Reddit reviews The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

FYI, you can purchase an electronic copy.

You should read these two books.

I don’t think you — and a lot of people — understand how much data we have on what happens to this planet when atmospheric carbon and temperature levels reach the place they’re unquestionably going to. The earth has been through a lot in its billions of years of existence, and it creates a lot of natural experiments that provide us insight. The basic thing to remember is that the entire history of human civilization has existed within one climate pattern that’s prevailed for the last 10,000 years, and we are barreling towards a fundamental phase change. As in, the most likely scenario is that huge swaths of land currently housing tens of millions of people will become physically inhabitable. The most likely scenario is that bony fish will no longer be a resource that can be fished from the ocean. As in, the amount of carbon we’re introducing to the atmosphere rivals that released by the earth’s most cataclysmic events, which themselves presaged massive extinctions that killed 90%+ of the life on this planet.

Yes, there’s a bell curve of uncertainty around specific impacts, but you don’t seem to appreciate that bell curves have two ends—it’s possible that the outcome won’t be nearly as bad as the median models predict, but it’s also equally likely it will be catastrophically worse. As in, the literal end of human civilization as we know it is within the reasonable long-tail outcomes (though is not the most likely scenario). I’ve notice that climate “agnostics” who bring up uncertain don’t actually seem uncertain they seem fairly certain that climate scientists are wrong.

What matters here is not the label, which we can debate another day.

The timetable of the climate crisis is dictated by physics, not politics. Climate really doesn't care why we do or don't change, or what political system drives it. The situation right now is that if we don't decarbonize very, very rapidly, we will soon reach a state where decarbonization is not enough to hold climate in check. It will either run out of control or require means of control not presently known (or at least well-understood at large scale) by humankind.

Incentives need to exist to get off of carbon, not to remain on it. It's critical to do this very soon. Now, really. As fast as is humanly possible or humanity is in for a much worse time than many imagine.

Folks in Ohio and the midwest and central parts of the US, should understand very clearly, as tornadoes and floods and droughts become stronger and more common in that area, that this is nothing to joke around with. We must decarbonize, and though that means getting quickly off of all carbon-based fuels, coal is among the worst.

To best understand the stakes in visceral terms, I very much recommend the book The Uninhabitable Earth. Or, if you're not a book reader, then try the National Geographic piece Six degrees could change the world.