The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A pandemic, heatwave and a night without electricity because of sudden heavy winds and rainfall has given me the idea to read this book. From which I intend to understand why calamities are higher, more intense. This book presents the reason in the grimmest way possible: Humans.
Disclaimer: This book is too grim. And does a good job intimidating the reader. I could not swallow or accept what is being said but that is the harsh reality.
We know climate change is real. We know everyone is impacted by climate change and has an adverse impact, this book quantifies the impact on economy and life. It has endless statistics of doom. He quotes various scientific research to explain his arguments and it mostly feels like scientists schadenfreude or their own ‘I told you so’ moments. The action of human costs human life. But the unfair part is the repercussions of actions at one place is felt in another place.
I may have disagreed with few of his opinions on handling these crises but I strongly concur that as users, customers and citizens, we have all the right to demand what is right, from corporates and politicians we choose. If one disaster occurs it is easily handled by putting all of our strength and resources to bring back the situation to normalcy. He has made it clear that ‘natural’ disasters strike us so often and so fast that we will be struggling to acknowledge and respond by gathering reinforcements. From California wildfires to India’s drought and monsoons, he presents too many examples.
Any hope that humanity will come together to fight for its survival as shown in many sci-fi movies and stories is delusional. As this crisis has pointed out there will be even more disinformation, bickering and finger-pointing to continue. All of this points to the fact that we are on our own.