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The uninhabitable earth : life after warming / David Wallace-Wells.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Tim Duggan Books, [2019]Edition: First editionDescription: 310 pages ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780525576709
  • 0525576703
Subject(s):
Contents:
I. Cascades -- II. Elements of chaos. Heat death ; Hunger ; Drowning ; Wildfire ; Disasters no longer natural ; Freshwater drain ; Dying oceans ; Unbreathable air ; Plagues of warming ; Economic collapse ; Climate conflict ; "Systems" -- III. The climate kaleidoscope. Storytelling ; Crisis capitalism ; The church of technology ; Politics of consumption ; History after progress ; Ethics at the end of the world -- IV. The anthropic principle.
Summary: "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. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, "500-year" storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await -- food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe. But the world will be remade by warming in more profound ways as well, transforming our politics, our culture, our relationship to technology, and our sense of history. It will be all-encompassing, shaping and distorting nearly every aspect of human life as it is lived today. Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and 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"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library NonFiction 304.28 W195 Available 33111009346582
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 304.28 W195 Available 33111009141496
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

#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

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker * The New York Times Book Review * Time * NPR * The Economist * The Paris Review * Toronto Star * GQ * The Times Literary Supplement * The New York Public Library * Kirkus Reviews

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.

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD

"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

Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-299) and index.

I. Cascades -- II. Elements of chaos. Heat death ; Hunger ; Drowning ; Wildfire ; Disasters no longer natural ; Freshwater drain ; Dying oceans ; Unbreathable air ; Plagues of warming ; Economic collapse ; Climate conflict ; "Systems" -- III. The climate kaleidoscope. Storytelling ; Crisis capitalism ; The church of technology ; Politics of consumption ; History after progress ; Ethics at the end of the world -- IV. The anthropic principle.

"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. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, "500-year" storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast. Without a revolution in how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth could become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century. In his travelogue of our near future, David Wallace-Wells brings into stark relief the climate troubles that await -- food shortages, refugee emergencies, and other crises that will reshape the globe. But the world will be remade by warming in more profound ways as well, transforming our politics, our culture, our relationship to technology, and our sense of history. It will be all-encompassing, shaping and distorting nearly every aspect of human life as it is lived today. Like An Inconvenient Truth and Silent Spring before it, The Uninhabitable Earth is both a meditation on the devastation we have brought upon ourselves and 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"-- Provided by publisher.

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