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Title details for The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells - Available

The Uninhabitable Earth

Life After Warming

by David Wallace-Wells
David Wallace-Wells
Audiobook
1 of 2 copies available
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1 of 2 copies available
#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

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    February 19, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593103074
      • File size: 259244 KB
      • Duration: 09:00:05

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 1370
    • Text Difficulty: 11-12

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      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
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 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.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1370
  • Text Difficulty:11-12

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