53 pages • 1 hour read
David Wallace-WellsThe Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Parts 3-4, Chapters 17-20 and AfterwordChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Climate Kaleidoscope” - Part 4: “The Anthropic Principle”
Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary: “Politics of Consumption”
Wallace-Wells briefly explores the relationship between American consumption habits and climate change, along with the political and psychological underpinnings of these actions. He explains the frequent habit, particularly among right-leaning Americans, of identifying the hypocrisy of wealthy environmental activists like Al Gore who fly on private jets. Far from being an astute and incisive accusation of hypocrisy, the author writes, this behavior merely works to justify one’s own actions, along with the inaction of people in a position to enact change. The author adds:
If the world’s most conspicuous emitters, the top 10 percent, reduced their emissions to only the E.U. average, total global emissions would fall by 35 percent. We don’t get there through the dietary choices of individuals, but through policy changes (187).
For that reason, a person who cares about climate change can have a much greater impact by simply voting than by eating organic food, according to the author.
Shame and fear surrounding consumption are also evident in broader movements against genetically modified organisms and nuclear power, two technologies the author believes could help ease the transition to a decarbonized society and which are nevertheless as hated as carcinogens in some circles.
Next, the author imagines what new kinds of politics will emerge as the planet gets hotter. He imagines climate change as the Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes’s 1651 book of the same name, an all-powerful sovereign to whom humans give up certain rights in order to protect ourselves. The author cites a 2018 book called Climate Leviathan that predicts four different types of sovereignty that exist on a planet ravaged by climate change.
Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary: “History After Progress”
With the worst climate projections in mind, the author ponders the implications of living in a world without progress or growth. He acknowledges a small but growing area of scholarship that argues that the agricultural revolution associated with the Neolithic Period represented a step backwards for humanity, which for hundreds of thousands of years shepherded the planet just fine as hunter-gatherers. The greatest legacy of the agricultural revolution, some argue, is increased disease and war. It also ushered in the era of state power, which, depending on one’s view, is either a good thing or a bad thing.
A veritable end to progress would not be entirely unprecedented, the author writes. He points to the fall of the Inca Empire after the arrival of Pizarro and the fall of the Roman Empire. He also argues that the future of climate change was not decided at the time of the agricultural revolution nor the Industrial Revolution nor even the 20th century. It is being decided now, and with every day that passes without transformative action taken on climate change.
Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary: “Ethics at the End of the World”
Wallace-Wells explores some of the more fringe philosophical approaches taken around the world in the face of the existential threat posed by climate change. Having given up on climate change entirely, a man named Guy McPherson has retreated to the jungles of Belize, where he practices and evangelizes polyamory. The author also names the tragic figure of John B. McLemore, whose conspiracy-addled anxieties over climate change led him to suicide. Other examples of what the author calls “climate esoterica” include those who welcome climate change and espouse a grim, fatalistic philosophy that reads like it came from the brain of Travis Bickle, the protagonist of Taxi Driver.
Other less disturbed individuals look to literature for answers, particularly the Book of Revelation from the New Testament. There has also been a surge of interest among the concerned climate set in the 20th-century American poet Robinson Jeffers. His philosophy of inhumanism is of particular appeal to those who aren’t so certain humanity will survive climate change. The philosophy is captured well by the opening lines of a manifesto put out by an informal collective of lapsed environmentalists known as the Dark Mountain Project. They read: “Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about the truths of human existence […]. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it is to die” (209).
On the fringes of the political spectrum, the author identifies a disturbing trend known as eco-fascism, a label that collects white supremacists who want to save the planet but only for their race. He also writes of right-wing environmental separatists like Cliven Bundy, who in 2014 engaged in an armed stand-off with US federal agents. On the political left, the author notes a troubling increase in admiration for the “climate authoritarianism” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Most liberal environmentalists, however, have adopted a stance of pragmatism, as they attempt to engage with the opposition while working within existing political structures. That isn’t to say these pragmatists aren’t calling for a global mobilization unlike anything the world has seen since World War II. It simply means that they do so without calling for a full-blown political revolution. Finally, the author rejects the fatalism shared by many of the individuals he names in this chapter, choosing instead to believe that the worst outcomes of climate change can still be averted. At the same time, he prefers fatalism to acclimatization or apathy.
Part 4, Chapter 20 Summary
In a final section, the author ponders the issue of climate change through the question of why humanity has yet to uncover evidence of extraterrestrial life. Certainly, in the entire universe, there must be some civilization that’s become advanced enough to contact humanity. Perhaps, he argues, climate is a natural check, capping the lifespan of a civilization at a few thousand years. The author offers a counter viewpoint known as “the anthropic principle” (225). In summarizing it, he asks, “Why should we be suspicious of our exceptionality, or choose to understand it only by assuming an imminent demise? Why not choose to feel empowered by it?” (225).
Finally, the author briefly lists the tools at humanity’s disposal to slow climate change and eventually bring it to a halt, including a carbon tax, a political push to transition to cleaner energy, more public investment in carbon remediation technology, and a reduction in the amount of beef and dairy humans consume.
Afterword Summary
In a new Afterword written in the year following the book’s initial publication, Wallace-Wells reflects on what’s changed in climate science and activism in the short time since he finished writing. The United Nations’ RCP8.5 baseline projections—in short, what scientists predict will happen if no major changes are made at a policy level to cut emissions—overestimated future coal emissions, thus making worst-case climate scenarios a little less likely. Aside from that, most of the promising developments in 2019 centered around activism. The emergence of the teenaged Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has been a source of inspiration for concerned scientists and citizens around the world. Another emergent climate crusader the author identifies is US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was instrumental in making the Green New Deal a matter of national debate. Furthermore, Washington Governor Jay Inslee became a serious presidential contender running on a single-issue climate platform.
Despite these promising developments, the author continues to worry about complacency, particularly in California, where unprecedentedly ferocious fire seasons have become a new normal.
Parts 3-4, Chapters 17-20 and Afterword Analysis
The author has repeatedly rejected the notion that climate change is a natural problem or a technological problem, preferring instead to think of it largely as a matter of political will. Here, the author also rejects the notion that climate change is predominantly a matter of personal behavior. This isn’t to say that conscientious humans shouldn’t be mindful of eating carbon-intensive foods like meat and dairy, nor that they shouldn’t do what they can to avoid unnecessary driving and air travel. He simply means that consumer choices cannot be a substitute for political action, and that believing so is another fantasy of neoliberalism and market capitalism. This is just one of many ways in which the author believes climate change exposes the fundamental flaws in economic systems.
The merits of focusing on personal behavior versus political action have become a common theme in modern discourse on climate change. In The Nation magazine, journalist Kate Aronoff lobs heavy criticism at a group of wealthy and predominantly male novelists who argue that political action on climate change is either impossible, or that it won’t arrive unless individuals start making environmentally healthy choices. She references the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, who likens the climate change fight to World War II, when millions of Americans contributed in ways large and small to the effort. While this sounds reasonable on its face—and Wallace-Wells himself likens climate change to World War II—Aronoff points out that these individual choices on the part of citizens and corporations were the direct result of federal action and mandates, adding that during this era the United States essentially had a “planned economy” (Aronoff, Kate. “Things Are Bleak!” The Nation. 29 Oct. 2019). She adds, “Like so many well-intentioned liberals, Foer individuates a collective problem.” In other words, like Wallace-Wells, Aronoff believes that the problem of climate change is rooted in pervasive elements of economic and political systems, and therefore it demands a political rather than an individual response.
On the issue of shaming concerned citizens about eating meat or traveling on planes—whether by liberals or conservatives—Wallace-Wells invokes the term “apparatus of justification” (187). Coined by the economist Thomas Piketty, the term describes the set of assumptions used by the wealthy and powerful to justify systems of immense inequality. One assumption might be that a person’s success or failure is predominantly dependent on merit rather than existing socioeconomic or demographic status. In the case of climate change, the assumption might be that emissions caps will cause the US economy to collapse. As the countervailing economic consequences of climate change grow more difficult to ignore, however, the apparatus is at risk of collapsing, the author argues. Where that leaves a nation like the United States is an open question, but Wallace-Wells poses a few possibilities. To do so, he relies heavily on the scholarship of political scientists Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright, authors of the 2018 book Climate Leviathan. Inspired by Thomas Hobbes’s foundational political philosophy, Mann and Wainwright chart four political possibilities across a quadrant that determines whether sovereign power is nationalist or globalist, and whether it is capitalist or anti-capitalist.
The most likely possibility, they conclude, is a Climate Leviathan. Both capitalist and globalist, a Climate Leviathan will constitute an international order that seeks to fight climate change through existent economic systems and market forces. The reason they believe it is the most likely outcome is that there already exists among Western liberals an appetite for “a climate sovereignty that decides who can emit and how much, who and how to adapt, and how to apportion the costs” (Mann, Geoff & Wainwright, Joel. “Political Scenarios for Climate Disaster.” Dissent Magazine. Summer 2019). At present, however, the most common form of sovereignty in the West is what they call a Climate Behemoth. Embracing both capitalism and nationalism, Climate Behemoths include the United States under Donald Trump and Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro. The scholars write that leaders of Climate Behemoths will often deny the existence of climate change as a way of rejecting proposed intervention into their economies from international bodies. That said, climate denial is hardly a prerequisite to be a Climate Behemoth, given that Wallace-Wells lumps German Chancellor Angela Merkel into this group as well.
It is difficult for Mann and Wainwright to believe Climate Behemoths will survive for long in a climate-ravaged future, given that “an unquestioning commitment to capitalism contains the seeds of Climate Behemoth’s own destruction.” (Mann, Geoff & Wainwright, Joel. “Political Scenarios for Climate Disaster.” Dissent Magazine. Summer 2019.) This echoes the author’s point that the inequalities endemic to Western capitalism and accentuated by climate change could strike a fatal blow to the aforementioned “apparatus of justification” and cause a political revolution (187). This is perhaps how a system of international eco-socialism would arise, a condition Mann and Wainwright file under Climate Mao. Although this is essentially a form of climate authoritarianism, Climate Mao holds a certain amount of appeal for the scholars. Meanwhile, the fourth possibility, Climate X, involves a rejection of both capitalism and sovereignty in general. It is difficult, however, to imagine how a coalition of concerned communities can manage the climate crisis with neither capital nor sovereignty.
For the author’s part, he does not venture to guess which possibility is most likely or which is preferable. He does, however, express no small amount of concern over a small but vocal minority on the political left that supports climate authoritarians like China’s president Xi Jinping. All of this is part of the variegated and often troubling tapestry of attitudes toward climate change, which Wallace-Wells explores in the final chapter. Among these attitudes, the author makes brief mention of eco-fascism. A small but growing community on sites like Reddit and Twitter, eco-fascism weds conservationism with white supremacy. Its proponents blame multiculturalism for the death of the environment, and some followers go advocate for mass murder in order to avoid the kind of Malthusian trap the author explores earlier in the book.
Despite all the climate-driven catastrophes and social unrest documented in the book, the author in the end maintains his optimism. He bases much of this optimism in what’s known as the anthropic principle. Popularized by scholar and futurist Nick Bostrom, it essentially states that the universe is made for humanity by virtue of the fact that humans can observe and understand the conditions that define it. It’s a heady philosophical topic, but one that the author embraces in light of one of the earliest arguments he poses: If humans caused climate change, then humans can reverse or withstand it through collective action.
