The Uninhabitable Earth

Life After Warming

By: David Wallace-Wells

Narrated by: David Wallace-Wells

Number-one New York Times best seller • "The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon." (Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon)

With a new afterword

It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible - food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars, and economic devastation.

An "epoch-defining book" (The Guardian) and "this generation’s Silent Spring" (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it - the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress.

The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation - today’s.

"The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet." (Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times)

Praise for The Uninhabitable Earth

"Riveting.... Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too." (The Economist)

"Potent and evocative.... Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change.... He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose." (Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times)

"The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring." (The Washington Post)

"The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear.... I encourage people to read this book." (Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books)

©2019 David Wallace-Wells (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Most of us know 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, ashamed and proud of being a human." (Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything Is Illuminated)

"David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will be 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)

“A brilliant new book...a remorseless, near-unbearable account of what we are doing to our planet." (John Lanchester, The New York Times Book Review)

Painful but Necessary

The first 12 chapters describe how quickly we are destroying Earth's ability to support life. Then some intelligent thoughts about it. A touch of exaggeration, but not much. The one great improvement would have been having a professional reader.

We are all going to die ...its true

I read this because my millennial daughter (who has a degree in physics) told me (while crying) "We are all going to die unless we do something now, what are you going to do about it mother!" She had asked me to read " A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet." Also, "The Society of the Spectacle." I'm reading them now - because I got what she meant reading this book.

Frighting truth to come

We can not ignore what has happened to our Mother Earth at our hands. We are the only generation that can abate a further decline to the environment.

Wow!

Incredible ability of linking different topics, systems, schools of thought through a remarkably inspiring lens. If only more people read this book!

Anyway, thankyou for writing and narrating this.

Urgent, difficult, necessary

This contemplative and comprehensive account of our time is an urgent, difficult, necessary listen, as is all action it is bound to inspire.

Should be taught to all the gomeys out there

depressing essential reading. Must have 15 words in review so typing a few extra words to meet the criteria

Never have I ever...

...Felt more compelled to do something to help the environment after reading & actually start formulating a plan of action while reading.
...Spouted curse words with every new revelation and perspective.
...Experienced such a spectrum of deep emotions from sorrow & guilt to love & appreciation of our Earth & comfortable lives because of what I heard from a book.

This is an epic novel but proceed with caution you won’t look at our world the same after reading/listening to this!

Terrifically terrifying

It’s written like non-fiction but it could very well be in the genre of horror-sci-fi. Not recommended for people with depression, heart conditions, or a propensity for mass destruction.

overwhelming alarmist tone

The main content is overly dramatic and utilizes a calculated alarmist tone that may not achieve the desired result of political mobilization, but it may. and the bits on climate-culture lengthened this already bloated tome - it’s long. Regardless, I was inspired by the discussions on fiction during normative crises, and asceticism. The book seems like a well-rounded look at our future and possible extinction. Author is a Great reader. There is a silver lining at the end of the book, hang in there.

A frightening but necessary read

More people need to be empowered to get their respective countries, to do something about the path that we're on