Reviews tagging 'Death'

The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan

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informative

5.0

I don’t remember if I knew what this book was actually about when I put it on hold at the library. The library had a multi-month wait, and if I ever knew, by the time it was my turn for it I’d forgotten. I thought it was going to be about climate change. 

There is so much in this book. Economics, demographics, geography, politics, geopolitics, oil, shipping, transportation, global trade, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, military, industrialization, colonization … this is a book about how the world is ending and climate change doesn’t even come in until 89% of the way through. The world we know is in the process of ending and climate change isn’t even a major factor. 
I knew the situation was dire in a vague, faraway sense. The only real threat I was aware of was climate change – where scientists can never seem to agree on how long it will take to kill us – and a vague concept of “unsustainability.” This book made it real. I didn’t realize how badly, how thoroughly, and how imminently the world is screwed. Climate change barely comes into play in this examination. There is so much more poised to go wrong – and it’s already started. 

There are no solutions here. Peter gives us no advice and no ways forward. He just describes what’s happening, explains how we got here, and predicts what might happen and why. Many of the disasters in progress have already passed the point of repairability. The collapse of our current way of life is real, possible, and imminent. And yet the book is also vaguely hopeful, strangely. Our current way of life and many individuals won’t survive the upheavals, but humanity as a whole probably will. And if Peter’s predictions are right, the worst of it will be over in less than 30 years. 

This book gave me a better understanding of economics, geopolitics, and the global supply chain. It shattered everything I thought I understood about clean energy. It made me rethink the future – both the world’s and my own. I’m terrified, but I simultaneously feel a little better about the end of the world. If I can’t do anything about it, at least I know what’s coming. 

I don’t know where I, or the world, can go from here. What do you do when you learn the apocalypse has already started? I don’t think there are answers, and even if there are they sure aren’t in this book. Reading this won’t help you escape the coming apocalypse, but at least you’ll feel better informed along the way. 
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