The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

This book was really, really hard to read. Not because it discusses what might happen to our planet and our species in the face of unchecked climate change, which it does and which I think is a worthwhile endeavor, but because of the time it does spend discussing solutions (which seemed beyond its scope).

The book ascribes plenty of blame to our individual actions (the last plane ticket you purchased put meters of arctic ice into the ocean, did you know) but insists that anything any one of us does (including not having kids, opting for a hermetic existence, and even self-immolating) is ineffectual and even silly in the face of inevitable catastrophe. It's not wholly fatalistic (the author seems to think that at least his hypothetical grandchildren will be okay if we “just” demolish capitalism and nation-states in the next few years) but still somehow entirely unhopeful and castigating. This may well be intentional (the author rails a lot against complacency) but I'm less useful, not more, when my anxiety is inflamed.

Overall I learned a lot about climate change, but it was not an exercise that was good for my mental health and it planted a lot of “weeds” in my headspace that, even if true, I don't appreciate (there's no point in saving for retirement, voting for greener political candidates is pointless, it's futile to try and make the world better). I am relieved to finally be finished with it.