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The Uninhabitable Earth
The Uninhabitable Earth
Dec 27, 2024 7:05 PM

Author:David Wallace-Wells

The Uninhabitable Earth

**SUNDAY TIMES AND THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

'An epoch-defining book' Matt Haig

'If you read just one work of non-fiction this year, it should probably be this' David Sexton, Evening Standard

Selected as a Book of the Year 2019 by the Sunday Times, Spectator and New Statesman

A Waterstones Paperback of the Year and shortlisted for the Foyles Book of the Year 2019

Longlisted for the PEN / E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

It is worse, much worse, than you think.

The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today.

Over the past decades, the term "Anthropocene" has climbed into the popular imagination - a name given to the geologic era we live in now, one defined by human intervention in the life of the planet. But however sanguine you might be about the proposition that we have ravaged the natural world, which we surely have, it is another thing entirely to consider the possibility that we have only provoked it, engineering first in ignorance and then in denial a climate system that will now go to war with us for many centuries, perhaps until it destroys us. In the meantime, it will remake us, transforming every aspect of the way we live-the planet no longer nurturing a dream of abundance, but a living nightmare.

Reviews

In crystalline prose, Wallace-Wells provides a devastating overview of where we are in terms of climate crisis and ecological destruction, and what the future will hold if we keep on going down the same path. Urgently readable, this is an epoch-defining book.

—— Matt Haig, 'The Book that Changed My Mind' , The Guardian

'Clear, engaging and often dazzling'

—— The Telegraph

'A masterly analysis'

—— Nature

Relentless, angry journalism of the highest order. Read it and, for the lack of any more useful response, weep. . . .The article was a sensation and the book will be, too.

—— Bryan Appleyard , The Sunday Times

The most terrifying book I have ever read . . . a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.

—— The New York Times

This is what I'm reading now: The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. It focuses on the range of realistic possibilities with climate change. It does not sugarcoat, and can be quite scary -- that's without primarily focusing on the worstcase scenario. When people ask 'What can I do? - Read! What we need right now, in this country, is for all of us to be better, including ourselves.

—— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Instagram

A must-read. It's not only the grandkids and the kids: it's you. And it's not only those in other countries: it's you.

—— Margaret Atwood , Twitter

I've not stopped talking about The Uninhabitable Earth since I opened the first page. And I want every single person on this planet to read it.

—— Andrea Wulf, author of 'The Invention of Nature'

Riveting . . . Some readers will find Mr Wallace-Wells's outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.

—— The Economist

Skipping the scientific jargon and relaying the facts in urgent and elegant prose, the magazine editor crafts a stirring wake-up call to recognize how global warming will permanently alter every aspect of human life.

—— Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 So Far , Time

Wallace-Wells is an extremely adept storyteller, simultaneously urgent and humane . . . [he] does a terrifyingly good job of moving between the specific and the abstract.

—— Slate

Enough to induce an honest-to-God panic attack ... The margins of my review copy of the book are scrawled with expressions of terror and despair, declining in articulacy as the pages proceed, until it's all just cartoon sad faces and swear words ... To read The Uninhabitable Earth is to understand the collapse of the distinction between alarmism and plain realism

—— Mark O'Connell , The Guardian

There is much to learn from this book. From media and scientific reports of the past decade, Wallace-Wells sifts key predictions and conveys them in vivid prose.

—— David George Haskell , The Observer

Brilliant ... At the heart of Wallace-Wells's book is a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet

—— The New York Times

Not since Bill McKibben's "The End of Nature" 30 years ago have we been told what climate change will mean in such vivid terms.

—— Fred Pearce , The Washington Post

Everyone should stop what they're doing and read The Uninhabitable Earth by @dwallacewells. This is our future if we don't act now.

—— Johann Hari , Twitter

Wake up! Get educated - The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells is a great place to start.

—— Paris Lees , Vogue

A book that's by turns alarming, terrifying and just downright bleak . . . a sustained piece of informed polemic.

—— The Evening Standard

A very accessible and compelling read . . . a much more nuanced and a much more hopeful vision than you might expect.

—— The Irish Times

I think everyone should probably right now read David Wallace-Wells's The Uninhabitable Earth, which tells the grim story with as much optimism as possible, and which gives all the facts.

—— Daniel Swift , The Spectator, Books of the Year

Well-written, captivating, occasionally wry and utterly petrifying

—— i News

In his gripping new book ... Wallace-Wells shocks us out of complacency'

—— Prospect

If you read just one work of non-fiction this year, it should probably be [this] . . . What this book forces you to face is more important than any other subject you could be informing yourself about.

—— David Sexton , The Evening Standard

Exceptionally well researched and written. . . . This short, concise book pulls no punches.

—— Mitch Friedman, executive director, Conservation Northwest

Yes, this book will scare you, but it will also prompt you to take action to ensure the damage we as humans have done to the planet is stopped.

—— Stylist, ‘Your guide to 2019’s best non-fiction books’

Most of us known the gist, if not the details, of the climate change crisis. And yet it is almost impossible to sustain strong feelings about it. David Wallace-Wells has now provided the details, and with writing that is not only clear and forceful, but often imaginative and even funny, he has found a way to make the information deeply felt. This is a profound book, which simultaneously makes me terrified and hopeful about the future, full of regret and new will.

—— Jonathan Safran Foer

Harrowing.

—— Jonathan Franzen , The New Yorker

The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending armageddon.

—— Andrew Solomon

Just finished The Uninhabitable Earth by @dwallacewells. Everyone, everywhere, should read it. Can't remember the last time a book had such an impact on me.

—— Rutger Bregman, author of 'Utopia for Realists' , Twitter

On [Alexandra] Ocasio-Cortez's office bookshelf, near a picture of her late father and a photo of her with a local Girl Scout troop, two books nestle together in uneasy union. One is the Federalist papers. The other is The Uninhabitable Earth.

—— Time magazine profile on Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez

If there are people around to write history books in the future, they will look back at the @ExtinctionR protestors and think they were the sanest people of our time. Read The Uninhabitable Earth by @dwallacewells if you don't know why.

—— Johann Hari, Twitter

If we don't want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.

—— Timothy Snyder, author of 'On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twenty-first Century'

David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will much graver than most people realize, and he's right. The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work.

—— Elizabeth Kolbert, author of 'The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History'

Trigger warning: when scientists conclude that yesterday's worst-case scenario for global warming is probably unwarranted optimism, it's time to ask Scotty to beam you up. At least that was my reaction upon finishing Wallace-Wells' brilliant and unsparing analysis of a nightmare that is no longer a distant future but our chaotic, burning present.

—— Mike Davis

A lucid and thorough description of our unprecedented crisis, and of the mechanisms of denial with which we seek to avoid its fullest recognition.

—— William Gibson

Brilliant at the futility of human action.

—— Sarah Crompton

A masterpiece of operatic proportions … What Powers means to explore is a sense of how we become who we are, individually and collectively, and our responsibility to the planet and to ourselves … A magnificent achievement: a novel that is, by turns, both optimistic and fatalistic, idealistic without being naïve.

—— Kirkus

His masterpiece.

—— Herald

You will careen through this book. The prose is driven. You don’t really get to draw breath … The writing is steel-edged, laser-sharp when Richard Powers wants it to be. When he sets out to nail meaning, it’s done. There are sentences you return to and wonder at.

—— Irish Times

This walk through the woods via words is a passionate paean to the natural world that prompts us to appreciate afresh our place on the planet.

—— i news

[I]t’s huge, it’s exciting, it’s wondrous … This really deserves to be read.

—— Bookmunch

The Overstory is a book you learn from.

—— Spectator

Dazzlingly written… Among the best novels I’ve read this decade… Despite its deep-time perspective, it could hardly be more of-the-moment

—— Robert Macfarlane , Guardian

A beautiful novel about humans reconnecting with nature in a fascinatingly, inventive world with colourful, rich characters, it will rekindle your love for nature

—— Asian Voice

An intriguing, powerful book

—— Maddy Prior , Daily Express

Absolutely blown away by this epic, heartbreaking novel about us and trees

—— Emma Donoghue

This extraordinary novel transformed my view of nature. Never again will I pass great tree without offering a quiet but heartfelt incantation of thanks, gratitude and wonder

—— Hannah Rothschild , Waitrose Weekend

A sweeping novel that skilfully intertwines many different stories of trees and people to create a paean to the hidden power and vital importance of the natural world

—— Country & Town House

Absorbing, thought-provoking and more than enough incentive to embrace your inner tree-hugger

—— Culture Whisper

The Overstory is filled with character and incident enough to engage anybody, but it's also filled with philosophy, science, poetry, and colour. It's a celebration of the world and humanity, but also tells of our coming doom. Perhaps above all it's a eulogy to trees. Eulogy is the right word because the novel celebrates the life, the beauty and wisdom of trees-but also their death. The novel also casts a cold-but loving-eye on humanity

—— Richard Smith , British Medical Journal

The Overstory has the mix of science and fiction that I so love; it widens my understanding and respect for the creatures who share this planet

—— KAREN JOY FOWLER

Stunning... It's been one of those rare books that has had a profound effect on me, and which has changed my perspective on life

—— Paul Ready , Yorkshire Post

Mind-boggling and visionary. The multi-stranded novel is a masterpiece in which science and poetry are deeply intertwined

—— Andrea Wulf, author of MAGNIFICENT REBELS , Guardian

A compelling read is that is near impossible to put down

—— Adoption Today

The Overstory is a prescient novel that urges us to take responsibility for our actions

—— Far Out

A masterpiece of storytelling at its very best. Powers weaves together science, poetry, nature and humanity so beautifully that it makes my heart ache and my mind fly

—— Andrea Wulf , Guardian

A wild and expansive novel, knitting together a glorious and diverse cast of characters, some of them human, some of them trees. I defy you not to be moved, and then angered about what we are doing to our planet and these glorious sentinels rooted upon it

—— Greg Wise , Week

My novel of the year was Richard Powers' masterpiece, The Overstory... it's a magnificent read

—— Mark Connors , Northern Soul, *Books of the Year*

The Overstory by Richard Powers is likely the most beautiful book ever written about people and trees

—— Andy Hunter , Spectator
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