The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

David Wallace-Wells
New York, NY: Tim Duggan Books, 2019, 320 pages, hardcover $27.00 ISBN 978-0525576709

The Uninhabitable Earth has one of the most arresting book covers I have ever seen: a single dead
honeybee against a clinically white background. If that does not send a chill down your spine, then
the contents of David Wallace-Wells’ (2019) excellent book certainly will.

The Uninhabitable Earth consists of four parts. In Part I “Cascades” (pp. 2–36), Wallace-Wells’ main
aim is to contribute to the much-needed collaborative work of myth-busting any of the stories
ranging from attenuation to outright denial of the current cycle of climate change. We are adding
carbon at a ten times faster rate than has ever happened before, there is currently a third more
carbon in the air than in the last 800,000 (perhaps even 15 million) years, and half the carbon in
the atmosphere today is the result of fossil fuels burned in the last 30 years (pp. 3–4).

These and other facts about climate change make it a “hyperobject”—“a conceptual fact so large
and complex that, like the internet, it can never be properly comprehended” (p. 13). It is precisely
this inherent difficulty of comprehending what is going on that gives rise to the delusion that
climate change is, at worst, only partially connected to our reality or still something of the far
future. As Wallace-Wells argues time and again, such a delusion would be disastrous for us. In a
nice turn of phrase, Wallace-Wells labels climate change as a “conspiracy”, rather than a
“perpetrator” (p. 20). Importantly, that is not to say that climate change is literally a conspiracy.
Rather, the analogy is to point out that climate change is happening “everywhere, and all at once.”
(p. 20).

A final point I will note regarding Part I is how Wallace-Wells points out that the discussion
regarding whether—and, if so, the extent to which—current climate change is “natural” or “man-
made” is a red herring (p. 23). In fact—and this strikes me as a powerful response to the
argumentative move in retreat some climate change deniers have made—Wallace-Wells
ingeniously argues that if climate change were (mostly) a “natural” process, then that should make
us even more concerned. The environment would be “weaponised” against us beyond our control
(p. 30). But climate change is not beyond our control. It is so within our control that it is being
determined by our (in)actions. That is the realistic message of inspiration that Wallace-Wells gives
us, his audience, at the end of Part I:

The fight is, definitely, not yet lost—in fact will never be lost, so long as we avoid
extinction, because however warm the planet gets, it will always be the case that the
decade that follows could contain more suffering or less. (Wallace-Wells, 2019, p. 32)

But, since it is so unlikely that the whole of humanity goes extinct, and if that is necessary for the
fight to climate change to be lost, then how bad is that really? It is in answering this sceptic’s
question in his Part II “The Elements of Chaos” (pp. 37–140) where Wallace-Wells shines most.
Like a modern-day Dante Alighieri, admittedly in a far less poetic but also much more evidence-
based fashion, Wallace-Wells guides the reader through the different levels of the Inferno that are
unfolding before our very eyes because we fail to atone for our sins of modern consumption.
Before getting to the devil in the details—and the devil is very much present in them—Wallace-
Wells reiterates his main message:

How much hotter will it get? The question may sound scientific, inviting expertise,
but the answer is almost entirely human—which is to say political. The menace of
climate change is a mercurial one; uncertainty makes it a shape-shifting threat.
(Wallace-Wells, 2019, p. 43)

Now, some examples from Part II which show both the complexity and the ‘everywhen’ of climate
change. First, there is the interlocking of threats, such as climate change and the increasing rate of
urbanisation which might not just increase but also reverse flows of migration because not only
cities, but entire areas of the world will become literally too hot to live in (p. 47). Second, there is
“hidden hunger”, which refers to “micronutrient and dietary deficiencies” and which will affect
well over 1 billion people (p. 56). One reason why? Studies have shown one dramatic effect of
carbon dioxide on human nutrition that was previously unanticipated by plant physiologists:
“[CO2] can make plants bigger, but those bigger plants are less nutritious” (p. 57). More specifically:

Since 1950, much of the good stuff in the plants we grow – protein, calcium, iron,
vitamin C, to name just four – has declined by as much as one-third, a landmark 2004
study showed. Everything is becoming more like junk food. (Wallace-Wells, 2019, p.
57).

The most powerful argument against any sceptic of (the seriousness or rate of) climate breakdown?
Transitioning to a new, more sustainable world will make us money. Tons of money, in fact:

In 2018, one paper calculated the global cost of rapid energy transition, by 2030, to be
negative $26 trillion—in other words, rebuilding the energy infrastructure of the world
would make us all that much money compared to a static system, in only a dozen
years. (Wallace-Wells, 2019, p. 122).

There are many more of these detailed gems and case studies in Part II but discussing any further
one would be spoiling the pleasure of reading The Uninhabitable Earth.

Part III “The Climate Kaleidoscope” (pp. 141–216) is on the power of narrative: how false stories
present an easy escape from climate disaster or downplay the seriousness and urgency of what is
unfolding before our very eyes. As Wallace-Wells puts it, “This is climate’s kaleidoscope: we can
be mesmerized by the threat directly in front of us without ever perceiving it clearly” (p. 143).

Responsibility, guilt, and so blame for global warming is—and/or should be—unevenly
distributed: “the richest 10 percent [produce] half of all emissions.” (p. 148). Somewhat hidden,
David Wallace-Wells again expresses what I take to be his view on what the core problem is:

We just haven’t yet discovered the political will, economic might, and cultural
flexibility to install and activate [the solutions], because doing so requires something a
 lot bigger, and more concrete, than imagination—it means nothing short of a
complete overhaul of the world’s energy systems, transportation, infrastructure and
industry and agriculture. Not to mention, say, our diets or our taste for Bitcoin. The
cryptocurrency now produces as much CO2 each year as a million transatlantic flights.
(Wallace-Wells, 2019, pp. 178–179).

And we have little time left to meaningfully change our minds: according to the last IPCC report
in 2018, if we want to limit warming to 1.5˚C with little or no overshoot, then we need to reduce
emissions by roughly 50 per cent (relative to 2010 levels) by 2030. (See IPCC SR1.5 Summary for
Policymakers, section C.1.) We can still limit warming to 2˚C if we cut emissions by 20 per cent
by 2030. The 2030 deadline for achieving 1.5˚C maximal warming strikes me, most regrettably, as
somewhat illusory. However, the shift from focusing on limiting warming to 2˚C, rather than
1.5˚C, does neither make the situation any less alarming nor our need to act any less urgent.
Limiting warming below 2˚C means reaching net-zero emissions within the lifetime of today’s
college students (i.e. by about 2075). We have yet to take the required (drastic) action and there is
stoppage time in football only.

Fortunately for Wallace-Wells it is first impressions that last. I say this because Part IV “The
Anthropic Principle” (pp. 217–228) is somewhat of an ugly duckling. Granted, it would be too
demanding of a standard to expect that all parts of any book to be equally great. However,
sometimes, less is more. And I am tempted to think that The Uninhabitable Earth would have been
(even) better overall if Wallace-Wells had, during his final edit, decided to take out this Part IV. In
Part IV, Wallace-Wells repeats his core message, but does not add enough to warrant another
separate part to be added to his discussion.

The theme I hope Wallace-Wells, or perhaps an inspired reader of his book, will write about next
is the geopolitics of climate change. Two matters stand out here. First, how China “[holds] nearly
all the cards” on the matter of climate change, given how its decisions on its carbon trajectory will
be of close to decisive global impact (p. 194). Second, how Russia will have an increasingly stronger
bargaining position which tracks the increase in global temperature. Why? Wallace-Wells points to
a study which argues that the optimal annual average temperature for economic productivity is
13˚C, which Russia is heading towards and obviously has an interest in obtaining for its own sake
(p. 121). But even if we were not convinced by the study on which Wallace-Wells relies, this does
little to diminish the global impact of Russia in geopolitics. And so, with it being highly unlikely
that either China or Russia will have a change in leadership for the foreseeable future, how the
international community manages to bargain, relate, and communicate with both Vladimir Putin
and Xi Jinping will be of everlasting importance.

Finally, a comment on scholarship and Wallace-Wells’ choice for how he has provided his “Notes”
(pp. 233–299). My hope is that Wallace-Wells’ (as far as I am aware) original reference style will
serve as a template for many books to follow. There are several aspects to this. First, going against
the grain, Wallace-Wells has no numbered order for his notes in the style we have come to expect
from footnotes or endnotes. Apart from the numbers of actual in-text examples and the page
numbers, there is no single digit found in the text. Instead, Wallace-Wells has in his “Notes”
section most elegantly listed the page number followed by a phrase to be found on that respective
page in bold which is then, in turn, followed by further reference to the original source and further
explanation of the bolded phrase or term on the page.

A final reflection on the power of narrative, especially in the context of climate breakdown and
the attempt to break down our apathetic attitude towards it instead, which draws us full circle.
There is no bee death. In fact, the number of bee colonies is increasing (p. 151). The bee extinction
is a fable. Climate breakdown, however, is anything but. Whether the story of humanity faced with
climate breakdown will have a happy ending is entirely up to us.

In conclusion, Wallace-Wells has written a must-read not just for anyone interesting in climate
change and climate justice, but for anyone who wants to learn how to argue for a sophisticated
view whilst underscoring the moral urgency of action to be taken. Exactly as all writing should be,
Wallace-Wells’ book is gripping, informative, thought-provoking, well-researched, and
unpretentious. Wallace-Wells’ main message has two parts. First, climate breakdown needs a
political solution, not a scientific one. We have all the tools we need to address the issue. It is just
a matter of (political) will. Second, we are on the road to unleashing hell on earth on a scale and in
forms we can scarcely imagine. But it is now the default. Avoiding it requires acting. Now. So, if
we fail to prevent this greatest of threats to humanity we have ever faced, then we have only
ourselves to blame. That is sadly almost old news now. But Wallace-Wells’ achievement is to make
clear, like no author before him, the inescapability of the choice we face.

References
Wallace-Wells, D. (2019). The Uninhabitable Earth (First edition). New York: Tim Duggan Books.