Take a photo of a barcode or cover
tanyarobinson 's review for:
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
by David Wallace-Wells
This may be the scariest, most depressing book I've ever read in my life. In twelve mini-chapters Wallace-Wells throws out every possible horrible outcome from climate change, ranging from a huge increase in forest fires to a drastic failure of food crops to the entire equatorial region becoming too hot to sustain human life. I am literally terrified.
Wallace-Wells may be a doomsday predictor, but he's now in the solid majority with climate scientists. We know global warming is real, and that out-of-control fossil fuel emissions combined with only partly understood feedback loops are sending us into a frightening future. Even with near-immediate zero emissions we would still be facing a 2 degree increase in temperatures, which doesn't sound like much, but will change life as we know it. Without radical political action, we will face 3, 4, 5, or more degree increases, and this author tells us exactly what that would mean for the world. He warns that before 2100 there will be almost no Florida, much less Bangladesh, Venice, or Marshall Islands. "500-year storms" will happen on a regular basis, forest fires will increase more than tenfold, drought will be widespread.... Oh, and pandemics will increase.
The last third of his book takes on a very different tone. I hoped that it would perhaps become more positive, but instead Wallace-Wells puts on his philosopher's hat and talks about the ways we both think about climate change and avoid thinking about it. This part of the book was less alarming, but less interesting.
I believe in climate change, and I believe we need to do something big, and fast. I hope Wallace-Wells' alarmist predictions are overly dire, and that we - as a world - find the political will and long-sightedness to act in our collective best interest, rather than always doing what is cheapest and easiest for one country right now.
I'm glad I read the book, because it's full of important information. But I didn't like it. 3.5 stars.
*Note - two days later, and after losing sleep worrying about the Earth becoming uninhabitable, I went online to find what other climate scientists had to say about Wallace-Wells' ideas. Other readers may be relieved to find that most find his writing to be hyperbolic with a combination of every worst-case scenario. Yes, the climate is changing, and we need to do something quickly, but it's not QUITE as bad as this book warns. See https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-explain-what-new-york-magazine-article-on-the-uninhabitable-earth-gets-wrong-david-wallace-wells/?fbclid=IwAR3sx7NW8AhAI_diYsDoYY85Y6DDt7_oOy9VALujshrojGGdlYNH7TOPGZo
Wallace-Wells may be a doomsday predictor, but he's now in the solid majority with climate scientists. We know global warming is real, and that out-of-control fossil fuel emissions combined with only partly understood feedback loops are sending us into a frightening future. Even with near-immediate zero emissions we would still be facing a 2 degree increase in temperatures, which doesn't sound like much, but will change life as we know it. Without radical political action, we will face 3, 4, 5, or more degree increases, and this author tells us exactly what that would mean for the world. He warns that before 2100 there will be almost no Florida, much less Bangladesh, Venice, or Marshall Islands. "500-year storms" will happen on a regular basis, forest fires will increase more than tenfold, drought will be widespread.... Oh, and pandemics will increase.
The last third of his book takes on a very different tone. I hoped that it would perhaps become more positive, but instead Wallace-Wells puts on his philosopher's hat and talks about the ways we both think about climate change and avoid thinking about it. This part of the book was less alarming, but less interesting.
I believe in climate change, and I believe we need to do something big, and fast. I hope Wallace-Wells' alarmist predictions are overly dire, and that we - as a world - find the political will and long-sightedness to act in our collective best interest, rather than always doing what is cheapest and easiest for one country right now.
I'm glad I read the book, because it's full of important information. But I didn't like it. 3.5 stars.
*Note - two days later, and after losing sleep worrying about the Earth becoming uninhabitable, I went online to find what other climate scientists had to say about Wallace-Wells' ideas. Other readers may be relieved to find that most find his writing to be hyperbolic with a combination of every worst-case scenario. Yes, the climate is changing, and we need to do something quickly, but it's not QUITE as bad as this book warns. See https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-explain-what-new-york-magazine-article-on-the-uninhabitable-earth-gets-wrong-david-wallace-wells/?fbclid=IwAR3sx7NW8AhAI_diYsDoYY85Y6DDt7_oOy9VALujshrojGGdlYNH7TOPGZo