The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

by David Wallace-Wells Narrated by David Wallace-Wells

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Described as this generation's Silent Spring, this riveting read is equally a meticulously researched work of science, a travelogue of the near future for life on earth, and completely terrifying! With lyrical prose, Wallace-Wells will argue that our climate crisis is all much worse than you think and, without mercy, zeros in on the power structures and mindless greed that have brought us here.

#1*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ “The Uninhabitable Earth*hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”-Andrew Solomon, author of*The Noonday Demon

With a new afterword

It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible-food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation.

An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation's Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth*is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it-the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress.

The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation-today's.

Praise for The Uninhabitable Earth

“The Uninhabitable Earth*is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”-Farhad Manjoo,*The New York Times

“Riveting. . . .*Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells's outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”-The Economist

“Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the `eerily banal language of climatology' in favor of lush, rolling prose.”-Jennifer Szalai,*The New York Times

“The book has potential to be this generation's*Silent Spring.”-The Washington Post

“The Uninhabitable Earth,*which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”-Alan Weisman,*The New York Review of Books

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Author David Wallace-Wells narrates his impressively researched work on climate change, providing statistics and probable outcomes of the catastrophic effects already in progress as a result of global warming. Also included are descriptions of how much worse they could potentially become if drastic action is not taken. While he provides a passable narration, a more experienced narrator might have provided more variation to better hold the listener's interest while relaying the extensive list of imminent adverse effects of climate change. All in all, the work is alarmist and anxiety producing, a veritable litany of dire consequences—but this approach may be what is needed to raise our collective consciousness about the seriousness of the situation. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - John Lanchester

…brilliant…At the heart of Wallace-Wells's book is a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet…The Uninhabitable Earth gives readers' emotions a thorough workout along that pessimism-to-despair spectrum, before we are brought round to the writer's "acceptance of responsibility." I stress the emotional aspect because it is crucial: We are facing a call to action that we are, on the evidence of our behavior so far, likely to ignore, unless we directly feel its urgency.

The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

Books about global warming have sounded the alarm for some time, with classic texts from writers like Elizabeth Kolbert and Bill McKibben chronicling the ways in which humans have irrevocably transformed the climate…The Uninhabitable Earth seems to be modeled more on Rachel Carson's Silent Spring—or, at least, it's a bid to do for greenhouse gases what Carson's 1962 book did for pesticides. Silent Spring became a galvanizing force, a foundational text for the environmental movement. The overarching frame for Wallace-Wells's book is an analogous call to action: "How much will we do to stall disaster, and how quickly?"…Wallace-Wells avoids the "eerily banal language of climatology" in favor of lush, rolling prose. The sentences in this book are potent and evocative…

Publishers Weekly

03/11/2019

Wallace-Wells, deputy editor of New York magazine, takes on global warming’s probable apocalyptic consequences in this depressing but must-read account. Wallace-Wells covers well-known threats, such as that rising sea levels will drown low-lying population centers, and alarming secondary effects, including the loss of ice, which, by reducing the Earth’s capacity to reflect heat back into the atmosphere, would only accelerate global warming. Wallace-Wells considers cultural disruptions as well—for example, that rising temperatures could make the hajj to Mecca physically impossible. Wallace-Wells rigorously sources his contentions in detailed endnotes, making clear his gloominess is evidence-based. He also clarifies that his enumeration of calamities may only be the tip of the iceberg, as it is “a portrait of the future only as best it can be painted in the present.” The cumulative effect is oppressive, and his brief references to remaining personally optimistic—because what humanity has done to the planet it can somehow undo—comes across as wishful thinking. At one point, he commends the reader for persisting in reading, observing that each chapter thus far has contained “enough horror to induce a panic attack in even the most optimistic.” This statement stands as an apt summation of this intellectually rigorous, urgent, and often overwhelming look into a dire future. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE

“Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.” —Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

“The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.” —The Washington Post

“The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

"Most of us know the gist, if not the details, of the climate change crisis. And yet it is almost impossible to sustain strong feelings about it. David Wallace-Wells has now provided the details, and with writing that is not only clear and forceful, but often imaginative and even funny, he has found a way to make the information deeply felt." —Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated

“A brilliant new book. . . . a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet."—John Lanchester, The New York Times Book Review

"David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will be much graver than most people realize, and he's right. The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work." —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction

"An excellent book. . . . Not since Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature thirty years ago have we been told what climate change will mean in such vivid terms." —Fred Pearce, The Washington Post

"One of the very few books about our climate change emergency that doesn't sugarcoat the horror." —William T. Vollmann, author of No Immediate Danger

“Clearly and engagingly written, widely informed, with references supplied in extensive and detailed endnotes, this overview of the present status of the climate emergency and our response to it is completely captivating: it is our own story, happening here and now.”—Lydia Davis, Times Literary Supplement

“Powerfully argued. . . . A masterly analysis of why—with a world of solutions—we choose doom.” —Nature

"This gripping, terrifying, furiously readable book is possibly the most wide-ranging account yet written of the ways in which climate change will transform every aspect of our lives, ranging from where we live to what we eat and the stories we tell. Essential reading for our ever-more-unfamiliar and unpredictable world." —Amitav Ghosh, author of Flood of Fire

“Urgent and humane. . . . Wallace-Wells is an extremely adept storyteller. . . . A horrifying assessment of what we might expect as a result of climate change if we don’t change course.” —Susan Matthews, Slate

“If we don’t want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.” —Timothy Snyder, author of Black Earth

“Lively. . . . Vivid. . . . If you’ve snoozed through or turned away from the climate change news, this book will waken and update you. If you’re steeped in the unfolding climate drama, Wallace-Wells’s voice and perspective will be stimulating.” —David George Haskell, The Guardian

“Wallace-Wells has a gorgeous command of the English language, and knows how to lay down prose that moves the reader at such a clip that one feels like a Kentucky Derby–exhausted mare at the end of each chapter. . . . Wallace-Wells sets himself and his analysis of climate change apart from the predominant voices of leadership in the field.” —Laurie Garrett, The Lancet

“Beautifully written. . . . As climate change encroaches, things will get worse. Much worse. And David Wallace-Wells spares no detail in explaining how.” —Kate Aronoff, Bookforum

"Relentless, angry journalism of the highest order. Read it and, for the lack of any more useful response, weep." —Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times

"A brilliant and unsparing analysis of a nightmare that is no longer a distant future but our chaotic, burning present. Unlike other writers who speak about human agency in the abstract, Wallace-Wells zeros in on the power structures and capitalist elites whose mindless greed is writing an obituary for our grandchildren." —Mike Davis, author of Ecology of Fear

"A lucid and thorough description of our unprecedented crisis, and of the mechanisms of denial with which we seek to avoid its fullest recognition.” —William Gibson, author of Neuromancer

"David Wallace-Wells has produced a willfully terrifying polemic that reads like a cross between Stephen King and Stephen Hawking. Written with verve and insight and an eerie gusto for its own horrors, it comes just when we need it; it could not be more urgent than it is at this moment. I hope everyone will read it and be afraid." —Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Author David Wallace-Wells narrates his impressively researched work on climate change, providing statistics and probable outcomes of the catastrophic effects already in progress as a result of global warming. Also included are descriptions of how much worse they could potentially become if drastic action is not taken. While he provides a passable narration, a more experienced narrator might have provided more variation to better hold the listener's interest while relaying the extensive list of imminent adverse effects of climate change. All in all, the work is alarmist and anxiety producing, a veritable litany of dire consequences—but this approach may be what is needed to raise our collective consciousness about the seriousness of the situation. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2019-01-13

"The threat from climate change is more total than from the bomb. It is also more pervasive." A closely argued look at what may be a turning point in human existence.

As New York magazine deputy editor Wallace-Wells observes, almost every major moment of "evolutionary reset" in Earth's history has been precipitated by climate change produced by an overproduction of greenhouse gases—and there is now more carbon in the air than at any point in the last 15 million years, leading him to open, grimly, with the warning, "It is worse, much worse, than you think." So it is, and even if the author allows that we have the tools we need to stop transformative climate change, from carbon taxes to carbon capture and a conversion to renewable energy, we lack anything like the political or economic will to alter our course. The results will be catastrophic, from untold millions of environmental refugees to summers that, even in Scandinavia, will be accompanied by killer heat waves. Wallace-Wells rightly muses over the fact that, for all our devotion to end-of-the-world scenarios in science-fiction books and films, too many of us continue to believe that the scientists warning of these dire matters are "simply crying wolf." Witness the sitting president, who considers himself too smart to believe that the climate is changing and that there's still plenty of time to do something about it. There's not, Wallace-Wells writes, leaving us with only a few alternatives, ranging from the hope that some technological miracle can be ginned up to the darker impulse to "normalize climate suffering at the same pace we accelerate it…forgetting all that we had ever said about the absolute moral unacceptability of the conditions of the world we are passing through in the present tense, and blithely."

If you weren't alarmed already, Wallace-Wells sounds the tocsin of toxicity. An urgent, necessary book.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171821074
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	02/19/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
Cascades

It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn’t happening at all, and comes to us bundled with several others in an anthology of comforting delusions: that global warming is an Arctic saga, unfolding remotely; that it is strictly a matter of sea level and coastlines, not an enveloping crisis sparing no place and leaving no life un-deformed; that it is a crisis of the “natural” world, not the human one; that those two are distinct, and that we live today somehow outside or beyond or at the very least defended against nature, not circumscribed and literally overwhelmed by it; that wealth can be a shield against the ravages of warming; that the burning of fossil fuels is the price of continued economic growth; that growth, and the technology it produces, will allow us to engineer our way out of environmental disaster; that there is any analogue to the scale or scope of this threat, in the long span of human history, that might give us confidence in staring it down.
        None of this is true. But let’s begin with the speed of change. The earth has experienced five mass extinctions before the one we are living through now, each so complete a wiping of the fossil record that it functioned as an evolutionary reset, the planet’s phylogenetic tree first expanding, then collapsing, at intervals, like a lung: 86 percent of all species dead, 450 million years ago; 70 million years later, another 75 percent; 100 million years later, 96 percent; 50 million years later, 80 percent; 150 million years after that, 75 percent again. Unless you are a teenager, you probably read in your high school textbooks that these extinctions were the result of asteroids. In fact, all but the one that killed the dinosaurs involved climate change produced by greenhouse gas. The most notorious was 252 million years ago; it began when carbon warmed the planet by five degrees Celsius, accelerated when that warming triggered the release of methane, another greenhouse gas, and ended with all but a sliver of life on Earth dead. We are currently adding carbon to the atmosphere at a considerably faster rate; by most estimates, at least ten times faster. The rate is one hundred times faster than at any point in human history before the beginning of industrialization. And there is already, right now, fully a third more carbon in the atmosphere than at any point in the last 800,000 years—perhaps in as long as 15 million years. There were no humans then. The oceans were more than a hundred feet higher.
        Many perceive global warming as a sort of moral and economic debt, accumulated since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and now come due after several centuries. In fact, more than half of the carbon exhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has been emitted in just the past three decades. Which means we have done as much damage to the fate of the planet and its ability to sustain human life and civilization since Al Gore published his first book on climate than in all the centuries—all the millennia—that came before. The United Nations established its climate change framework in 1992, building a political consensus out of a scientific consensus and advertising it unmistakably to the world; which means we have now done as much damage to the environment knowingly than we ever managed in ignorance. Global warming may seem like a distended morality tale playing out over several centuries and inflicting a kind of Old Testament retribution on the great-great-grandchildren of those responsible, since it was carbon burning in eighteenth-century England that lit the fuse of everything that has followed. But that is a fable about historical villainy that acquits those of us alive today—and unfairly. The majority of the burning has come since the premiere of Seinfeld. Since the end of World War II, the figure is about 85 percent. The story of the industrial world’s kamikaze mission is the story of a single lifetime—the planet brought from apparent stability to the brink of catastrophe in the years between a baptism or bar mitzvah and a funeral.
        We all know those lifetimes. When my father was born in 1938—among his first memories the news of Pearl Harbor and the mythic air force of the industrial propaganda films that followed— the climate system appeared, to most human observers, steady. Scientists had understood the greenhouse effect, had understood the way carbon produced by burned wood and coal and oil could hothouse the planet and disequilibrize everything on it, for three-quarters of a century. But they had not yet seen the effect, not really, not yet, which made it seem less like an observed fact than a dark prophecy, to be fulfilled only in a very distant future—perhaps never. By the time my father died, in 2016, weeks after the desperate signing of the Paris Agreement, the climate system was tipping toward devastation, passing the threshold of carbon concentration—400 parts per million in the earth’s atmosphere, in the eerily banal language of climatology—that had been, for years, the bright red line environmental scientists had drawn in the rampaging face of modern industry, saying, Do not cross. Of course, we kept going: just two years later, we hit a monthly average of 411, and guilt saturates the planet’s air as much as carbon, though we choose to believe we do not breathe it.
        The single lifetime is also the lifetime of my mother: born in 1945, to German Jews fleeing the smokestacks through which their relatives were incinerated, and now enjoying her seventy-third year in an American commodity paradise, a paradise supported by the factories of a developing world that has, in the space of a single lifetime, too, manufactured its way into the global middle class, with all the consumer enticements and fossil fuel privileges that come with that ascent: electricity, private cars, air travel, red meat. She has been smoking for fifty-eight of those years, always unfiltered, ordering the cigarettes now by the carton from China.
        It is also the lifetime of many of the scientists who first raised public alarm about climate change, some of whom, incredibly, remain working today—that is how rapidly we have arrived at this promontory. Roger Revelle, who first heralded the heating of the planet, died in 1991, but Wallace Smith Broecker, who helped popularize the term “global warming,” still drives to work at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory across the Hudson every day from the Upper West Side, sometimes picking up lunch at an old Jersey filling station recently outfitted as a hipster eatery; in the 1970s, he did his research with funding from Exxon, a company now the target of a raft of lawsuits that aim to adjudicate responsibility for the rolling emissions regime that today, barring a change of course on fossil fuels, threatens to make parts of the planet more or less unlivable for humans by the end of this century. That is the course we are speeding so blithely along—to more than four degrees Celsius of warming by the year 2100. According to some estimates, that would mean that whole regions of Africa and Australia and the United States, parts of South America north of Patagonia, and Asia south of Siberia would be rendered uninhabitable by direct heat, desertification, and flooding. Certainly it would make them inhospitable, and many more regions besides. This is our itinerary, our baseline. Which means that, if the planet was brought to the brink of climate catastrophe within the lifetime of a single generation, the responsibility to avoid it belongs with a single generation, too. We all also know that second lifetime. It is ours.

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