"The Uninhabitable Earth" - A Book Review

David Trammel's picture

I hope that the World of a century from now had humans in it.

‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ puts words to a future you don’t want to live in

Kate Yoder reviews the new book "The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells

"Prepare yourself for grisly descriptions of how the body breaks down in overwhelming heat, predictions of prehistoric plagues springing back to life beneath melting permafrost, and the possibility of an economic collapse several times worse than the Great Depression. David Wallace-Wells’ dystopian vision of where we’re headed is guaranteed to scare the bejesus out of readers of his new book, The Uninhabitable Earth. Some will surely have to look away. Wallace-Wells, perhaps surprisingly, seems OK with that. More than a hundred pages in, he writes, “If you have made it this far, you are a brave reader.”

Based on the viral New York Magazine article that portrayed out a hellish future for humanity, the 230-page book is an immersion in seemingly all of the worst-case climate scenarios. It’s terrifying. The point is to get readers to confront “the scarier implications of the science,” Wallace-Wells told me an in email. More terrifying still: There are scarier scenarios that he didn’t touch.

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Its now on my "to order and read" list so I'll review it when i am done.

Serinde's picture

The Guardian also ran a review of this book written by Mark O'Connell, having trailed the book in the paper earlier.
Here in Scotland, we've just broken records for February (February!) temperatures: 18.3C in Aberdeenshire. (Aberdeenshire!) An article interviewing a Met Office scientist (UK weather: February temperature jump was incredible, says climate expert) is also well worth searching out.

David Trammel's picture

Vox has a interview with the author of this book.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/2/22/18188562/climate-ch...

And here is a link to the essay that he wrote that became the basis for the book

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-...

meta4's picture

I recently read Wallace-Well's book and highly recommend it. The book flows well and, despite some accusations of being unjustifiably alarmist, appears to be well-researched -- which of course should be alarming.

Alex Smith of Radio EcoShock interviewed the author recently (~28 minutes)