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snowcrash 's review for:
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
by David Wallace-Wells
I have been finding a number of climate change books recently. This is the first book I've come across that posits how can we tell the story of the calamity that is coming? (The second is _We Are the Weather_) Here, in plain language is the outcome of 200 years of burning buried sunlight.
The book is the outgrowth of a long article in the New York Times. Expanded here, the author clearly tells what is to come. Parts of the planet will not be habitable by humans unless they are inside a structure. 130F+ every day along the equator will become the new reality. Sea level rise & huge numbers of climate refugies. Life has to change, either to adapt to the new reality or perish.
But within all of this, the author asks how do we tell the story of what is happening and what is to come? There isn't a singular boogieman. There isn't an end. This isn't a war, it is a new environment for us to live in. So how do we tell a future history that will be easy for people to understand and then take action on? That is the challenge.
Any book that makes me think in new ways, makes a lasting impression that tweaks how I behave, is worth coming back to. I have started to point out the basic tenants in the book to others. Most people know, but it is the story aspect that I want to continue to explore. _We Are the Weather_, which I read after this book, goes into the story aspect further. Only when we can convince our fellow citizens of the world to change their behavior will the planet begin to heal. Otherwise the planet will make sure we pay for the lasting scars.
(Good companion books are _The World Without Us_ & _Under A Green Sky_. The first is how the planet would heal and remove our mark over time. The second is what happened when climate change hit and there wasn't much for oxygen in the air.)
The book is the outgrowth of a long article in the New York Times. Expanded here, the author clearly tells what is to come. Parts of the planet will not be habitable by humans unless they are inside a structure. 130F+ every day along the equator will become the new reality. Sea level rise & huge numbers of climate refugies. Life has to change, either to adapt to the new reality or perish.
But within all of this, the author asks how do we tell the story of what is happening and what is to come? There isn't a singular boogieman. There isn't an end. This isn't a war, it is a new environment for us to live in. So how do we tell a future history that will be easy for people to understand and then take action on? That is the challenge.
Any book that makes me think in new ways, makes a lasting impression that tweaks how I behave, is worth coming back to. I have started to point out the basic tenants in the book to others. Most people know, but it is the story aspect that I want to continue to explore. _We Are the Weather_, which I read after this book, goes into the story aspect further. Only when we can convince our fellow citizens of the world to change their behavior will the planet begin to heal. Otherwise the planet will make sure we pay for the lasting scars.
(Good companion books are _The World Without Us_ & _Under A Green Sky_. The first is how the planet would heal and remove our mark over time. The second is what happened when climate change hit and there wasn't much for oxygen in the air.)