David Wallace-Wells’ own description of the subject of his new book, at the end of the opening from which I have been quoting: “What follows is a kaleidoscopic accounting of the human costs of human life continuing as it has for a generation, which will fill up the planet with only more humans—what ongoing global warming spells for public health, Continue Reading
Just one more of those things that infuriates me about we as a people of the earth: “Slow-walking action on climate, another paper found, will cost the world $26 trillion by just 2030.” Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (p. 33). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition. And we have people saying “It costs too much! That’ll wreck the economy! ” Bigtime, deadly B.S.
Touche’. She is awesome, and not to “messed with”. No one who trolls her has any actual tools to defend themselves. Her insight, education, experience, and articulate voice is something they cannot approach.
So, in a paragraph soon to follow the pieces I just challenged, regarding how they seem to be unaware of the “baked in” effects of 1 or 2 decades ago, he writes this: “Carbon hangs in the air for decades, with some of the most terrifying feedbacks unspooling over even longer time horizons—which gives warming the eerie shimmer of an Continue Reading
Wallace-Wells follows that notion I just “cautioned” about, with another not so helpful notion: “We found a way to engineer devastation, and we can find a way to engineer our way out of it—or, rather, engineer our way toward a degraded muddle, but one that nevertheless extends forward the promise of new generations finding their own way forward, perhaps toward Continue Reading
Here’s a notion that Wallace-Wells forwards in his book and to people who ask him about “hope” in the face of his “bleak picture”, which I think paints a false picture: “No matter how out-of-control the climate system seems—with its roiling typhoons, unprecedented famines and heat waves, refugee crises and climate conflicts—we are all its authors. And still writing.” Wallace-Wells, Continue Reading