A review by david_p1
The Fragile Earth: Writing from the New Yorker on Climate Change by David Remnick, Henry Finder
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
An engaging anthology of essays. Many in a reflective sense, issues we’ve know about for decades and yet these voices rang hollow in the halls of decision making. There are some glimmers of hope for potential actions and paths forward, though none without consequence, as we’ve crossed a few too many thresholds to completely avert climate change. Kolbert puts it bluntly in the afterword, “At this point, there's
simply no possible future that averts dislocation. Billions of people will have to dramatically change the way they live or the world will change dramatically or we will see some combination of the two. My experience reporting on climate change, which now spans almost twenty years, has convinced me that the most extreme out-comes are, unfortunately, among the most likely. As the warnings have grown more dire and the consequences of warming more obvious, emissions have only increased that much faster.”
A few more good quotes:
- “If our way of life is ending nature, it is not too radical to talk about transforming our way of life.”
- “Life is precarious, and you can crush it by holding on too tightly, or you can love it…Even in a world of dying, new lives co tiniest to be born.”
- [On managed retreat], “not everybody is going to live where they are now and continue their way of life, and that is a terrible, and emotional reality to face.”
- “Climate change is not so much a reduction in productivity as a redistribution, and it’s one in which the poorest people on earth get hit the hardest and the rich world benefits.”
It’s hard to finish this collection and not walk away sensing the doom and gloom is already on the horizon. I suppose the only respite is we just have to keep moving forward because there is no other way. Finding the solace in the next day. And if we can make things a little better along the way then let’s do it wholeheartedly.