The Fate of the World

A history and future of the climate crisis

By: Bill McGuire

What past climate change can tell us about our future: a warning and a rallying-cry

Why winding the clock back 50 million years is a bad idea

The Fate of the World is a 4.6 billion-year history of the earth, which shows the deep roots of our current climate crisis. It puts contemporary global heating in the context of millennia of global history to seek out what past climate change can tell us about our future climate. It shows how what’s happening to our climate now compares with what happened in the geological past.

McGuire reveals that our climate already matches that of the last interglacial period – the Eemian – when sea levels were 6 to 9m higher, and is on track to mimic the Pliocene climate as soon as the 2030s, and the early Eocene hothouse later this century. We are rapidly rewinding the climate back 50 million years in a couple of centuries – and without urgent preparation, our civilization is very poorly placed to survive.

Nonetheless, this is a hopeful book. The geological record informs us that the future will be forbidding, but every ton of carbon we can stop being emitted and every fraction of a degree temperature rise we can prevent, will contribute towards making it less so.

If you read just one book on the climate crisis, make it this one.

©2026 Bill McGuire

Critic reviews

Praise for Hothouse Earth…

'One of the most chilling books I've read this year. … Definitive.' Anthony Horowitz

'This accessible and authoritative book is a must-read for anyone who still thinks it could be OK to carry on as we are.' Mike Berners-Lee

'This blunt and sobering look at climate change packs a punch.' Publishers Weekly

'Full of lively everyday images to bring the science to life … stands out for its accessible style.' Times Literary Supplement

'Taut, calmly told and truly terrifying.' Tim Radford