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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
This should be humanity's required reading. Written in a clear yet surprisingly lyrical style, it pulls no punches on what we're already facing, and how much worse it's gonna get.
It ends on a slightly positive note, but after the bolero of horrible shit, I can't help but feel the author was just throwing us an existential bone. As his book shows, climate change has just begun, and we're already deep in mitigation phase, and nowhere close to caring half as much as we should. 2 degrees is devastating, and there's no doubt we're gonna get there.
3 degrees is catastrophic, a mutilation of our way of living, and we'll get there too. No use in talking about the very real possibility of surpassing that, and entering veritable apocalyptic territory. Mind you, 2 degrees is already apocalyptic for many countries. They're just a shade darker or yellower than the West, so apparently nobody cares.
Unfortunately, the people who need to read this won't.
When you have the chance, go ahead and hug a climatologist.
It ends on a slightly positive note, but after the bolero of horrible shit, I can't help but feel the author was just throwing us an existential bone. As his book shows, climate change has just begun, and we're already deep in mitigation phase, and nowhere close to caring half as much as we should. 2 degrees is devastating, and there's no doubt we're gonna get there.
3 degrees is catastrophic, a mutilation of our way of living, and we'll get there too. No use in talking about the very real possibility of surpassing that, and entering veritable apocalyptic territory. Mind you, 2 degrees is already apocalyptic for many countries. They're just a shade darker or yellower than the West, so apparently nobody cares.
Unfortunately, the people who need to read this won't.
When you have the chance, go ahead and hug a climatologist.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
The first half of this book was harrowing, the second half a bit miandering.
4.5 stars.
This book is a must-read, a wake up call for anyone who is interested in maintaining a liveable planet for themselves, their children, and grandchildren - which should be everyone. The first half of the book is scary, depressing, and really tough to read. But that’s the point here - we should be scared about what we’ve done and still are doing to ruin the planet that is the only one we can live on. The second half of the book offers some hope, and I think that’s Wallace-Wells’ argument with this book, that fear and hope can coexist and push people to the action that needs to start today, if not years ago, to fix the climate crisis that is just starting.
I hope that anyone who sees this review will immediately go check this book out from the library and read it, and feel free to discuss with me.
Many quotes from this book will stick with me, but the book as a whole can perhaps be summed up with this one: “The path we are on as a planet should terrify anyone living on it, but, thinking like one people, all the relevant inputs are within our control, and there is no mysticism required to interpret or command the fate of the earth. Only an acceptance of responsibility.”
This book is a must-read, a wake up call for anyone who is interested in maintaining a liveable planet for themselves, their children, and grandchildren - which should be everyone. The first half of the book is scary, depressing, and really tough to read. But that’s the point here - we should be scared about what we’ve done and still are doing to ruin the planet that is the only one we can live on. The second half of the book offers some hope, and I think that’s Wallace-Wells’ argument with this book, that fear and hope can coexist and push people to the action that needs to start today, if not years ago, to fix the climate crisis that is just starting.
I hope that anyone who sees this review will immediately go check this book out from the library and read it, and feel free to discuss with me.
Many quotes from this book will stick with me, but the book as a whole can perhaps be summed up with this one: “The path we are on as a planet should terrify anyone living on it, but, thinking like one people, all the relevant inputs are within our control, and there is no mysticism required to interpret or command the fate of the earth. Only an acceptance of responsibility.”
"It is worse--much worse--than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairytale." There are a lot of hard statistics of climate change in The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. The goal of Paris Agreement is to control the warming within 2c by 2100, which started as the worst case scenario, then revealed itself as the best case scenario and now already impossible. Here is a straightforward quote from the book: “We have done as much damage to the fate of the planet and its ability to sustain human life and civilisation since Al Gore published his first book on climate than in all the centuries – all the millennia – that came before”
When people talk about global warming, sea level rise is what first comes into mind, as if coastal cities and islands are all what should be worried about. Instead, sea level rise is only one of the many problems. Part II of the book, Elements of Chaos, lists disasters will be brought by global warming and many already happening in the world: Heat Death, Hunger (agriculture failures), Drowning, Wildfire, Disasters No Longer Natural (natural disasters become "normal weather"), Freshwater Drain, Dying Oceans (dying marine life population, ocean circulation slowdown), Unbreathable Air, Plagues of Warming, Economic Collapse, Climate Conflict (wars triggered by climate changes), Systems (climate refugees).
What I find most interesting is Part III The Climate Kaleidoscope. Some of the author's opinions (I hope I have understood correctly):
1. Today's economical and political system is built upon fossil fuel. It started as industrial revolution in England and spreaded to the world. Countries like China (especially China) and India are catching up. Fossil fuel fueled the belief that continuous economical growth and progress will last forever. However, this belief is an illusion because of Climate Change and the chaos it will bring.
2. Capitalism itself will not solve Climate Change. Neoliberalism (unchecked free-market capitalism) is what has got us Climate Change, and it will only make problems worse. The short-sightedness of profit seeking, the cognitive biases and fallacies revealed in many behavioral psychology studies make the using of unchecked free-market to solve a crisis as large as Climate Change an illusion. The author even raised the question if free-market capitalism could survive Climate Change.
3. Should anything save us, it will be technology, but today's Silicon Valley offer little more than fairytales. Consciously few Silicon Valley venture capitalists and CEOs care about climate change. Some consider the issue solved. More are worried about AI revolt than Climate Change. The author quotes Ted Chiang: Silicon Valley's fear of future AI overlords sounds suspiciously like an unknowingly lacerating self-portrait. I could not find the source of this quote, but I did find an interesting article on this Silicon Valley's AI fear: https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/04/the-existential-paranoia-fueling-elon-musks-fear-of-ai/ In other words, giant tech inventors like Elon Musk are so self-centered that the only thing they fear is what they create themselves. I am surprised to learn that Bitcoin mining is one big player in global carbon emission.
4. GMO food should not be feared (which I agree). Nuclear power should not be feared, because it is still cleaner than fossil fuel (I will look it up).
5. Geo-engineering (i.e. shooting up enough air pollution to offset carbon emission) as the last resort is hard to be dismissed (I doubt it, because I am an "environmental left"?).
The author also discusses physiological and psychological impact Climate Change has or will bring to people.
The Dark Mountain Project is worth further exploring. This is a Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/apr/29/environmentalism-dark-mountain-project
Climate Change is the biggest story of our time and it is already happening. If you still don't "feel" it, likely you are in denial or you have reached the "peak indifference". We are all the boiling frogs in this giant cauldron called earth and we have only ourselves to blame. The "Uninhabitable Earth" in the title refers to the earth especially uninhabitable to humans. If we do nothing, after warming, the earth will recover eventually, but without Homo Sapiens and our civilization.
The author is realist who encourages action instead of despair. I am a pessimist, so I find this book strangely uplifting. He proposes masive policy changes (to achieve negative carbon emission), argues that individual life style choice is too insignificant to make real difference in the time frame necessary, and encourages climate change awareness activism and education.
When people talk about global warming, sea level rise is what first comes into mind, as if coastal cities and islands are all what should be worried about. Instead, sea level rise is only one of the many problems. Part II of the book, Elements of Chaos, lists disasters will be brought by global warming and many already happening in the world: Heat Death, Hunger (agriculture failures), Drowning, Wildfire, Disasters No Longer Natural (natural disasters become "normal weather"), Freshwater Drain, Dying Oceans (dying marine life population, ocean circulation slowdown), Unbreathable Air, Plagues of Warming, Economic Collapse, Climate Conflict (wars triggered by climate changes), Systems (climate refugees).
What I find most interesting is Part III The Climate Kaleidoscope. Some of the author's opinions (I hope I have understood correctly):
1. Today's economical and political system is built upon fossil fuel. It started as industrial revolution in England and spreaded to the world. Countries like China (especially China) and India are catching up. Fossil fuel fueled the belief that continuous economical growth and progress will last forever. However, this belief is an illusion because of Climate Change and the chaos it will bring.
2. Capitalism itself will not solve Climate Change. Neoliberalism (unchecked free-market capitalism) is what has got us Climate Change, and it will only make problems worse. The short-sightedness of profit seeking, the cognitive biases and fallacies revealed in many behavioral psychology studies make the using of unchecked free-market to solve a crisis as large as Climate Change an illusion. The author even raised the question if free-market capitalism could survive Climate Change.
3. Should anything save us, it will be technology, but today's Silicon Valley offer little more than fairytales. Consciously few Silicon Valley venture capitalists and CEOs care about climate change. Some consider the issue solved. More are worried about AI revolt than Climate Change. The author quotes Ted Chiang: Silicon Valley's fear of future AI overlords sounds suspiciously like an unknowingly lacerating self-portrait. I could not find the source of this quote, but I did find an interesting article on this Silicon Valley's AI fear: https://www.documentjournal.com/2018/04/the-existential-paranoia-fueling-elon-musks-fear-of-ai/ In other words, giant tech inventors like Elon Musk are so self-centered that the only thing they fear is what they create themselves. I am surprised to learn that Bitcoin mining is one big player in global carbon emission.
4. GMO food should not be feared (which I agree). Nuclear power should not be feared, because it is still cleaner than fossil fuel (I will look it up).
5. Geo-engineering (i.e. shooting up enough air pollution to offset carbon emission) as the last resort is hard to be dismissed (I doubt it, because I am an "environmental left"?).
The author also discusses physiological and psychological impact Climate Change has or will bring to people.
The Dark Mountain Project is worth further exploring. This is a Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/apr/29/environmentalism-dark-mountain-project
Climate Change is the biggest story of our time and it is already happening. If you still don't "feel" it, likely you are in denial or you have reached the "peak indifference". We are all the boiling frogs in this giant cauldron called earth and we have only ourselves to blame. The "Uninhabitable Earth" in the title refers to the earth especially uninhabitable to humans. If we do nothing, after warming, the earth will recover eventually, but without Homo Sapiens and our civilization.
The author is realist who encourages action instead of despair. I am a pessimist, so I find this book strangely uplifting. He proposes masive policy changes (to achieve negative carbon emission), argues that individual life style choice is too insignificant to make real difference in the time frame necessary, and encourages climate change awareness activism and education.
informative
slow-paced
Fascinating, terrifying, depressing. An interesting read, and unlike what I expected, it went beyond the mindless regurgitation of doomsday statistics of flooded cities, lengths of draughts and fire seasons, with the analysis of the economics and politics of climate change - present and future - being what caught me most. Though when I say “went past” I definitely mean “gone through” and not over - the first half is most definitely guilty of the aforementioned crime of a deluge of predictions.
Recommended to those who don’t mind depressing expectations for their retirement.
Recommended to those who don’t mind depressing expectations for their retirement.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
"it is worse, much worse, than you think."
in other words, an absolutely terrifying and jarring wake-up call to our active destruction of the world we inhabit.
in other words, an absolutely terrifying and jarring wake-up call to our active destruction of the world we inhabit.
informative
slow-paced
Informative, but the author's pontificating, while at times amusing, is often shallow, scattershot, and repetitive.