The Uninhabitable Earth

New York Magazine deputy editor David Wallace-Wells says flat out that global warming will make you suffer sooner – and more – than you think it will. You cannot escape. Achieving even a miserable human existence will require global cooperation and hundreds of trillions of dollars. Wallace-Wells offers one grim alternative: a toxic atmosphere polluted with aerosols to block the sun – survivable, but horrific. He urges you to force change – by voting.

A Miserable Future

The shift from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural economy about 12,000 years ago was the first mistake leading to today’s climate change predicament. Agriculture brought civilization, and civilization led to industrialization. Industrialization meant each generation lived with greater comfort than the previous one enjoyed, but on borrowed time. Even a little more global warming will end all progress. Warming of 4°C or 5°C [7.2°F or 9°F] – the range scientists anticipate by 2100 – will bring environmental full-scale collapse and a reversal of human progress.