bibliotequeish's review against another edition
4.0
Some books are scary.
As a child The Hobbit scared me. As an adult I could understand that the likelihood of running into Sméagol was slim and the story turned from scary to fantastical.
While the powers that be may want you to believe that climate change is a modern day fantastical Sméagol, this book will open your eyes ... and terrify you in a way Tolkien never could.
I was shocked by this book. How did I not know that 200,000 people die annually in Bangladesh due to river erosion. That seems like the kind of thing people would be talking about, everywhere, all the time.
This book touches on many points, all of them important.
From bumblebees to the fresh water crisis.
It is important that we all know and understand the state our planet is in.
We use to wonder "What kind of world are we leaving for our grandkids".
We are ruining our planet at such an expediential rate that we don't have to wonder, we know that in 7 years the fresh water crisis will be at our doorstep. We know that the animals we use to draw and read about in Elementary school will be gone... extinct. How did we get to a point where killing off an entire species is something that is happening over and over again.
As a kid I learned about the dodo bird, and how we killed all of them, and we all wished we could have seen a real live dodo bird... now replace dodo bird with Elephant.
That's Earth now.
What happens on the other side of the planet will ripple over to us, it's not a debate.
It is fact and it's happening right now.
As a child The Hobbit scared me. As an adult I could understand that the likelihood of running into Sméagol was slim and the story turned from scary to fantastical.
While the powers that be may want you to believe that climate change is a modern day fantastical Sméagol, this book will open your eyes ... and terrify you in a way Tolkien never could.
I was shocked by this book. How did I not know that 200,000 people die annually in Bangladesh due to river erosion. That seems like the kind of thing people would be talking about, everywhere, all the time.
This book touches on many points, all of them important.
From bumblebees to the fresh water crisis.
It is important that we all know and understand the state our planet is in.
We use to wonder "What kind of world are we leaving for our grandkids".
We are ruining our planet at such an expediential rate that we don't have to wonder, we know that in 7 years the fresh water crisis will be at our doorstep. We know that the animals we use to draw and read about in Elementary school will be gone... extinct. How did we get to a point where killing off an entire species is something that is happening over and over again.
As a kid I learned about the dodo bird, and how we killed all of them, and we all wished we could have seen a real live dodo bird... now replace dodo bird with Elephant.
That's Earth now.
What happens on the other side of the planet will ripple over to us, it's not a debate.
It is fact and it's happening right now.
click2carney's review
4.0
Taking the perspective that this is happening NOW. The perils that are occurring and how they’ll get worse. We need to make change but it can only be done together in order to save ourselves.
jfcremos's review against another edition
5.0
The geopolitical implications of climate change. Looks at the less predictable, often unforeseeable consequences of global warming. Offers suggestions for how to stop the chaos and destruction (I wouldn't say the recommendations are the book's forte but they are interesting).
nghia's review against another edition
2.0
I abandoned this book around the 26% mark.
This book is an example of how a title sets expectations. I picked up this book specifically because the title seemed to promise something a bit different: not just stories about how climate change is happening in other places in the world but how it will directly affect Americans. And, even better, it seemed to promise to tie together how the things happening "over there" are related to (or will will soon lead to) things happening "in America".
I was hoping to find something would answer the question, "If the Great Barrier Reef dies off, why do Joe & Mary in Kansas care?"
So. That's what I was looking for. Based on the title.
Unfortunately, the book is really nothing like that. Instead all you get -- and why I eventually stopped reading it -- is a series of disconnected New Yorker style articles about various things changing due to (or, at least, exacerbated by) climate change, with no real explanation of how it ties back to America or would affect the day-to-day lives of Americans.
This becomes clear almost immediately in Chapter 3 when Nesbit starts talking about melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Sure, bad for people in the countries around there. But I picked up this book because I wanted to learn how it is "converging on America". Are the melting glaciers going to result in more migrants to America? Increase the price of wheat? What, exactly?
Nesbit does, occasionally, toss in off-handed details of how the changes affect Americans -- oyster die-offs in Oregon due to ocean acidification or a laughable claim about how "Alaska is critical to the national security of the United States" and the melting Arctic somehow(?) will threaten our national security -- but all too often his chapters are about the Sahel or the Great Barrier Reef with no effort to tie it back to America.
Even in the chapters where he does talk about America -- the early chapter on pollinators -- it is curiously devoid of impacts. He tells us that the rusty-patched bumblebee, "once the most common, recognizable type of bumblebee in much of America", is essentially gone. But Nesbit doesn't go the extra step and tell us how that's "end of the world" type stuff. The rusty-patched bumblebee had "disappeared entirely from the southeastern United States". So what's actual the impact? Are some crops not being fertilized? Do farmers have to pay extra to hire pollinators? The closest we get are fairly vague statements like "There are going to be increasing consequences" and "Everything falls apart if you take pollinators out of the game".
Except I came to this book to read the details of exactly those things. I thought I was going to get more in-depth analysis that the vague stuff you get from the thousands of easily accessible articles on pollinators or the Sahel or the Great Barrier Reef or the Himalayas or the Arctic. I thought I was to get something that draw a line from stuff happening far away to how it will directly impact the lives of Americans.
Eventually it became clear that the book I had been promised by the title isn't what is contained within the covers and that's why I stopped reading.
Who would be a good target for this book? I'm not actually sure. Maybe someone who is, somehow, on-the-fence about global warming or hasn't (somehow) heard much about the impacts. But I feel like you could also just Google up "top ten articles in 2018 about global warming" and get basically the same thing that way.
This book is an example of how a title sets expectations. I picked up this book specifically because the title seemed to promise something a bit different: not just stories about how climate change is happening in other places in the world but how it will directly affect Americans. And, even better, it seemed to promise to tie together how the things happening "over there" are related to (or will will soon lead to) things happening "in America".
I was hoping to find something would answer the question, "If the Great Barrier Reef dies off, why do Joe & Mary in Kansas care?"
So. That's what I was looking for. Based on the title.
Unfortunately, the book is really nothing like that. Instead all you get -- and why I eventually stopped reading it -- is a series of disconnected New Yorker style articles about various things changing due to (or, at least, exacerbated by) climate change, with no real explanation of how it ties back to America or would affect the day-to-day lives of Americans.
This becomes clear almost immediately in Chapter 3 when Nesbit starts talking about melting glaciers in the Himalayas. Sure, bad for people in the countries around there. But I picked up this book because I wanted to learn how it is "converging on America". Are the melting glaciers going to result in more migrants to America? Increase the price of wheat? What, exactly?
Nesbit does, occasionally, toss in off-handed details of how the changes affect Americans -- oyster die-offs in Oregon due to ocean acidification or a laughable claim about how "Alaska is critical to the national security of the United States" and the melting Arctic somehow(?) will threaten our national security -- but all too often his chapters are about the Sahel or the Great Barrier Reef with no effort to tie it back to America.
Even in the chapters where he does talk about America -- the early chapter on pollinators -- it is curiously devoid of impacts. He tells us that the rusty-patched bumblebee, "once the most common, recognizable type of bumblebee in much of America", is essentially gone. But Nesbit doesn't go the extra step and tell us how that's "end of the world" type stuff. The rusty-patched bumblebee had "disappeared entirely from the southeastern United States". So what's actual the impact? Are some crops not being fertilized? Do farmers have to pay extra to hire pollinators? The closest we get are fairly vague statements like "There are going to be increasing consequences" and "Everything falls apart if you take pollinators out of the game".
Except I came to this book to read the details of exactly those things. I thought I was going to get more in-depth analysis that the vague stuff you get from the thousands of easily accessible articles on pollinators or the Sahel or the Great Barrier Reef or the Himalayas or the Arctic. I thought I was to get something that draw a line from stuff happening far away to how it will directly impact the lives of Americans.
Eventually it became clear that the book I had been promised by the title isn't what is contained within the covers and that's why I stopped reading.
Who would be a good target for this book? I'm not actually sure. Maybe someone who is, somehow, on-the-fence about global warming or hasn't (somehow) heard much about the impacts. But I feel like you could also just Google up "top ten articles in 2018 about global warming" and get basically the same thing that way.
zhanghe_goh's review against another edition
2.0
In [b:This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|37638013|This Is the Way the World Ends How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|Jeff Nesbit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533758128l/37638013._SY75_.jpg|62305863], [a:Jeff Nesbit|578676|Jeff Nesbit|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1377458624p2/578676.jpg] discusses the current crises facing our world.
Having recently read [a:Jared Diamond|256|Jared Diamond|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1456487863p2/256.jpg]'s very well-researched volumes ([b:Collapse|869576|Collapse|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266662634l/869576._SX50_.jpg|1041106] [b:Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis|41716904|Upheaval Turning Points for Nations in Crisis|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1544735124l/41716904._SY75_.jpg|65072650], and [b:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies|1842|Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453215833l/1842._SY75_.jpg|2138852], that were very heavy in information and content, I found that [b:This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|37638013|This Is the Way the World Ends How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|Jeff Nesbit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533758128l/37638013._SY75_.jpg|62305863] was brief on many of these issues and offered a couple of platitudes in its proposed solutions.
Notwithstanding the general lack of discussion, [b:This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|37638013|This Is the Way the World Ends How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|Jeff Nesbit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533758128l/37638013._SY75_.jpg|62305863] is very readable. It remains a good primer for people who want to quickly understand the environmental and geopolitical risks that exist in our world today.
Having recently read [a:Jared Diamond|256|Jared Diamond|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1456487863p2/256.jpg]'s very well-researched volumes ([b:Collapse|869576|Collapse|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266662634l/869576._SX50_.jpg|1041106] [b:Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis|41716904|Upheaval Turning Points for Nations in Crisis|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1544735124l/41716904._SY75_.jpg|65072650], and [b:Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies|1842|Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fates of Human Societies|Jared Diamond|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453215833l/1842._SY75_.jpg|2138852], that were very heavy in information and content, I found that [b:This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|37638013|This Is the Way the World Ends How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|Jeff Nesbit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533758128l/37638013._SY75_.jpg|62305863] was brief on many of these issues and offered a couple of platitudes in its proposed solutions.
Notwithstanding the general lack of discussion, [b:This Is the Way the World Ends: How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|37638013|This Is the Way the World Ends How Droughts and Die-Offs, Heat Waves and Hurricanes Are Converging on America|Jeff Nesbit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533758128l/37638013._SY75_.jpg|62305863] is very readable. It remains a good primer for people who want to quickly understand the environmental and geopolitical risks that exist in our world today.
More...