being particularly struck by a paragraph on Fermi's Paradox (if the universe is so infinitely big, why have we not yet encountered another sentient life-form) and the "Great Filter" explanation (that sentient life-forms do arise, but often quickly die off due to environmental filters that kick in due to their own destructive actions). Going back to the paragraph now, when I am 1.5 years older and relatively better read, I no longer find it super profound, but DWW's writing still enchants.
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming is not an enjoyable read. It is deeply depressing, to the point that I could only bear to listen to it when I was in very specific moods. The first part of the book, "Elements of chaos," consists of several chapters that each focus on a different kind of environmental catastrophe that climate change has already started and will continue to wreak--flooding, wildfires, air pollution, hunger, climate conflict. DWW uses a breadth of research to illustrate the starkness of climate change's impacts, and the information richness was a little dizzying in audiobook form. (I also read in some reviews that a few of the papers he cites were less than well-received, but that hardly changes the overall points he is trying to make). The individual bits of evidence matter less than the overall picture they paint, a picture that left me sad and anxious at the end of each listening session. The information is likely nothing new for people who have been in touch with climate change issues over the years, but consuming it in aggregate, at once, is a powerful exercise in itself.
I was particularly impressed by the second part of the book, "The climate kaleidoscope." Here DWW tells a Yuval Noah Harari-esque big history of how we think about and deal with climate change, touching on topics from Silicon Valley saviourism to representations of the environment and apocalypse in the media.
At times, The Uninhabitable Earth appears to descend into hyperbole and alarmism, but DWW is acutely aware of his own rhetoric and constantly asks the reader how any of the dangers he outlines can be treated with anything but alarm. This is a valuable book, not just for people who spend time thinking about our planets future, but especially for those (like me) who find that they haven't engaged as much with these issues of literal planetary importance.
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming is not an enjoyable read. It is deeply depressing, to the point that I could only bear to listen to it when I was in very specific moods. The first part of the book, "Elements of chaos," consists of several chapters that each focus on a different kind of environmental catastrophe that climate change has already started and will continue to wreak--flooding, wildfires, air pollution, hunger, climate conflict. DWW uses a breadth of research to illustrate the starkness of climate change's impacts, and the information richness was a little dizzying in audiobook form. (I also read in some reviews that a few of the papers he cites were less than well-received, but that hardly changes the overall points he is trying to make). The individual bits of evidence matter less than the overall picture they paint, a picture that left me sad and anxious at the end of each listening session. The information is likely nothing new for people who have been in touch with climate change issues over the years, but consuming it in aggregate, at once, is a powerful exercise in itself.
I was particularly impressed by the second part of the book, "The climate kaleidoscope." Here DWW tells a Yuval Noah Harari-esque big history of how we think about and deal with climate change, touching on topics from Silicon Valley saviourism to representations of the environment and apocalypse in the media.
At times, The Uninhabitable Earth appears to descend into hyperbole and alarmism, but DWW is acutely aware of his own rhetoric and constantly asks the reader how any of the dangers he outlines can be treated with anything but alarm. This is a valuable book, not just for people who spend time thinking about our planets future, but especially for those (like me) who find that they haven't engaged as much with these issues of literal planetary importance.