The Uninhabitable Earth – Life after warming by David-Wallace Wells

“[i]f your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible..” that is the opening line of the viral article published in 2017 in the New York Times by journalist David Wallace-Wells on which our recommended piece of literature expands. It paints a brutal portrait of what is to come, putting us face to face with the consequences of our consistent ignorance towards a very real problem; climate change. We have obviously all heard the statistics, have seen the extreme weather events occur and have heard that these will be more frequent, but do we actually understand the scale of devastation that can be expected? What is the reality of climate change?

The reality is in fact terrifying. Besides mentioning the long list of impending disasters awaiting us because of climate warming (these are strategically categorised into chapters named Heat Death, Dying Oceans, Unbreathable Air etc), the book also makes reference to another decisive factor in the fight against this phenomenon; our detrimental perspective on things. Our self-centred and self pitying attitude definitely isn’t helping according to Wells. We picture the consequences falling upon us in one fell doomsday swoop after which we will rebuild what has been destroyed. Unfortunately for us this isn’t an apocalyptic movie with a happy end for humanity. The book also confronts us with a very depressing fact; we aren’t slowing down the process. While awareness on climate change has risen so has our fossil fuel consumption with us burning 80% more coal than we did in the year 2000.

I‘m not going to quote any more of Wallace Well’s sobering statements but I will tell you this; the book is an important read because it doesn’t just speak about climate change but also addresses our attitude towards it. We still see climate change as a punishment for our mistakes, an emotional payback, rather than a problem we have the power to solve. The latter point is a reassuring one and Wells stresses it throughout the book; we can still stop this. We just have to understand the grim reality of things and finally get down to changing our attitude.

Some people would refer to such literature as alarmist or doomsday but, to be frank, we have every reason to be terrified of the consequences of our ignorance. Not being alarmed may mean that we will continue to be passive and complacent, destroying any possible hope of finding solutions to the undoubtedly impending doom. I recommend this book because, despite it being a depressing read at times, it is a necessary wake-up call and mentioned things I never even was aware of regarding climate change. After all, knowledge is strength and we have to be very strong in order to face what is coming. Like Wells says in the opening line of the book “It is worse, much worse than you think..”

By Paula Thake