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ecobookworm 's review for:
The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future
by David Wallace-Wells
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
It's hard to review a book that's so well-known in environmental circles, so I'll start by saying it's well-known for good reason. The Uninhabitable Earth is a wake-up call, a thoroughly researched and carefully considered neon warning sign of the imminent dangers of the climate crisis. An expansion of the author's 2017 New York Magazine article (which I highly recommend reading), it brings home just how pervasive these impacts will be. I suggest having a light, fluffy read to alternate it with, because this book is very likely to cause some eco-anxiety.
A lot of discussion of climate issues centers around well-known impacts - sea level rise, changing weather patterns, wildfires, more frequent and intense storms. Literature and research tends to stop at 2100, as so much is uncertain beyond this point. But the changes that have been made to our atmosphere, and the planet's responses to them, aren't limited to that, in scope or duration. I suspect that we mostly don't want to think beyond that, because just what we'll see in our lifetimes is overwhelming enough. Wallace-Wells goes beyond, exploring these long-term impacts, the worst-case scenarios we don't want to think of, and all the nitty-gritty changes that'll result, reverberating into economic and social suffering.
It's so packed with information that even people with deep knowledge of environmental issues will likely learn something new. For example, I knew that a changing climate promotes conflict and violence, but I didn't know it also increases rates of self-harm and suicide. I knew it affected health, but I didn't know that cognitive ability declines with increased CO2 levels. I knew that crops will suffer from more heat, but I didn't know that more CO2 actually makes plants less nutritious, as it increases their production of sugars, with attendant health ramifications.
As much as this book has sweeping coverage of climate impacts, I also appreciated the details it carefully included. It's global in scope, looking at how changes will occur worldwide, not just in a few select places. And it deeply understands, explores and integrates climate justice issues. The author doesn't just look at impacts on less economically developed countries, he delves into the imbalance of where impacts will be felt vs where the weight of historical emissions lies, how they'll affect countries and communities that already have less resources and are more vulnerable and struggle to recover from past disasters. I really appreciate the awareness of the unfair extent of suffering that the climate crisis will impose on previously colonized countries, and on already marginalized, vulnerable communities.
As much as the first part of the book is full of informative detail, it wraps up with more philosophical and theoretical explorations into the history, background and process of coming to terms with the issue that make for less accessible reading. Though less readable for a general audience, these sections do bring valuable insight into the systemic struggle of confronting this challenge, and communicating about it. And they reiterate how much of the changes still to come still lay in human hands to be decided. Thank goodness for that, because those conclusions help lift a book that's otherwise apocalyptic in tone.
Some have called this book alarmist - I would disagree. It's alarmed, and with good reason. But it's not hopeless.
A lot of discussion of climate issues centers around well-known impacts - sea level rise, changing weather patterns, wildfires, more frequent and intense storms. Literature and research tends to stop at 2100, as so much is uncertain beyond this point. But the changes that have been made to our atmosphere, and the planet's responses to them, aren't limited to that, in scope or duration. I suspect that we mostly don't want to think beyond that, because just what we'll see in our lifetimes is overwhelming enough. Wallace-Wells goes beyond, exploring these long-term impacts, the worst-case scenarios we don't want to think of, and all the nitty-gritty changes that'll result, reverberating into economic and social suffering.
It's so packed with information that even people with deep knowledge of environmental issues will likely learn something new. For example, I knew that a changing climate promotes conflict and violence, but I didn't know it also increases rates of self-harm and suicide. I knew it affected health, but I didn't know that cognitive ability declines with increased CO2 levels. I knew that crops will suffer from more heat, but I didn't know that more CO2 actually makes plants less nutritious, as it increases their production of sugars, with attendant health ramifications.
As much as this book has sweeping coverage of climate impacts, I also appreciated the details it carefully included. It's global in scope, looking at how changes will occur worldwide, not just in a few select places. And it deeply understands, explores and integrates climate justice issues. The author doesn't just look at impacts on less economically developed countries, he delves into the imbalance of where impacts will be felt vs where the weight of historical emissions lies, how they'll affect countries and communities that already have less resources and are more vulnerable and struggle to recover from past disasters. I really appreciate the awareness of the unfair extent of suffering that the climate crisis will impose on previously colonized countries, and on already marginalized, vulnerable communities.
As much as the first part of the book is full of informative detail, it wraps up with more philosophical and theoretical explorations into the history, background and process of coming to terms with the issue that make for less accessible reading. Though less readable for a general audience, these sections do bring valuable insight into the systemic struggle of confronting this challenge, and communicating about it. And they reiterate how much of the changes still to come still lay in human hands to be decided. Thank goodness for that, because those conclusions help lift a book that's otherwise apocalyptic in tone.
Some have called this book alarmist - I would disagree. It's alarmed, and with good reason. But it's not hopeless.