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icox's review against another edition
It’s not that I don’t want to finish the book, but none of my libraries have it available right now.
greenadex's review against another edition
5.0
I came across this book quite randomly. While I was on the escalators of London Underground, I saw an ad for it. The ad was quite simple, visually speaking. There weren't any flashy images or colors, nor an abundance of text. The cover of the book was, simply put, the whole ad. A milky, creamy white background with a dead bee. The title in a sharp, slim font: The Uninhabitable Earth. I tend to appreciate simplicity in ads and book covers and this one definitely caught my eye as I ended up buying the book a couple of days later.
The content is in direct opposition to the cover. This is a dense (af) book. Out of 310 pages, about 70 are merely notes, references and sources. I would even argue that I felt some sources were missing (I remember two or three times where I was highly interested in researching the source of a statement and, to my disappointment, I couldn't find anything within its 70 pages which could lead me somewhere satisfying; this is not to say that the book doesn't have a proper cornerstone for its suppositions, but that there was simply too much information to convey leading to the less important being set aside).
The style of the prose is eerily lirical, irrespective of its scientific content and horrific story. You can sense the passion of the author; how much soul he put in trying to convince, to change, to "be heard". I prefer this style of writing for non-fiction as it tends to make the text personal. Less like an encyclopedia entry and more like a philosophical, empathetic reflection on an objective affair.
I personally knew little, much too little, about climate change. Simply put, I chose to be rather ignorant of the issue for a while. I never doubted its existence (when there is a unanimous consensus from the scientific community, I don't find a lot of personal value in understanding the proof, nor do I find any pleasure in entertaining conspiracies) but I also never had a lot of interest in figuring out the consequences. They're quite scary, not gonna lie. The book is nicely split in 4 main parts: introduction, "practical" consequences of warming (such as heat death, drowning, droughts, wildfires), followed by several socio-economic essays about our society (the impacts of politics, technology or capitalism on climate change) and ending with a pretty straightforward conclusion. This flow is a natural way of exploring the consequences and, for a pretty clueless person such as I was, I couldn't have asked for a better "intro" to climate change.
Something that I liked in particular is that the author doesn't hold back when explaining the worst possible outcomes, however improbable they might be. I found it valuable and I might even go as far as arguing that it is one of the best ways of sending the message across. There is a chapter in this book about storytelling. It analyzes how the scientific community has had to present the dangers of climate change over the past decades; how it had to sugarcoat the consequences of our actions, underplay the amount of policy change required to mitigate human suffering and, maybe worse of all, how afraid they were of the "crying wolf" label and its effects on achieving actual change. It is definitely hard to wrap your head around a future containing strictly increasing human suffering but I think that understanding the worst case scenarios is vital to understanding the problem ahead. I guess I see it as "the adult way" of tackling this mess. We've had our climate change "tea" sweetened for a while now anyway.
The content is in direct opposition to the cover. This is a dense (af) book. Out of 310 pages, about 70 are merely notes, references and sources. I would even argue that I felt some sources were missing (I remember two or three times where I was highly interested in researching the source of a statement and, to my disappointment, I couldn't find anything within its 70 pages which could lead me somewhere satisfying; this is not to say that the book doesn't have a proper cornerstone for its suppositions, but that there was simply too much information to convey leading to the less important being set aside).
The style of the prose is eerily lirical, irrespective of its scientific content and horrific story. You can sense the passion of the author; how much soul he put in trying to convince, to change, to "be heard". I prefer this style of writing for non-fiction as it tends to make the text personal. Less like an encyclopedia entry and more like a philosophical, empathetic reflection on an objective affair.
I personally knew little, much too little, about climate change. Simply put, I chose to be rather ignorant of the issue for a while. I never doubted its existence (when there is a unanimous consensus from the scientific community, I don't find a lot of personal value in understanding the proof, nor do I find any pleasure in entertaining conspiracies) but I also never had a lot of interest in figuring out the consequences. They're quite scary, not gonna lie. The book is nicely split in 4 main parts: introduction, "practical" consequences of warming (such as heat death, drowning, droughts, wildfires), followed by several socio-economic essays about our society (the impacts of politics, technology or capitalism on climate change) and ending with a pretty straightforward conclusion. This flow is a natural way of exploring the consequences and, for a pretty clueless person such as I was, I couldn't have asked for a better "intro" to climate change.
Something that I liked in particular is that the author doesn't hold back when explaining the worst possible outcomes, however improbable they might be. I found it valuable and I might even go as far as arguing that it is one of the best ways of sending the message across. There is a chapter in this book about storytelling. It analyzes how the scientific community has had to present the dangers of climate change over the past decades; how it had to sugarcoat the consequences of our actions, underplay the amount of policy change required to mitigate human suffering and, maybe worse of all, how afraid they were of the "crying wolf" label and its effects on achieving actual change. It is definitely hard to wrap your head around a future containing strictly increasing human suffering but I think that understanding the worst case scenarios is vital to understanding the problem ahead. I guess I see it as "the adult way" of tackling this mess. We've had our climate change "tea" sweetened for a while now anyway.
petrichor2580's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
This book took me about a year anda half to read, though not through any fault of the content or the writing itself. Each time I picked it up again, I was entranced - the collection of facts and figures was concise and clear, and were presented in such a way as to convey, in real life terms, what exactly they meant; where most simply stated, this book explained. That being said, the onslaught of fact after fact could become rather tiring at places and detracted from the necessity of the main messages, though the areas in the book where this was displayed were short and few.
This book took me about a year anda half to read, though not through any fault of the content or the writing itself. Each time I picked it up again, I was entranced - the collection of facts and figures was concise and clear, and were presented in such a way as to convey, in real life terms, what exactly they meant; where most simply stated, this book explained. That being said, the onslaught of fact after fact could become rather tiring at places and detracted from the necessity of the main messages, though the areas in the book where this was displayed were short and few.
tarduslectorum's review against another edition
5.0
Required reading in the year 2020. I'm not interested in climate science, but understanding what's coming for us -- and what needs to be done to stop it -- is a worthy endeavor.
crackedchelle's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.75
We all need to read this
booksaremyparadise's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Very depressing, but I guess it just shows what we're headed to. And I'm not seeing much hope here to be honest.
sams84's review against another edition
5.0
While this book does not delve into the science of climate change, or much in the way of possible solutions, it is a clear and powerful statement to all of us that we need to get a grip and start properly and fully making significant changes to address this issue. Many reviews have described this as a worst-case scenario, it really isn't. It describes the approximate path we are currently on based on the effort, or lack thereof, we, individually and collectively, are putting in to address the drivers of climate change that we have control over. The scenario does cover the 1.5 to 4 deg C of warming as that is the range we are currently looking at, depending on what we do in the coming decade. The worst-case scenario is easily doubles the top end of this.
Having depressed you with that, Wallace-Wells does hold a certain degree of optimism that we can make the necessary changes to avoid catastrophic warming (and yes, anything over 2 degrees will be pretty catastrophic, for us not just the current environment (the planet will be fine)). However, this is only true if we accept reality and stop waiting for technology to save us, or provide a quick fix that let's us carry on as we are. This is not an option as Wallace-Wells demonstrates, and this type of thinking is what has led us to such a critical juncture in our history as a species.
While I did find some of this text a little repetitive, given that the IPCC has been highlighting this very problem for nearly 4 decades, clearly it is a message that needs to be said again, and again, and again (I can sympathize with this as I have to do the same in my work, stating the same obvious thing over and over again as many people just do not care, or are too concerned about their own immediate benefits, or believe humans to be all important to the detriment of everything else, depending how cynical you wish to be). Wallace-Wells has clearly done his research and translates this into as clear a message as I have read, although I suspect for some it is still not clear enough.
Having depressed you with that, Wallace-Wells does hold a certain degree of optimism that we can make the necessary changes to avoid catastrophic warming (and yes, anything over 2 degrees will be pretty catastrophic, for us not just the current environment (the planet will be fine)). However, this is only true if we accept reality and stop waiting for technology to save us, or provide a quick fix that let's us carry on as we are. This is not an option as Wallace-Wells demonstrates, and this type of thinking is what has led us to such a critical juncture in our history as a species.
While I did find some of this text a little repetitive, given that the IPCC has been highlighting this very problem for nearly 4 decades, clearly it is a message that needs to be said again, and again, and again (I can sympathize with this as I have to do the same in my work, stating the same obvious thing over and over again as many people just do not care, or are too concerned about their own immediate benefits, or believe humans to be all important to the detriment of everything else, depending how cynical you wish to be). Wallace-Wells has clearly done his research and translates this into as clear a message as I have read, although I suspect for some it is still not clear enough.