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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
dark
sad
slow-paced
This book is a doozy. If you find yourself wrapped in climate dread, this book is definitely not for you. It gives a bleak look into what Earth's future might look like if we - citizens, governments, corporations - don't make significant changes to our exploitation of the planet on which live. I didn't love the way the book was written (Wallace-Wells is a huge fan of comma ridden sentences), but the content is a solid synopsis of things to come. I wish there was a little more input from marginalized or BIPOC contributors, since the effects of the climate crisis are taken the biggest toll on those communities, but there were references to this throughout.
dark
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
A 200 page executive summary of the horrors of the climate change awaiting us in the next 10 to 50 years.
We are basically f***ed.
Makes you reassess the priorities of whatever you are spending your time on today.
We are basically f***ed.
Makes you reassess the priorities of whatever you are spending your time on today.
So beautifully and hauntingly written. I would highly reccomend for it is absolutely fascinating and really makes you think.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
In this truly terrifying book, Wallace-Wells outlines what is likely to happen to our planet and our societies if we don't get a grip on the climate crisis, and how slim are the possibilities that we will. In a readable, thorough and for the most part quite matter-of-fact approach, he outlines the effects we are already seeing and the probable outcomes. While he is often talking about what will happen with global temperature increases of 3-5C it he makes clear that this is almost inevitable unless we reverse CO2 emissions within the next decade. Early on he points out that nobody ever talks about anything beyond the end of this century, partly because even if we slow down the warming, reversing it will take centuries. It isn't a case of staying under a 2C increase on pre-industrial levels, it's trying to avoid getting there in the next 80 years.
Be quite clear, these are not outlandish predictions. The most we can do at this stage is mitigation, and adaptation to the changes.
As balance, the author does touch on more severe possibilities - climate changes of a level that could be literally apocalyptic instead of just horrendously difficult (while an increase of say 3C will kill many millions and make life immeasurably harder for the survivors, humanity will survive it) and some sketches of people who taken the nihilistic view that destruction is inevitable and withdrawn. Wallace-Wells does not end as [a:Naomi Klein|419|Naomi Klein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494619590p2/419.jpg] might with a cautiously optimistic call to arms in his final chapter, but he still offers tenuous hope. In closing the afterword, he addresses how universal talk of we acting together can obscure divergent solutions and disagreements but also give us a direction of travel for the only way out of this:
"The solutions, when we dare to imagine them, are global as well, which makes universal language, I think, even if not precisely accurate, nevertheless fitting and illustrative and indeed motivating, if there is to be any chance of preserving even the hope for that happier future - relatively liveable, relatively fulfilling, relatively prosperous and perhaps, more than only relatively just. Call me crazy, or better yet naive, I still think we can."
I think he considers that a hopeful ending, couched as it is parenthetical clauses and that, too, is sobering.
Be quite clear, these are not outlandish predictions. The most we can do at this stage is mitigation, and adaptation to the changes.
As balance, the author does touch on more severe possibilities - climate changes of a level that could be literally apocalyptic instead of just horrendously difficult (while an increase of say 3C will kill many millions and make life immeasurably harder for the survivors, humanity will survive it) and some sketches of people who taken the nihilistic view that destruction is inevitable and withdrawn. Wallace-Wells does not end as [a:Naomi Klein|419|Naomi Klein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494619590p2/419.jpg] might with a cautiously optimistic call to arms in his final chapter, but he still offers tenuous hope. In closing the afterword, he addresses how universal talk of we acting together can obscure divergent solutions and disagreements but also give us a direction of travel for the only way out of this:
"The solutions, when we dare to imagine them, are global as well, which makes universal language, I think, even if not precisely accurate, nevertheless fitting and illustrative and indeed motivating, if there is to be any chance of preserving even the hope for that happier future - relatively liveable, relatively fulfilling, relatively prosperous and perhaps, more than only relatively just. Call me crazy, or better yet naive, I still think we can."
I think he considers that a hopeful ending, couched as it is parenthetical clauses and that, too, is sobering.
Captures the urgency and inevitability of climate change and the major impacts its will have on humanity and soon. More than other climate change books I’ve read it focuses on how each effect, ocean rise, wildfires, etc will have on life as we currently know it, including refugee crises, health impacts, etc... I almost wanted to put it down but do not want to have my head in the sand about what it is happening and the need to have acted decades ago and to act dramatically now. I had read the sixth extinction which was also powerful. This book again emphasized how much the world we know will change and is already changing. There was some hope in the fact that current politicians are starting to take it seriously but also some fear that it is only talk and not matched by actions.
For someone who normally does not read a lot of nonfiction, it seems like I've already more than met my quota for 2019. And yet here I am with another one.
This one has gotten quite a lot of notice and it is still in the top ten of best sellers in the country. But what a depressing read! It is certainly not what one would want to be reading when one isn't feeling on top of the world, but I had already started it at the time I became ill recently and I persevered and finally completed it on the day I was released from the hospital. Two reasons to rejoice.
I don't mean to imply that it is a bad book; quite the contrary. It is very well written and obviously well researched. I was surprised in reading the book on my Kindle to find that I completed the main narrative at 60% of the book; the other 40% was made up of notes which served as the author's bibliography. All the references were well-documented.
The narrative brings together the latest information and research regarding climate change, its effects on our planet, and likely outcomes if we continue on our current path or if we actually acknowledge the problem and make an effort to counteract it. It was information that I was familiar with from doing my weekly review of environmental news for my blog, The Nature of Things (https://birdwoman-thenatureofthings.blogspot.com/), but it was more than a little daunting to see it all collected and connected in one tome.
David Wallace-Wells has done a large service to the cause of educating the public - at least those who read books - by collating this information and presenting it in a readable, understandable form. The popularity of the book is well-deserved and I hope it continues to receive the attention of a wide audience. Unfortunately, I fear many of the people who need to receive its message will never bother. They appear to disdain the whole idea of books.
This one has gotten quite a lot of notice and it is still in the top ten of best sellers in the country. But what a depressing read! It is certainly not what one would want to be reading when one isn't feeling on top of the world, but I had already started it at the time I became ill recently and I persevered and finally completed it on the day I was released from the hospital. Two reasons to rejoice.
I don't mean to imply that it is a bad book; quite the contrary. It is very well written and obviously well researched. I was surprised in reading the book on my Kindle to find that I completed the main narrative at 60% of the book; the other 40% was made up of notes which served as the author's bibliography. All the references were well-documented.
The narrative brings together the latest information and research regarding climate change, its effects on our planet, and likely outcomes if we continue on our current path or if we actually acknowledge the problem and make an effort to counteract it. It was information that I was familiar with from doing my weekly review of environmental news for my blog, The Nature of Things (https://birdwoman-thenatureofthings.blogspot.com/), but it was more than a little daunting to see it all collected and connected in one tome.
David Wallace-Wells has done a large service to the cause of educating the public - at least those who read books - by collating this information and presenting it in a readable, understandable form. The popularity of the book is well-deserved and I hope it continues to receive the attention of a wide audience. Unfortunately, I fear many of the people who need to receive its message will never bother. They appear to disdain the whole idea of books.
My dude needs to number his references and place citations in the text.
My dude lays out a cogent argument for how we're on a course toward massive suffering and lack the technology, political will, and geopolitical structures to actually make a limping attempt at curbing the climate crisis, then shits on you for not believing that some magical unprecedented reversal in the human condition will make this planet livable.
My dude says empathy and learning how to define "we" is key, but all of the stories are about Americans, and people of color are just numbers.
My dude lays out a cogent argument for how we're on a course toward massive suffering and lack the technology, political will, and geopolitical structures to actually make a limping attempt at curbing the climate crisis, then shits on you for not believing that some magical unprecedented reversal in the human condition will make this planet livable.
My dude says empathy and learning how to define "we" is key, but all of the stories are about Americans, and people of color are just numbers.