The Uninhabitable Earth – An ESC member book review

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells is an up-to-date summary of the status of global warming. Wallace-Wells walks us through climate change predictions associated with several degrees of warming in which we are currently on track to reach by the year 2100.  He describes what could and probably will happen if global human behavior does not dramatically change, including flooding of entire cities, drought, fire, famine, war, suicide, air pollution, economic collapse and unknown viruses and diseases resulting in millions of deaths. Notably, he provides a myriad of sources and research to back up his thoughts–66 pages in fact.

I admit reading this book raised my anxiety, which is why I put it down several times over the past few months. Global warming is happening, and if a person believes the researchers and scientists, then there is much worse to come than the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is very eye opening and scary because it bluntly states what will happen should we continue on as we are currently doing; however, it is uncertain to me if we have enough climate change global policy in place to make the changes that need to happen. Wallace-Wells quotes American environmentalist Bill McKibben who said, “If we don’t act quickly, and on a global scale, then the problem will literally become insoluble…the decisions we make in 2075 won’t matter.” One take away I got from this book is the critical importance of the Paris Agreement. If the global commitments of the Paris Agreement are met, warming could be limited to 2 degrees by 2100. Read up on the Paris Agreement at the link below.

https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement

Wallace-Wells ends the book by posing the question, “What if scientists are wrong about global warming?” Proposed solutions such as a carbon tax, phasing out energy created by fossil fuels, new agricultural practices including a shift away from beef and dairy, and investment in green energy and carbon capture could help. Throughout the book Wallace-Wells mentions environmental panic and an apocalyptic ending to the human race. That hit home with me. I’ll definitely be scrutinizing my personal life and how I am raising my family to do our part to save Mother Earth.

The Uninhabitable Earth ranked number 7 in Goodreads’ Science and Technology category in 2019. I gave it three out of five stars because the reading level was very high, and I had to keep checking sources and rereading passages. I would have preferred a dumbed down version of the book, or maybe I should have started by reading Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Overall, I do rank this book as a must read because if everyone who reads this book incorporates personal solutions to help solve global warming, then it is well worth it. Check out the Union of Concerned Scientists personal solutions at the link below.

https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/ten-personal-solutions-global-warming