The Uninhabitable Earth (Adapted for Young Adults)

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.

September 1, 2023
This young readers' adaptation of Wallace-Wells' acclaimed 2019 adult original outlines the effects of human-caused climate change. With sections on heat death, hunger, drowning, wildfire, loss of freshwater, dying oceans, unbreathable air, plagues, economic collapse, climate conflict, and the multiplying effects of these individual scourges, the author makes it clear just how many ways climate change caused by human activities has already affected us and is likely to affect us even more in the not-so-distant future. He goes on to consider the stories we tell, the dream that technology will save us, the politics of consumption, the loss of the historical idea of progress, and what can be done with our despair. This condensed version retains the substance of the adult edition, including much of the same language, which may lack appeal for many teen readers ("It is only intuitive, in other words, that impulses toward purity represent growth areas of our culture, destined to distend further inward from the cultural periphery as apocalyptic ecological anxiety grows, too"). The story presented here is terrifying. The afterword summarizes some more positive recent political decisions and shifts in public opinion. But the author ends with tentative positivity, noting that global action could yet result in a less unhappy future. The dense text is not broken up with sidebars or other design features, and the book is notably missing sources or further reading suggestions. Heavy going, both in content and prose style, but filled with critical content. (index) (Nonfiction. 14-18)

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