Copyright © 2019 by David Wallace-Wells Names: Wallace-Wells, … · 2019-05-09 · It is worse,...

Copyright©2019byDavidWallace-Wells

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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData.Names:Wallace-Wells,David,author.Title:Theuninhabitableearth:lifeafterwarming/DavidWallace-Wells.Description: First edition. | New York : Tim Duggan Books, 2019. | Includes bibliographicalreferences.

Identifiers:LCCN2018051268|ISBN9780525576709(hardback)|ISBN9780525576723(ebook)Subjects:LCSH:Nature--Effectofhumanbeingson.|Globalwarming--Socialaspects.|Climaticchanges--Social aspects. | Global environmental change--Social aspects. | Environmentaldegradation--Socialaspects.|BISAC:NATURE/EnvironmentalConservation&Protection.

Classification:LCCGF75.W362019|DDC304.2/8--dc23LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2018051268

ISBN 9780525576709EbookISBN 9780525576723InternationaleditionISBN 9781984826589

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v5.4a

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ForRisaandRocca,Mymotherandfather

ContentsCoverTitlePageCopyrightDedication

I.Cascades

II.ElementsofChaosHeatDeathHungerDrowningWildfireDisastersNoLongerNaturalFreshwaterDrainDyingOceansUnbreathableAirPlaguesofWarmingEconomicCollapseClimateConflict“Systems”

III.TheClimateKaleidoscopeStorytellingCrisisCapitalismTheChurchofTechnology

PoliticsofConsumptionHistoryAfterProgressEthicsattheEndoftheWorld

IV.TheAnthropicPrinciple

AcknowledgmentsNotes

I

Cascades

I t is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climatechangeisafairytale,perhapsasperniciousastheonethatsaysitisn’t

happening at all, and comes to us bundled with several others in ananthologyofcomfortingdelusions:thatglobalwarmingisanArcticsaga,unfoldingremotely;thatitisstrictlyamatterofsealevelandcoastlines,notanenvelopingcrisissparingnoplaceandleavingnolifeundeformed;thatitisacrisisofthe“natural”world,notthehumanone;thatthosetwoaredistinct,andthatwelivetodaysomehowoutsideorbeyondoratthevery least defended against nature, not inescapablywithin and literallyoverwhelmed by it; that wealth can be a shield against the ravages ofwarming; that the burning of fossil fuels is the price of continuedeconomicgrowth;thatgrowth,andthetechnologyitproduces,willallowus to engineer ourwayout of environmental disaster; that there is anyanalogueto thescaleorscopeof this threat, inthe longspanofhumanhistory,thatmightgiveusconfidenceinstaringitdown.Noneofthisistrue.Butlet’sbeginwiththespeedofchange.Theearth

has experienced five mass extinctions before the one we are livingthrough now, each so complete a wiping of the fossil record that itfunctioned as an evolutionary reset, the planet’s phylogenetic tree firstexpanding, then collapsing, at intervals, like a lung: 86 percent of allspecies dead, 450million years ago; 70million years later, 75 percent;125millionyearslater,96percent;50millionyearslater,80percent;135millionyearsafterthat,75percentagain.Unlessyouareateenager,youprobablyread inyourhighschool textbooks that theseextinctionswerethe result of asteroids. In fact, all but the one that killed thedinosaursinvolvedclimatechangeproducedbygreenhousegas.Themostnotoriouswas 250million years ago; it began when carbon dioxide warmed theplanetby fivedegreesCelsius,acceleratedwhenthatwarming triggeredthereleaseofmethane,anothergreenhousegas,andendedwithallbutasliver of life on Earth dead. We are currently adding carbon to theatmosphereataconsiderablyfasterrate;bymostestimates,at least tentimes faster. The rate is one hundred times faster than at any point in

human history before the beginning of industrialization. And there isalready, rightnow, fullya thirdmorecarbon in theatmosphere thanatany point in the last 800,000 years—perhaps in as long as 15 millionyears. There were no humans then. The oceans were more than ahundredfeethigher.Manyperceiveglobalwarmingasasortofmoralandeconomicdebt,

accumulated since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and nowcome due after several centuries. In fact,more than half of the carbonexhaled into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels has beenemitted in just the past three decades.Whichmeans we have done asmuchdamagetothefateoftheplanetanditsabilitytosustainhumanlifeandcivilizationsinceAlGorepublishedhisfirstbookonclimatethaninallthecenturies—allthemillennia—thatcamebefore.TheUnitedNationsestablished its climate change framework in 1992, advertising scientificconsensus unmistakably to the world; this means we have nowengineered asmuch ruin knowingly as we evermanaged in ignorance.GlobalwarmingmayseemlikeadistendedmoralitytaleplayingoutoverseveralcenturiesandinflictingakindofOldTestamentretributiononthegreat-great-grandchildren of those responsible, since it was carbonburningineighteenth-centuryEnglandthatlitthefuseofeverythingthathasfollowed.Butthatisafableabouthistoricalvillainythatacquitsthoseof us alive today—and unfairly. Themajority of the burning has comesincethepremiereofSeinfeld.SincetheendofWorldWarII,thefigureisabout85percent.Thestoryoftheindustrialworld’skamikazemissionisthestoryofasinglelifetime—theplanetbroughtfromseemingstabilitytothebrinkofcatastropheintheyearsbetweenabaptismorbarmitzvahandafuneral.Weallknowthoselifetimes.Whenmyfatherwasbornin1938—among

his firstmemories thenewsofPearlHarborandthemythicair forceofthe industrial propaganda films that followed—the climate systemappeared, tomost human observers, steady. Scientists had understoodthe greenhouse effect, had understood the way carbon produced byburned wood and coal and oil could hothouse the planet anddisequilibrateeverythingon it, for three-quartersofacentury.But theyhad not yet seen the impact, not really, not yet, whichmade warmingseemlesslikeanobservedfactthanadarkprophecy,tobefulfilledonlyin a very distant future—perhaps never. By the timemy father died, in

2016, weeks after the desperate signing of the Paris Agreement, theclimatesystemwastippingtowarddevastation,passingthethresholdofcarbon concentration—400partspermillion in the earth’s atmosphere,intheeerilybanallanguageofclimatology—thathadbeen,foryears,thebrightredlineenvironmentalscientistshaddrawnintherampagingfaceofmodernindustry,saying,Donotcross.Ofcourse,wekeptgoing:justtwoyears later,wehitamonthlyaverageof411,andguilt saturates theplanet’s air asmuch as carbon, thoughwe choose to believewedonotbreatheit.Thesingle lifetime isalso the lifetimeofmymother:born in1945, to

GermanJewsfleeingthesmokestacksthroughwhichtheirrelativeswereincinerated, and now enjoying her seventy-third year in an Americancommodity paradise, a paradise supported by the factories of adeveloping world that has, in the space of a single lifetime, too,manufactureditswayintotheglobalmiddleclass,withalltheconsumerenticements and fossil fuel privileges that come with that ascent:electricity, private cars, air travel, redmeat. She has been smoking forfifty-eight of those years, unfiltered, ordering the cigarettes nowby thecartonfromChina.It isalso the lifetimeofmanyof the scientistswho first raisedpublic

alarmaboutclimatechange,someofwhom,incredibly,remainworking—that is how rapidlywe have arrived at this promontory.RogerRevelle,who first heralded the heating of the planet, died in 1991, butWallaceSmithBroecker,whohelpedpopularize the term“globalwarming,” stilldrives to work at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory across theHudson every day from the Upper West Side, sometimes picking uplunchatanoldJerseyfillingstationrecentlyoutfittedasahipstereatery;in the 1970s, he did his researchwith funding fromExxon, a companynowthe targetofa raftof lawsuits thataimtoadjudicateresponsibilityfortherollingemissionsregimethattoday,barringachangeofcourseonfossil fuels, threatenstomakepartsoftheplanetmoreor lessunlivableforhumansbytheendofthiscentury.Thatisthecoursewearespeedingsoblithelyalong—tomore than fourdegreesCelsiusofwarmingby theyear 2100. According to some estimates, that would mean that wholeregions of Africa and Australia and the United States, parts of SouthAmericanorthofPatagonia,andAsiasouthofSiberiawouldberendereduninhabitable by direct heat, desertification, and flooding. Certainly it

wouldmaketheminhospitable,andmanymoreregionsbesides.This isouritinerary,ourbaseline.Whichmeansthat, iftheplanetwasbroughtto the brink of climate catastrophe within the lifetime of a singlegeneration,theresponsibilitytoavoiditbelongswithasinglegeneration,too.Weallalsoknowthatsecondlifetime.Itisours.

—

Iamnotanenvironmentalist,anddon’teventhinkofmyselfasanatureperson. I’ve lived my whole life in cities, enjoying gadgets built byindustrial supply chains I hardly think twice about. I’ve never gonecamping, not willingly anyway, and while I always thought it wasbasically a good idea to keep streams clean and air clear, I also alwaysaccepted the proposition that there was a trade-off between economicgrowthandcosttonature—andfigured,well, inmostcasesI’dprobablygo for growth. I’m not about to personally slaughter a cow to eat ahamburger, but I’m also not about to go vegan. I tend to think whenyou’reatthetopofthefoodchainit’sokaytoflauntit,becauseIdon’tseeanything complicatedaboutdrawingamoralboundarybetweenusandotheranimals,andinfactfinditoffensivetowomenandpeopleofcolorthat all of a sudden there’s talk of extending human-rights-like legalprotectionstochimps,apes,andoctopuses,justagenerationortwoafterwefinallybrokethewhite-malemonopolyonlegalpersonhood.Intheseways—manyof them,at least—Iam like everyotherAmericanwhohasspent their life fatally complacent, andwillfully deluded, about climatechange,whichisnotjustthebiggestthreathumanlifeontheplanethaseverfacedbutathreatofanentirelydifferentcategoryandscale.Thatis,thescaleofhumanlifeitself.Afewyearsago,Ibegancollectingstoriesofclimatechange,manyof

themterrifying,gripping,uncannynarratives,witheventhemostsmall-scalesagasplayinglikefables:agroupofArcticscientiststrappedwhenmeltingiceisolatedtheirresearchcenter,onanislandpopulatedalsobyagroupofpolarbears;aRussianboykilledbyanthrax released fromathawing reindeer carcass, which had been trapped in permafrost formanydecades.Atfirst,itseemedthenewswasinventinganewgenreofallegory.Butofcourseclimatechangeisnotanallegory.Beginning in2011, aboutonemillionSyrian refugeeswereunleashed

onEuropebyacivilwarinflamedbyclimatechangeanddrought—andina very real sense, much of the “populist moment” the entire West ispassingthroughnowistheresultofpanicproducedbytheshockofthosemigrants.ThelikelyfloodingofBangladeshthreatenstocreatetentimesas many, or more, received by a world that will be even furtherdestabilized by climate chaos—and, one suspects, less receptive thebrowner those in need. And then there will be the refugees from sub-SaharanAfrica,LatinAmerica,andtherestofSouthAsia—140millionby2050, theWorld Bank estimates,meaningmore than a hundred timesEurope’sSyrian“crisis.”The U.N. projections are bleaker: 200 million climate refugees by

2050.Twohundredmillionwastheentireworldpopulationatthepeakof theRomanEmpire, if youcan imagineevery singlepersonaliveandlivinganywhereontheplanetatthattimedispossessedoftheirhomeandturnedoutwardtowanderthroughhostileterritories insearchofanewone.Thehighendofwhat’spossibleinthenextthirtyyears,theUnitedNations says, is considerablyworse: “a billion ormore vulnerable poorpeoplewithlittlechoicebuttofightorflee.”Abillionormore.Thatwasthe entire global population as recently as 1820, with the IndustrialRevolutionwellunderway.Whichsuggeststhatwemightbetterconceiveofhistorynotasadeliberateprocessionofyearsmarchingforwardonatimeline but as an expanding balloon of population growth, humanitydilatingacross theplanetalmost to thepointof fulleclipse.Onereasoncarbonemissionshaveacceleratedsomuchinthelastgenerationisalsoan explanation forwhy history seems to be proceeding somuch faster,with somuchmore happening, everywhere, each year, even every day:this is what results when there are simply that many more humansaround.Fifteenpercentofallhumanexperiencethroughouthistory, it’sbeenestimated,belongstopeoplealiverightnow,eachwalkingtheearthwithcarbonfootprints.Those refugee figures are high-end estimates, produced years ago by

research groups designed to call attention to a particular cause orcrusade; the true numbers will almost surely fall short of them, andscientiststendtotrustprojectionsinthetensofmillionsratherthanthehundreds of millions. But that those bigger numbers are only the farupper reaches of what is possible should not lull us into complacency;when we dismiss the worst-case possibilities, it distorts our sense of

likelieroutcomes,whichwethenregardasextremescenariosweneedn’tplansoconscientiouslyfor.High-endestimatesestablishtheboundariesofwhat’spossible,betweenwhichwecanbetterconceiveofwhatislikely.Andperhapstheywillprovebetterguideseventhanthat,consideringtheoptimistshavenever,inthehalfcenturyofclimateanxietywe’vealreadyendured,beenright.Myfileofstoriesgrewdaily,butveryfewoftheclips,eventhosedrawn

from new research published in themost pedigreed scientific journals,seemed to appear in the coverage about climate change the countrywatchedontelevisionandreadinitsnewspapers.Inthoseplaces,climatechangewasreported,ofcourse,andevenwithsometingeofalarm.Butthediscussionofpossibleeffectswasmisleadinglynarrow,limitedalmostinvariablytothematterofsea-levelrise.Justasworrisome,thecoveragewassanguine,allthingsconsidered.Asrecentlyasthe1997signingofthelandmark Kyoto Protocol, two degrees Celsius of global warming wasconsidered the threshold of catastrophe: flooded cities, cripplingdroughts and heat waves, a planet battered daily by hurricanes andmonsoonsweusedtocall“naturaldisasters”butwillsoonnormalizeassimply“badweather.”Morerecently,theforeignministeroftheMarshallIslandsofferedanothernameforthatlevelofwarming:“genocide.”There is almost no chance we will avoid that scenario. The Kyoto

Protocolachieved,practically,nothing;inthetwentyyearssince,despiteallofourclimateadvocacyandlegislationandprogressongreenenergy,we have producedmore emissions than in the twenty years before. In2016,theParisaccordsestablishedtwodegreesasaglobalgoal,and,toreadournewspapers, that levelofwarming remains something like thescariestscenarioitisresponsibletoconsider;justafewyearslater,withnosingle industrialnationontracktomeet itsPariscommitments, twodegrees looksmore like a best-case outcome, at present hard to credit,withanentirebellcurveofmorehorrificpossibilitiesextendingbeyonditandyetshrouded,delicately,frompublicview.Forthosetellingstoriesaboutclimate,suchhorrificpossibilities—and

thefactthatwehadsquanderedourchanceof landinganywhereonthebetter half of that curve—had become somehow unseemly to consider.Thereasonsarealmosttoomanytocount,andsohalf-formedtheymightbetter be called impulses. We chose not to discuss a world warmedbeyond two degrees out of decency, perhaps; or simple fear; or fear of

fearmongering; or technocratic faith, which is really market faith; ordeference to partisan debates or even partisan priorities; or skepticismabouttheenvironmentalLeftofthekindI’dalwayshad;ordisinterestinthefatesofdistantecosystemslikeI’dalsoalwayshad.Wefeltconfusionabout the science and its many technical terms and hard-to-parsenumbers, or at least an intuition that others would be easily confusedabout the science and its many technical terms and hard-to-parsenumbers.Wesufferedfromslownessapprehendingthespeedofchange,orsemi-conspiratorialconfidenceintheresponsibilityofglobalelitesandtheirinstitutions,orobeisancetowardthoseelitesandtheirinstitutions,whatever we thought of them. Perhaps we felt unable to really trustscarier projections because we’d only just heard about warming, wethought, and things couldn’t possiblyhave gotten thatmuchworse justsincethefirstInconvenientTruth; orbecausewe likeddrivingour carsand eating our beef and living aswedid in every otherway anddidn’twanttothinktoohardaboutthat;orbecausewefeltso“postindustrial”wecouldn’tbelievewewerestilldrawingmaterialbreathsfromfossilfuelfurnaces. Perhaps it was because we were so sociopathically good atcollating bad news into a sickening evolving sense of what constituted“normal,” or because we looked outside and things seemed still okay.Becausewewereboredwithwriting,orreading,thesamestoryagainandagain,becauseclimatewassoglobalandthereforenontribalitsuggestedonly the corniest politics, becausewe didn’t yet appreciate how fully itwouldravageourlives,andbecause,selfishly,wedidn’tminddestroyingthe planet for others living elsewhere on it or those not yet born whowouldinherititfromus,outraged.Becausewehadtoomuchfaithintheteleological shape of history and the arrow of human progress tocountenancetheideathatthearcofhistorywouldbendtowardanythingbutenvironmentaljustice,too.Becausewhenwewerebeingreallyhonestwith ourselveswe already thought of theworld as a zero-sum resourcecompetition and believed that whatever happened we were probablygoing to continue to be the victors, relatively speaking anyway,advantagesofclassbeingwhattheyareandourownluckinthenatalistlotterybeingwhat itwas.Perhapsweweretoopanickedaboutourownjobs and industries to fret about the future of jobs and industry; orperhapswewerealsoreallyafraidofrobotsorweretoobusylookingatournewphones;orperhaps,howevereasywefoundtheapocalypsereflex

inourcultureandthepathofpanicinourpolitics,wetrulyhadagood-newsbiaswhen it came to thebigpicture;or, really,whoknowswhy—therearesomanyaspectstotheclimatekaleidoscopethattransformsourintuitionsaboutenvironmentaldevastationintoanuncannycomplacencythat it can be hard to pull the whole picture of climate distortion intofocus.Butwesimplywouldn’t,orcouldn’t,oranywaydidn’tlooksquarelyinthefaceofthescience.

—

Thisisnotabookaboutthescienceofwarming;itisaboutwhatwarmingmeanstothewayweliveonthisplanet.Butwhatdoesthatsciencesay?Itiscomplicatedresearch,becauseitisbuiltontwolayersofuncertainty:whathumanswilldo,mostlyintermsofemittinggreenhousegases,andhowtheclimatewillrespond,boththroughstraightforwardheatingandavariety of more complicated, and sometimes contradictory, feedbackloops. But even shaded by those uncertainty bars it is also very clearresearch, in fact terrifyingly clear. The United Nations’Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) offers the gold-standardassessmentsof the stateof theplanetand the likely trajectoryfor climate change—gold-standard, in part, because it is conservative,integratingonlynewresearchthatpassesthethresholdofinarguability.Anewreport isexpected in2022,but themostrecentonesays that ifwetake action on emissions soon, instituting immediately all of thecommitments made in the Paris accords but nowhere yet actuallyimplemented,wearelikelytogetabout3.2degreesofwarming,oraboutthreetimesasmuchwarmingastheplanethasseensincethebeginningofindustrialization—bringingtheunthinkablecollapseoftheplanet’sicesheetsnotjustintotherealmoftherealbutintothepresent.ThatwouldeventuallyfloodnotjustMiamiandDhakabutShanghaiandHongKongandahundredothercitiesaroundtheworld.The tippingpoint for thatcollapse is said to be around two degrees; according to several recentstudies, even a rapid cessation of carbon emissions could bring us thatamountofwarmingbytheendofthecentury.Theassaultsof climate changedonot endat2100 justbecausemost

modeling,byconvention,sunsetsatthatpoint.Thisiswhysomestudyingglobal warming call the hundred years to follow the “century of hell.”

Climatechangeisfast,muchfasterthanitseemswehavethecapacitytorecognizeandacknowledge;butitisalsolong,almostlongerthanwecantrulyimagine.Inreadingaboutwarming,youwilloftencomeacrossanalogies from

theplanetaryrecord:thelasttimetheplanetwasthismuchwarmer,thelogic runs,sea levelswerehere.These conditions arenot coincidences.Thesealevelwastherelargelybecausetheplanetwasthatmuchwarmer,andthegeologicrecordisthebestmodelwehaveforunderstandingtheverycomplicatedclimatesystemandgaugingjusthowmuchdamagewillcome from turning up the temperature by two or four or six degrees.Whichiswhyitisespeciallyconcerningthatrecentresearchintothedeephistory of the planet suggests that our current climate models may beunderestimating the amount of warming we are due for in 2100 by asmuchashalf. Inotherwords, temperaturescouldrise,ultimately,byasmuchasdoublewhattheIPCCpredicts.HitourParisemissionstargetsandwemay still get four degrees ofwarming,meaning a greenSaharaand the planet’s tropical forests transformed into fire-dominatedsavanna.Theauthorsofone recentpaper suggested thewarmingcouldbemoredramaticstill—slashingouremissionscouldstillbringustofourorfivedegreesCelsius,ascenariotheysaidwouldposesevereriskstothehabitabilityoftheentireplanet.“HothouseEarth,”theycalledit.Because these numbers are so small, we tend to trivialize the

differences between them—one, two, four, five. Human experience andmemory offer no good analogy for how we should think of thosethresholds, but, aswithworldwars or recurrences of cancer, you don’twant to see even one. At two degrees, the ice sheets will begin theircollapse,400millionmorepeoplewillsuffer fromwaterscarcity,majorcitiesintheequatorialbandoftheplanetwillbecomeunlivable,andevenin the northern latitudes heat waves will kill thousands each summer.Therewouldbe thirty-two times asmany extremeheatwaves in India,andeachwouldlastfivetimesaslong,exposingninety-threetimesmorepeople.Thisisourbest-casescenario.Atthreedegrees,southernEuropewould be in permanent drought, and the average drought in CentralAmericawouldlastnineteenmonthslongerandintheCaribbeantwenty-onemonthslonger.InnorthernAfrica,thefigureissixtymonthslonger—fiveyears.Theareasburnedeachyearbywildfireswoulddouble in theMediterranean and sextuple, or more, in the United States. At four

degrees, therewould be eightmillionmore cases of dengue fever eachyearinLatinAmericaaloneandclosetoannualglobalfoodcrises.Therecould be 9 percent more heat-related deaths. Damages from riverfloodingwouldgrowthirtyfoldinBangladesh,twentyfoldinIndia,andasmuchassixtyfoldintheUnitedKingdom.Incertainplaces,sixclimate-driven natural disasters could strike simultaneously, and, globally,damagescouldpass$600trillion—morethantwicethewealthasexistsintheworldtoday.Conflictandwarfarecoulddouble.Evenifwepulltheplanetupshortoftwodegreesby2100,wewillbe

leftwithanatmospherethatcontains500partspermillionofcarbon—perhapsmore.Thelasttimethatwasthecase,sixteenmillionyearsago,theplanetwasnot twodegreeswarmer; itwassomewherebetweenfiveand eight, giving the planet about 130 feet of sea-level rise, enough todraw a new American coastline as far west as I-95. Some of theseprocessestakethousandsofyearstounfold,buttheyarealsoirreversible,and therefore effectively permanent. Youmight hope to simply reverseclimatechange;youcan’t.Itwilloutrunallofus.This ispartofwhatmakes climate changewhat the theoristTimothy

Morton calls a “hyperobject”—a conceptual fact so large and complexthat,liketheinternet,itcanneverbeproperlycomprehended.Therearemany features of climate change—its size, its scope, its brutality—that,alone,satisfythisdefinition;togethertheymightelevateit intoahigherandmoreincomprehensibleconceptualcategoryyet.Buttimeisperhapsthemostmind-bendingfeature,theworstoutcomesarrivingsolongfromnowthatwereflexivelydiscounttheirreality.Yetthoseoutcomespromisetomockusandourownsenseofthereal

inreturn.Theecologicaldramaswehaveunleashedthroughourlanduseandbyburning fossil fuels—slowly foraboutacenturyandveryrapidlyforonlyafewdecades—willplayoutovermanymillennia,infactoveralongerspanof timethanhumanshaveevenbeenaround,performed inpartbycreaturesandinenvironmentswedonotyetevenknow,usheredonto theworld stage by the force ofwarming. And so, in a convenientcognitivebargain,wehavechosen toconsiderclimatechangeonlyas itwillpresentitselfthiscentury.By2100,theUnitedNationssays,wearedueforabout4.5degreesofwarming,followingthepathweareontoday.Thatis,fartherfromtheParistrackthantheParistrackisfromthetwo-degreethresholdofcatastrophe,whichitmorethandoubles.

AsNaomiOreskeshasnoted, thereare far toomanyuncertainties inourmodelstotaketheirpredictionsasgospel.Justrunningthosemodelsmany times, asGernotWagner andMartinWeitzman do in their bookClimate Shock, yields an 11 percent chance we overshoot six degrees.Recent work by the Nobel laureate William Nordhaus suggests thatbetter-than-anticipatedeconomicgrowthmeansbetterthanone-in-threeodds that our emissions will exceed the U.N.’s worst-case “business asusual” scenario. In other words, a temperature rise of five degrees orpossiblymore.The upper end of the probability curve put forward by the U.N. to

estimate the end-of-the-century, business-as-usual scenario—theworst-caseoutcomeofaworst-caseemissionspath—putsusateightdegrees.Atthattemperature,humansattheequatorandinthetropicswouldnotbeabletomovearoundoutsidewithoutdying.In thatworld, eight degreeswarmer, direct heat effectswouldbe the

least of it: the oceans would eventually swell two hundred feet higher,floodingwhatarenowtwo-thirdsoftheworld’smajorcities;hardlyanylandon theplanetwouldbe capable of efficientlyproducing anyof thefoodwe now eat; forestswould be roiled by rolling storms of fire, andcoasts would be punished by more and more intense hurricanes; thesuffocating hood of tropical disease would reach northward to enclosepartsofwhatwenowcalltheArctic;probablyaboutathirdoftheplanetwould be made unlivable by direct heat; and what are today literallyunprecedented and intolerable droughts and heat waves would be thequotidianconditionofwhateverhumanlifewasabletoendure.We will, almost certainly, avoid eight degrees of warming; in fact,

severalrecentpapershavesuggestedtheclimateisactuallylesssensitiveto emissions than we’d thought, and that even the upper bound of abusiness-as-usualpathwouldbringustoaboutfivedegrees,withalikelydestination around four. But five degrees is nearly as unthinkable aseight,andfourdegreesnotmuchbetter:theworldinapermanentfooddeficit,theAlpsasaridastheAtlasMountains.Betweenthatscenarioandtheworldweliveinnowliesonlytheopen

questionofhumanresponse.Someamountoffurtherwarmingisalreadybakedin,thankstotheprotractedprocessesbywhichtheplanetadaptstogreenhousegas.Butallofthosepathsprojectedfromthepresent—to

two degrees, to three, to four, five, or even eight—will be carvedoverwhelminglybywhatwechoosetodonow.Thereisnothingstoppingusfromfourdegreesotherthanourownwilltochangecourse,whichwehaveyettodisplay.Becausetheplanetisasbigasitis,andasecologicallydiverse; becausehumanshaveproven themselves an adaptable species,and will likely continue to adapt to outmaneuver a lethal threat; andbecausethedevastatingeffectsofwarmingwillsoonbecometooextremetoignore,ordeny,iftheyhaven’talready;becauseofallthat,itisunlikelythatclimatechangewillrendertheplanettrulyuninhabitable.Butifwedonothingaboutcarbonemissions, if thenext thirtyyearsof industrialactivity trace the same arc upward as the last thirty years have, wholeregionswillbecomeunlivablebyanystandardwehavetodayassoonastheendofthiscentury.Afewyearsago,E.O.Wilsonproposedaterm,“Half-Earth,”tohelpus

thinkthroughhowwemightadapttothepressuresofachangingclimate,letting nature run its rehabilitative course on half the planet andsequesteringhumanityintheremaining,habitablehalfoftheworld.Thefraction may be smaller than that, possibly considerably, and not bychoice;thesubtitleofhisbookwasOurPlanet’sFightforLife.Onlongertimescales, theeven-bleakeroutcomeispossible, too—the livableplanetdarkeningasitapproachesahumandusk.Itwouldtakeaspectacularcoincidenceofbadchoicesandbadluckto

makethatkindofzeroearthpossiblewithinourlifetime.Butthefactthatwehavebroughtthatnightmareeventualityintoplayatallisperhapstheoverwhelming cultural and historical fact of the modern era—whathistorians of the future will likely study about us, and what we’d havehopedthegenerationsbeforeourswouldhavehadtheforesighttofocuson, too.Whateverwedo tostopwarming,andhoweveraggressivelyweact to protect ourselves from its ravages, we will have pulled thedevastationofhumanlifeonEarthintoview—closeenoughthatwecansee clearly what it would look like and know, with some degree ofprecision, how it will punish our children and grandchildren. Closeenough,infact,thatwearealreadybeginningtofeelitseffectsourselves,whenwedonotturnaway.

—

Itisalmosthardtobelievejusthowmuchhashappenedandhowquickly.Inthelatesummerof2017,threemajorhurricanesaroseintheAtlanticat once, proceeding at first along the same route as though they werebattalions of an army on themarch.HurricaneHarvey, when it struckHouston,deliveredsuchepicrainfallitwasdescribedinsomeareasasa“500,000-year event”—meaning that we should expect that amount ofraintohitthatareaonceeveryfivehundredmillennia.Sophisticatedconsumersofenvironmentalnewshavealready learned

howmeaningless climate change has rendered such terms, whichweremeant todescribe storms thathada 1-in-500,000chanceof striking inanygivenyear.Butthefiguresdohelpinthisway:toremindusjusthowfar global warming has already taken us from any natural-disasterbenchmark our grandparents would have recognized. To dwell on themorecommon500-yearfigurejustforamoment,itwouldmeanastormthat struck once during the entire history of the Roman Empire. Fivehundredyearsago,therewerenoEnglishsettlementsacrosstheAtlantic,soweare talkingabout a storm that shouldhit just once asEuropeansarrived and established colonies, as colonists fought a revolution andAmericans a civil war and two world wars, as their descendantsestablishedanempireof cottonon thebacksof slaves, freed them,andthenbrutalizedtheirdescendants, industrializedandpostindustrialized,triumphed in the Cold War, ushered in the “end of history,” andwitnessed, justadecadelater, itsdramaticreturn.Onestorminall thattime,iswhatthemeteorologicalrecordhastaughtustoexpect.Justone.HarveywasthethirdsuchfloodtohitHoustonsince2015.Andthestormstruck, inplaces,with an intensity thatwas supposed tobe a thousandtimesrarerstill.That same season, anAtlantic hurricane hit Ireland, 45millionwere

flooded from their homes in South Asia, and unprecedented wildfirestilledmuchofCaliforniaintoash.Andthentherewasthenewcategoryofquotidian nightmare, climate change inventing the once-unimaginablecategory of obscure natural disasters—crises so large they would oncehave been inscribed in folklore for centuries today passing across ourhorizons ignored, overlooked, or forgotten. In 2016, a “thousand-yearflood” drowned small-town Ellicott City, Maryland, to take but oneexamplealmostatrandom;itwasfollowed,twoyearslater,inthesamesmalltown,byanother.Oneweekthatsummerof2018,dozensofplaces

all over the world were hit with record heat waves, from Denver toBurlingtontoOttawa;fromGlasgowtoShannontoBelfast;fromTbilisi,inGeorgia,andYerevan,inArmenia,towholeswathsofsouthernRussia.The previous month, the daytime temperature of one city in Omanreached above 121 degrees Fahrenheit, and did not drop below 108 allnight, and inQuebec,Canada, fifty-four died from theheat. That sameweek, one hundred major wildfires burned in the American West,including one in California that grew 4,000 acres in one day, andanother, inColorado, thatproducedavolcano-like300-foot eruptionofflames,swallowinganentiresubdivisionandinventinganewterm,“firetsunami,” along theway.On the other side of the planet, biblical rainsfloodedJapan,where1.2millionwereevacuatedfromtheirhomes.Laterthat summer,TyphoonMangkhut forced the evacuationof 2.45millionfrommainlandChina,thesameweekthatHurricaneFlorencestrucktheCarolinas,turningtheportcityofWilmingtonbrieflyintoanislandandfloodinglargepartsofthestatewithhogmanureandcoalash.Alongtheway, the winds of Florence produced dozens of tornadoes across theregion.Thepreviousmonth,inIndia,thestateofKeralawashitwithitsworstfloodsinalmostahundredyears.ThatOctober,ahurricaneinthePacific wiped Hawaii’s East Island entirely off the map. And inNovember, which has traditionally marked the beginning of the rainyseasoninCalifornia,thestatewashitinsteadwiththedeadliestfireinitshistory—the Camp Fire, which scorched several hundred square milesoutsideofChico,killingdozensandleavingmanymoremissinginaplacecalled,proverbially,Paradise.Thedevastationwassocomplete,youcouldalmost forget theWoolseyFire, closer toLosAngeles,whichburned atthesametimeandforcedthesuddenevacuationof170,000.It is tempting to look at these stringsofdisasters and think,Climate

changeishere.Andoneresponsetoseeingthingslongpredictedactuallycometopassistofeelthatwehavesettledintoanewera,witheverythingtransformed. In fact, that is how California governor Jerry Browndescribedthestateofthingsinthemidstofthestate’swildfiredisaster:“anewnormal.”The truth is actuallymuch scarier. That is, the end of normal; never

normal again. We have already exited the state of environmentalconditionsthatallowedthehumananimaltoevolveinthefirstplace,inanunsureandunplannedbetonjustwhatthatanimalcanendure.The

climate system that raised us, and raised everything we now know ashuman culture and civilization, is now, like a parent, dead. And theclimatesystemwehavebeenobservingforthelastseveralyears,theonethathasbattered theplanet again and again, isnot ourbleak future inpreview.Itwouldbemoreprecisetosaythatitisaproductofourrecentclimatepast,alreadypassingbehindus intoadustbinofenvironmentalnostalgia.There isno longerany such thingasa “naturaldisaster,”butnot only will things get worse; technically speaking, they have alreadygottenworse.Evenif,miraculously,humansimmediatelyceasedemittingcarbon,we’dstillbedueforsomeadditionalwarmingfromjustthestuffwe’veput intotheairalready.Andofcourse,withglobalemissionsstillincreasing,we’reveryfarfromzeroingoutoncarbon,andthereforeveryfar fromstalling climate change.Thedevastationwearenowseeingallaroundus isabeyond-best-casescenario for the futureofwarmingandalltheclimatedisastersitwillbring.What that means is that we have not, at all, arrived at a new

equilibrium. It ismore likewe’ve takenone stepouton theplankoff apirateship.Perhapsbecauseoftheexhaustingfalsedebateaboutwhetherclimate change is “real,” too many of us have developed a misleadingimpressionthatitseffectsarebinary.Butglobalwarmingisnot“yes”or“no,”norisit“today’sweatherforever”or“doomsdaytomorrow.”Itisafunction that gets worse over time as long as we continue to producegreenhousegas.Andsotheexperienceoflifeinaclimatetransformedbyhumanactivityisnotjustamatterofsteppingfromonestableecosysteminto another, somewhat worse one, no matter how degraded ordestructivethetransformedclimateis.Theeffectswillgrowandbuildastheplanetcontinuestowarm:from1degreeto1.5toalmostcertainly2degreesandbeyond.Thelastfewyearsofclimatedisastersmaylooklikeaboutasmuchas theplanetcan take. In fact,weareonly justenteringourbravenewworld,onethatcollapsesbelowusassoonaswesetfootonit.Manyofthesenewdisastersarrivedaccompaniedbydebateabouttheir

cause—abouthowmuchofwhat theyhavedonetouscomesfromwhatwe have done to the planet. For those hoping to better understandpreciselyhowamonstroushurricanearisesoutofaplacidocean, theseinquiriesareworthwhile,butforallpracticalpurposesthedebateyieldsnorealmeaningorinsight.Aparticularhurricanemayowe40percentof

its force to anthropogenic global warming, the evolving models mightsuggest, and a particular droughtmay be half again as bad as itmighthavebeenintheseventeenthcentury.Butclimatechangeisnotadiscretecluewe can find at the scene of a local crime—onehurricane, oneheatwave, one famine, one war. Global warming isn’t a perpetrator; it’s aconspiracy.Wealllivewithinclimateandwithinallthechangeswehaveproducedinit,whichencloseusallandeverythingwedo.Ifhurricanesofa certain force are now five times as likely as in the pre-ColumbianCaribbean, it is parsimonious to the point of triviality to argue overwhether this one or that onewas “climate-caused.” All hurricanes nowunfoldintheweathersystemswehavewreckedontheirbehalf,whichiswhytherearemoreofthem,andwhytheyarestronger.Thesameistruefor wildfires: this one or that one may be “caused” by a cookout or adownedpowerline,buteachisburningfaster,bigger,andlongerbecauseofglobalwarming,whichgivesnoreprievetofireseason.Climatechangeisn’tsomethinghappeninghereortherebuteverywhere,andallatonce.Andunlesswechoosetohaltit,itwillneverstop.Overthepastfewdecades,theterm“Anthropocene”hasclimbedoutof

academicdiscourse and into thepopular imagination—aname given tothegeologicerawelive innow,andawaytosignalthat it isanewera,defined on the wall chart of deep history by human intervention. Oneproblem with the term is that it implies a conquest of nature, evenechoing the biblical “dominion.” But however sanguine you might beabout the proposition that we have already ravaged the natural world,which we surely have, it is another thing entirely to consider thepossibility thatwehaveonlyprovoked it, engineering first in ignoranceand then indenialaclimatesystemthatwillnowgo towarwithus formanycenturies,perhapsuntilitdestroysus.ThatiswhatWallyBroecker,theavuncularoceanographer,meanswhenhecallstheplanetan“angrybeast.”Youcouldalsogowith“warmachine.”Eachdaywearmitmore.

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The assaults will not be discrete—this is another climate delusion.Instead, they will produce a new kind of cascading violence, waterfallsand avalanches of devastation, the planet pummeled again and again,with increasing intensity and in ways that build on each other and

undermine our ability to respond, uprootingmuchof the landscapewehavetakenforgranted, forcenturies,as thestable foundationonwhichwe walk, build homes and highways, shepherd our children throughschoolsandintoadulthoodunderthepromiseofsafety—andsubvertingthepromise that theworldwehave engineered andbuilt for ourselves,outofnature,willalsoprotectusagainstit,ratherthanconspiringwithdisasteragainstitsmakers.Consider those California wildfires. In March 2018, Santa Barbara

CountyissuedmandatoryevacuationordersforthoselivinginMontecito,Goleta, Santa Barbara, Summerland, and Carpinteria—where thepreviousDecember’s fireshadhithardest. Itwas the fourthevacuationorderprecipitatedbyaclimateeventinthecountyinjustthreemonths,butonlythefirsthadbeenforfire.Theotherswereformudslidesusheredintopossibilityby that fire,oneof the toniest communities in themostglamorous state of theworld’s preeminently powerful country upendedby fear that their toy vineyards and hobby stables, their world-classbeachesandlavishlyfundedpublicschools,wouldbeinundatedbyriversofmud,thecommunityasthoroughlyravagedasthesprawlingcampsoftemporary shacks housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in themonsoonregionofBangladesh.Itwas.Morethanadozendied,includingatoddlersweptawaybymudandcarriedmilesdownthemountainslopetothesea;schoolsclosedandhighwaysflooded,foreclosingtheroutesofemergency vehicles andmaking the community an inland island, as ifbehindablockade,chokedoffbyamudnoose.Someclimatecascadeswillunfoldatthegloballevel—cascadessolarge

their effects will seem, by the curious legerdemain of environmentalchange, imperceptible. A warming planet leads to melting Arctic ice,whichmeans lesssunlightreflectedbackto thesunandmoreabsorbedbyaplanetwarmingfasterstill,whichmeansanoceanlessabletoabsorbatmospheric carbon and so a planet warming faster still. A warmingplanetwillalsomeltArcticpermafrost,whichcontains1.8trilliontonsofcarbon,morethantwiceasmuchasiscurrentlysuspendedintheearth’satmosphere, and some of which, when it thaws and is released, mayevaporate as methane, which is thirty-four times as powerful agreenhouse-gaswarmingblanketascarbondioxidewhen judgedon thetimescaleofacentury;whenjudgedonthetimescaleoftwodecades,itiseighty-sixtimesaspowerful.Ahotterplanetis,onnet,badforplantlife,

whichmeanswhat is called “forest dieback”—thedecline and retreat ofjunglebasinsasbigascountriesandwoodsthatsprawlforsomanymilestheyusedtocontainwholefolklores—whichmeansadramaticstripping-back of the planet’s natural ability to absorb carbon and turn it intooxygen, which means still hotter temperatures, which means moredieback,andsoon.Highertemperaturesmeansmoreforestfiresmeansfewer trees means less carbon absorption, means more carbon in theatmosphere, means a hotter planet still—and so on. A warmer planetmeansmore water vapor in the atmosphere, and, water vapor being agreenhousegas,thisbringshighertemperaturesstill—andsoon.Warmeroceans can absorb less heat, which means more stays in the air, andcontain less oxygen, which is doom for phytoplankton—which does fortheoceanwhatplantsdoonland,eatingcarbonandproducingoxygen—whichleavesuswithmorecarbon,whichheatstheplanetfurther.Andsoon. These are the systems climate scientists call “feedbacks”; there aremore.Someworkintheotherdirection,moderatingclimatechange.Butmanymorepoint towardanaccelerationofwarming, shouldwe triggerthem. And just how these complicated, countervailing systems willinteract—what effects will be exaggerated and what undermined byfeedbacks—isunknown,whichpullsadarkcloudofuncertaintyoveranyeffort to plan ahead for the climate future.We know what a best-caseoutcome for climate change looks like, however unrealistic, because itquitecloselyresemblestheworldasweliveonittoday.Butwehavenotyetbeguntocontemplatethosecascadesthatmaybringustotheinfernalrangeofthebellcurve.Other cascades are regional, collapsing on human communities and

buckling them where they fall. These can be literal cascades—human-triggered avalanches are on the rise, with 50,000 people killed byavalanches globally between 2004 and 2016. In Switzerland, climatechangehasunleashedawholenewkind,thankstowhatarecalled“rain-on-snow”events,whichalsocausedtheoverflowoftheOrovilleDaminNorthernCaliforniaandthe2013floodofAlberta,Canada,withdamagesapproaching $5 billion. But there are other kinds of cascade, too.Climate-driven water shortages or crop failures push climate refugeesinto nearby regions already struggling with resource scarcity. Sea-levelrise inundates cropland with more and more saltwater flooding,transforming agricultural areas into brackish spongesno longer able to

adequately feed those living off them; flooding power plants, knockingregions offline just as electricity may be needed most; and cripplingchemical and nuclear plants, which, malfunctioning, breathe out theirtoxic plumes. The rains that followed the Camp Fire flooded the tentcitieshastilyassembledforthefirstdisaster’srefugees.InthecaseoftheSantaBarbaramudslides,droughtproducedastatefullofdrybrushripeforaspark;thenayearofanomalouslymonsoonishrainproducedonlymore growth, and wildfires tore through the landscape, leaving amountainsidewithoutmuchplantlifetoholdinplacethemillionsoftonsoflooseearththatmakeupthetoweringcoastalrangewherethecloudstendtogatherandtherainfirstfalls.Some of those watching from afar wondered, incredulously, how a

mudslidecouldkillsomany.Theansweris,thesamewayashurricanesortornadoes—byweaponizingtheenvironment,whether“man-made”or“natural.”Winddisastersdonotkillbywind,howeverbrutalitgets,butby tugging treesoutofearthandtransforming themintoclubs,makingpowerlinesintoloosewhipsandelectrifiednooses,collapsinghomesoncowering residents, and turning cars into tumbling boulders. And theykillslowly,too,bycuttingofffooddeliveryandmedicalsupplies,makingroadsimpassableeventofirstresponders,knockingoutphonelinesandcelltowerssothattheillandelderlymustsuffer,andhopetoendure,insilenceandwithoutaid.MostoftheworldisnotSantaBarbara,withitsMission-styleimpasto

ofinfinite-seemingwealth,andinthecomingdecadesmanyofthemostpunishingclimatehorrorswillindeedhitthoseleastabletorespondandrecover.Thisiswhatisoftencalledtheproblemofenvironmentaljustice;a sharper, less gauzy phrase would be “climate caste system.” Theproblemisacutewithincountries,evenwealthyones,wherethepoorestare those who live in the marshes, the swamps, the floodplains, theinadequately irrigated places with themost vulnerable infrastructure—altogetheranunwittingenvironmentalapartheid.JustinTexas,500,000poor Latinos live in shantytowns called “colonias” with no drainagesystemstodealwithincreasedflooding.Thecleavageisevensharperglobally,wherethepoorestcountrieswill

suffermoreinourhotnewworld.Infact,withoneexception—Australia—countrieswith lowerGDPswillwarmthemost.That isnotwithstandingthe fact thatmuchof theglobalsouthhasnot, to thispoint,defiled the

atmosphereoftheplanetallthatmuch.Thisisoneofthemanyhistoricalironies of climate change that would better be called cruelties, somercilessisthesufferingtheywillinflict.Butdisproportionatelyasitwillfall on the world’s least, the devastation of global warming cannot beeasily quarantined in the developing world, as much as those in theNorthernHemisphere would probably, and not to our credit, prefer it.Climatedisasteristooindiscriminateforthat.Infact,thebeliefthatclimatecouldbeplausiblygoverned,ormanaged,

by any institution or human instrument presently at hand is anotherwide-eyedclimatedelusion.Theplanetsurvivedmanymillenniawithoutanything approaching a world government, in fact endured nearly theentire span of human civilization that way, organized into competitivetribesand fiefdomsandkingdomsandnation-states,andonlybegan tobuildsomethingresemblingacooperativeblueprint,verypiecemeal,afterbrutal world wars—in the form of the League of Nations and UnitedNationsandEuropeanUnionandeventhemarketfabricofglobalization,whatever its flaws still a vision of cross-national participation, imbuedwith theneoliberalethos that lifeonEarthwasapositive-sumgame. Ifyouhadtoinventathreatgrandenough,andglobalenough,toplausiblyconjure into being a system of true international cooperation, climatechangewouldbeit—thethreateverywhere,andoverwhelming,andtotal.Andyetnow,justastheneedforthatkindofcooperationisparamount,indeednecessaryforanythingliketheworldweknowtosurvive,weareonlyunbuilding thosealliances—recoiling intonationalistic corners andretreating from collective responsibility and from each other. Thatcollapseoftrustisacascade,too.

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Justhowcompletelytheworldbelowourfeetwillbecomeunknowntousisnotyetclear,andhowweregisteritstransformationremainsanopenquestion.One legacyof the environmentalist creed that longprized thenaturalworldasanotherworldlyretreatisthatweseeitsdegradationasasequesteredstory,unfoldingseparatelyfromourownmodernlives—soseparately that the degradation acquires the comfortable contours ofparable, like pages from Aesop, aestheticized even when we know thelossesastragedy.

Climatechangecouldsoonmeanthat,inthefall,treesmaysimplyturnbrown,andsowewilllookdifferentlyatentireschoolsofpainting,whichstretchedforgenerations,devotedtobestcapturingtheorangesandredswecanno longerseeourselvesout thewindowsofourcarsaswedrivealong our highways. The coffee plants of Latin America will no longerproducefruit;beachhomeswillbebuiltonhigherandhigherstiltsandstillbedrowned. Inmanycases, it isbetter touse thepresent tense. Injustthelastfortyyears,accordingtotheWorldWildlifeFund,morethanhalfof theworld’svertebrateanimalshavedied; in just the last twenty-five, one study of German nature preserves found, the flying insectpopulationdeclinedbythree-quarters.Thedelicatedanceofflowersandtheir pollinators has been disrupted, as have themigration patterns ofcod,whichhavefleduptheEasternSeaboardtowardtheArctic,evadingthecommunitiesoffishermenthatfedonthemforcenturies;ashavethehibernation patterns of black bears,many ofwhich now stay awake allwinter.Speciesindividuatedovermillionsofyearsofevolutionbutforcedtogetherbyclimatechangehavebeguntomatewithoneanotherforthefirsttime,producingawholenewclassofhybridspecies:thepizzlybear,the coy-wolf. The zoos are already natural history museums, thechildren’sbooksalreadyoutofdate.Olderfables,too,willberemade:thestoryofAtlantis,havingendured

and enchanted for several millennia, will compete with the real-timesagasof theMarshall IslandsandMiamiBeach, each sinkingover timeinto snorkelers’ paradises; the strange fantasy of Santa and his polarworkshopwillgroweerierstillinanArcticofice-freesummers;andthereisaterriblepoignancyincontemplatinghowdesertificationoftheentireMediterraneanBasinwill changeour readingof theOdyssey, orhow itwill discolor the shine of Greek islands for dust from the Sahara topermanentlyblankettheirskies,orhowitwillrecastthemeaningofthePyramids for the Nile to be dramatically drained.We will think of theborder withMexico differently, presumably, when the Rio Grande is alinetracedthroughadryriverbed—theRioSand,it’salreadybeencalled.TheimperiousWesthasspentfivecenturieslookingdownitsnoseattheplightofthoselivingwithinthepaleoftropicaldisease,andonewondershowthatwillchangewhenmosquitoescarryingmalariaanddengueareflyingthroughthestreetsofCopenhagenandChicago,too.Butwehave forso longunderstoodstoriesaboutnatureasallegories

thatweseemunabletorecognize that themeaningofclimatechange isnot sequestered in parable. It encompasses us; in a very real way itgovernsus—ourcropyields,ourpandemics,ourmigrationpatternsandcivilwars,crimewavesanddomesticassaults,hurricanesandheatwavesand rain bombs andmegadroughts, the shape of our economic growthandeverythingthatflowsdownstreamfromit,whichtodaymeansnearlyeverything.Eighthundredmillion inSouthAsia alone, theWorldBanksays,wouldsee their livingconditionssharplydiminishby2050on thecurrentemissionstrack,andperhapsaclimateslowdownwillevenrevealthebountyofwhatAndreasMalmcallsfossilcapitalismtobeanillusion,sustainedoverjustafewcenturiesbythearithmeticofaddingtheenergyvalueofburnedfossilfuelstowhathadbeen,beforewoodandcoalandoil,aneternalMalthusiantrap.Inwhichcase,wewouldhavetoretiretheintuition that history will inevitably extractmaterial progress from theplanet, at least in any reliable or global pattern, and come to terms,somehow,with justhowpervasively that intuition ruled evenour innerlives,oftentyrannically.Adaptationtoclimatechangeisoftenviewedintermsofmarkettrade-

offs, but in the coming decades the trade will work in the oppositedirection, with relative prosperity a benefit of more aggressive action.Everydegreeofwarming,it’sbeenestimated,costsatemperatecountryliketheUnitedStatesaboutonepercentagepointofGDP,andaccordingtoonerecentpaper,at1.5degreestheworldwouldbe$20trillionricherthanat2degrees.Turnthedialupanotherdegreeortwo,andthecostsballoon—the compound interest of environmental catastrophe. 3.7degrees of warming would produce $551 trillion in damages, researchsuggests;totalworldwidewealthistodayabout$280trillion.Ourcurrentemissions trajectory takes us over 4 degrees by 2100;multiply that bythat 1 percent ofGDPand youhave almost entirelywipedout the verypossibilityofeconomicgrowth,whichhasnottopped5percentgloballyinoverfortyyears.Afringegroupofalarmedacademicscallthisprospect“steady-state economics,” but it ultimately suggests a more completeretreat fromeconomicsasanorientingbeacon,and fromgrowthas thelingua franca throughwhichmodern life launders all of its aspirations.“Steady-state”alsogivesanametothecreepingpanicthathistorymaybelessprogressive,aswe’vecometobelievereallyonlyoverthelastseveralcenturies, than cyclical, aswewere sure it was for themanymillennia

before.Morethanthat:inthevisionsteady-stateeconomicsprojectsofastate-of-nature competitive scramble, everything from politics to tradeandwarseemsbrutallyzero-sum.

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For centurieswe have looked to nature as amirror ontowhich to firstproject,thenobserve,ourselves.Butwhatisthemoral?Thereisnothingto learn fromglobalwarming, becausewedonothave the time, or thedistance,tocontemplateitslessons;weareafterallnotmerelytellingthestory but living it. That is, trying to; the threat is immense. Howimmense?One2018papersketchesthemathinhorrifyingdetail.InthejournalNature Climate Change, a team led by Drew Shindell tried toquantify thesuffering thatwouldbeavoided ifwarmingwaskept to1.5degrees, rather than 2 degrees—in other words, how much additionalsufferingwouldresult fromjust thatadditionalhalf-degreeofwarming.Theiranswer:150millionmorepeoplewoulddiefromairpollutionaloneina2-degreewarmerworldthanina1.5-degreewarmerone.Laterthatyear, theIPCCraised thestakes further: in thegapbetween1.5degreesand2,itsaid,hundredsofmillionsofliveswereatstake.Numbers that large can be hard to grasp, but 150 million is the

equivalent of twenty-five Holocausts. It is three times the size of thedeathtollof theGreatLeapForward—the largestnonmilitarydeathtollhumanityhaseverproduced.Itismorethantwicethegreatestdeathtollofanykind,WorldWarII.Thenumbersdon’tbegintoclimbonlywhenwehit1.5degrees,ofcourse.Asshouldnotsurpriseyou,theyarealreadyaccumulating,atarateofatleastsevenmilliondeaths,fromairpollutionalone,eachyear—anannualHolocaust,pursuedandprosecutedbywhatbrandofnihilism?This is what is meant when climate change is called an “existential

crisis”—a drama we are now haphazardly improvising between twohellishpoles,inwhichourbest-caseoutcomeisdeathandsufferingatthescaleof twenty-fiveHolocausts, and theworst-caseoutcomeputsusonthebrinkofextinction.Rhetoricoftenfailsusonclimatebecausetheonlyfactually appropriate language is of a kind we’ve been trained, by abuoyantcultureofsunny-side-upoptimism, todismiss,categorically,ashyperbole.

Here,thefactsarehysterical,andthedimensionsofthedramathatwillplay out between those poles incomprehensibly large—large enough toenclose not just all of present-day humanity but all of our possiblefutures, as well. Global warming has improbably compressed into twogenerations the entire story of human civilization. First, the project ofremaking the planet so that it is undeniably ours, a project whoseexhaust, the poison of emissions, now casually works its way throughmillennia of ice so quickly you can see the melt with a naked eye,destroying the environmental conditions that have held stable andsteadily governed for literally all of human history. That has been theworkofasinglegeneration.Thesecondgenerationfacesaverydifferenttask: the project of preserving our collective future, forestalling thatdevastation and engineering an alternate path. There is simply noanalogytodrawon,outsideofmythologyandtheology—andperhapstheColdWarprospectofmutuallyassureddestruction.Fewfeellikegodsinthefaceofwarming,butthatthetotalityofclimate

changeshouldmakeusfeelsopassive—thatisanotherofitsdelusions.Infolklore and comic books and church pews andmovie theaters, storiesabout the fate of the earth often perversely counsel passivity in theiraudiences,andperhapsitshouldnotsurpriseusthatthethreatofclimatechangeisnodifferent.BytheendoftheColdWar,theprospectofnuclearwinter had clouded every corner of our pop culture and psychology, apervasivenightmarethatthehumanexperimentmightbebroughttoanendbytwojoustingsetsofproud,rivalroustacticians, justa fewsetsoftwitchyhandshoveringovertheplanet’sself-destructbuttons.Thethreatofclimatechangeismoredramaticstill,andultimatelymoredemocratic,with responsibility sharedby eachof us even aswe shiver in fear of it;and yet we have processed that threat only in parts, typically notconcretelyorexplicitly,displacingcertainanxietiesandinventingothers,choosingtoignorethebleakestfeaturesofourpossiblefutureandlettingour political fatalism and technological faith blur, as thoughwe’d gonecross-eyed, into a remarkably familiar consumer fantasy: that someoneelsewillfixtheproblemforus,atnocost.Thosemorepanickedareoftenhardlylesscomplacent,livinginsteadthroughclimatefatalismasthoughitwereclimateoptimism.Over the last few years, as the planet’s own environmental rhythms

have seemed to grow more fatalistic, skeptics have found themselves

arguingnot thatclimatechange isn’thappening, sinceextremeweatherhas made that undeniable, but that its causes are unclear—suggestingthatthechangesweareseeingaretheresultofnaturalcyclesratherthanhumanactivitiesand interventions. It isaverystrangeargument; if theplanetiswarmingataterrifyingpaceandonahorrifyingscale,itshouldtransparently concern us more, rather than less, that the warming isbeyondourcontrol,possiblyevenourcomprehension.Thatweknowglobalwarmingisourdoingshouldbeacomfort,nota

causefordespair,howeverincomprehensivelylargeandcomplicatedwefindtheprocessesthathavebroughtit intobeing;thatweknowweare,ourselves, responsible for all of its punishing effects should beempowering, and not just perversely. Global warming is, after all, ahuman invention. And the flip side of our real-time guilt is that weremain in command. Nomatter how out-of-control the climate systemseems—withitsroilingtyphoons,unprecedentedfaminesandheatwaves,refugee crises and climate conflicts—we are all its authors. And stillwriting.Some, like our oil companies and their political patrons, are more

prolificauthorsthanothers.Buttheburdenofresponsibilityistoogreatto be shouldered by a few, however comforting it is to think all that isneededisforafewvillainstofall.Eachofusimposessomesufferingonourfutureselveseverytimewefliponalightswitch,buyaplaneticket,or fail tovote.Nowweallshare theresponsibility towrite thenextact.We found a way to engineer devastation, and we can find a way toengineer our way out of it—or, rather, engineer our way toward adegradedmuddle,butonethatneverthelessextendsforwardthepromiseofnewgenerationsfindingtheirownwayforward,perhapstowardsomebrighterenvironmentalfuture.Since I first began writing about warming, I’ve often been asked

whether I see any reason for optimism. The thing is, I am optimistic.Giventheprospectthathumanscouldengineeraclimatethatis6oreven8 degrees warmer over the course of the next several centuries—largeswaths of the planet unlivable by any definition we use today—thatdegradedmuddlecounts,forme,asanencouragingfuture.Warmingof3or 3.5 degrees would unleash suffering beyond anything that humanshave ever experienced throughmanymillennia of strain and strife andall-outwar.Butitisnotafatalisticscenario;infact,it’sawholelotbetter

thanwhereweareheaded.Andintheformofcarboncapturetechnology,whichwould extract CO2 from the air, or geoengineering,whichwouldcool the planet by suspending gas in the atmosphere, or other now-unfathomable innovations,wemay conjure new solutions,which couldbringtheplanetclosertoastatewewouldtodayregardasmerelygrim,ratherthanapocalyptic.I’ve also often been asked whether it’s moral to reproduce in this

climate,whetherit’sresponsibletohavechildren,whetheritisfairtotheplanetor,perhapsmoreimportant,tothechildren.Asithappens,inthecourseofwritingthisbook,Ididhaveachild,Rocca.Partofthatchoicewas delusion, that same willful blindness: I know there are climatehorrorstocome,someofwhichwillinevitablybevisitedonmychildren—thatiswhatitmeansforwarmingtobeanall-encompassing,all-touchingthreat. But those horrors are not yet scripted.We are staging them byinaction,andbyactioncanstopthem.Climatechangemeanssomebleakprospects for the decades ahead, but I don’t believe the appropriateresponsetothatchallengeiswithdrawal,issurrender.Ithinkyouhavetodo everything you can to make the world accommodate dignified andflourishinglife,ratherthangivingupearly,beforethefighthasbeenlostorwon,andacclimatingyourselftoadrearyfuturebroughtintobeingbyotherslessconcernedaboutclimatepain.Thefightis,definitively,notyetlost—in fact will never be lost, so long as we avoid extinction, becausehoweverwarmtheplanetgets,itwillalwaysbethecasethatthedecadethatfollowscouldcontainmoresufferingorless.AndIhavetoadmit,Iamalso excited, for everything thatRocca andher sisters andbrotherswillsee,willwitness,willdo.Shewillhitherchild-rearingyearsaround2050,whenwecouldhaveclimaterefugeesinthemanytensofmillions;she will be entering old age at the close of the century, the end-stagebookmark on all of our projections for warming. In between, she willwatchtheworlddoingbattlewithagenuinelyexistentialthreat,andthepeople of her generation making a future for themselves, and thegenerations theybring intobeing,on thisplanet.Andshewon’t justbewatching it, she will be living it—quite literally the greatest story evertold.Itmaywellbringahappyending.Whatcauseisthereforhope?Carbonhangsintheairfordecades,with

someof themost terrifying feedbacksunspoolingovereven longer timehorizons—which gives warming the eerie shimmer of an unending

menace.But climatechange isnotanancient crimeweare taskedwithsolvingnow;wearedestroyingourplaneteveryday,oftenwithonehandasweconspiretorestoreitwiththeother.Whichmeans,asPaulHawkenhasperhapsillustratedmostcoolheadedly,wecanalsostopdestroyingit,in the same style—collectively, haphazardly, in all the most quotidianways in addition to the spectacular-seeming ones. The project ofunplugging the entire industrialworld from fossil fuels is intimidating,andmustbedoneinfairlyshortorder—by2040,manyscientistssay.Butin themeantimemany avenues are open—wide open, ifwe are not toolazyandtooblinkeredandtooselfishtoembarkuponthem.Fully half of British emissions, itwas recently calculated, come from

inefficiencies in construction, discarded and unused food, electronics,and clothing; two-thirds of American energy is wasted; globally,accordingtoonepaper,wearesubsidizingthefossilfuelbusinesstothetuneof$5trillioneachyear.Noneofthathastocontinue.Slow-walkingactiononclimate,anotherpaperfound,willcosttheworld$26trillionbyjust2030.Thatdoesnothavetocontinue.Americanswasteaquarteroftheirfood,whichmeansthatthecarbonfootprintoftheaveragemealisathird larger than it has to be. That need not continue. Five years ago,hardlyanyoneoutsidethedarkestcornersoftheinternethadevenheardofBitcoin;todayminingitconsumesmoreelectricitythanisgeneratedbyall the world’s solar panels combined, which means that in just a fewyears we’ve assembled, out of distrust of one another and the nationsbehind“fiatcurrencies,”aprogramtowipeoutthegainsofseverallong,hardgenerationsof greenenergy innovation. Itdidnothave tobe thatway.Andasimplechange to thealgorithmcouldeliminate thatBitcoinfootprintentirely.Theseare justa fewof thereasons tobelieve thatwhat theCanadian

activistStuartParkerhascalled“climatenihilism”is, infact,anotherofourdelusions.Whathappens,fromhere,willbeentirelyourowndoing.Theplanet’sfuturewillbedeterminedinlargepartbythearcofgrowthin the developingworld—that’swheremost of the people are, inChinaandIndiaand,increasingly,sub-SaharanAfrica.Butthisisnoabsolutionfor the West, where the average citizen produces many times moreemissionsthanalmostanyoneinAsia,justoutofhabit.Itossouttonsofwasted food and hardly ever recycle; I leavemy air-conditioning on; IboughtintoBitcoinatthepeakofthemarket.Noneofthatisnecessary,

either.But it also isn’tnecessary forWesterners to adopt the lifestyle of the

global poor. Seventy percent of the energy produced by the planet, it’sestimated,islostaswasteheat.IftheaverageAmericanwereconfinedbythecarbonfootprintofherEuropeancounterpart,U.S.carbonemissionswould fall by more than half. If the world’s richest 10 percent werelimitedtothatsamefootprint,globalemissionswouldfallbyathird.Andwhyshouldn’ttheybe?Almostasaprophylacticagainstclimateguilt,asthe news from science has grown bleaker, Western liberals havecomfortedthemselvesbycontortingtheirownconsumptionpatternsintoperformancesofmoralorenvironmentalpurity—lessbeef,moreTeslas,fewertransatlanticflights.Buttheclimatecalculusissuchthatindividuallifestylechoicesdonotadduptomuch,unlesstheyarescaledbypolitics.America’s rump climate party aside, that scaling should not beimpossible, oncewe understand the stakes. In fact, the stakesmean, itmustnotbe.

—

Annihilation isonly thevery thin tailofwarming’svery longbellcurve,and there isnothingstoppingus fromsteeringclearof it.Butwhat liesbetween us and extinction is horrifying enough, and we have not yetbeguntocontemplatewhatitmeanstoliveunderthoseconditions—whatitwilldotoourpoliticsandourcultureandouremotionalequilibria,oursenseofhistory andour relationship to it, our senseofnature andourrelationship to it, that we are living in a world degraded by our ownhands,with thehorizonofhumanpossibilitydramaticallydimmed.Wemayyetseeaclimatedeusexmachina—or,rather,wemayyetbuildone,in the form of carbon capture technology or geoengineering, or in theformofa revolution in thewaywegeneratepower, electricorpolitical.But thatsolution, if itcomesatall,willemergeagainstableakhorizon,darkenedbyouremissionsasifbyglaucoma.Especially those who have imbibed several centuries of Western

triumphalismtendtoseethestoryofhumancivilizationasaninevitableconquest of the earth, rather than the saga of an insecure culture, likemold, growing haphazardly and unsurely upon it. That fragility, whichpervades now everything humansmight do on this planet, is the great

existentialinsightofglobalwarming,butitisonlybeginningtoshakeourtriumphalism—though,ifwehadstoppedtocontemplatethepossibilitiesagenerationago,itprobablywouldnotsurpriseustoseeanewformofpolitical nihilism emerging in the region of the world already bakedhardestbyglobalwarming,theMiddleEast,andexpressedtherethroughsuicidal spasms of theological violence. That region was once called,grandly, “the cradle of civilization.” Today, political nihilism radiatesalmost everywhere, through the many cultures that arose, branching,fromMiddleEastern roots.We have all already left behind the narrowwindowof environmental conditions that allowed thehumananimal toevolve in the first place, but not just evolve—thatwindowhas enclosedeverythingwerememberashistory,andvalueasprogress,andstudyaspolitics.Whatwillitmeantoliveoutsidethatwindow,probablyquitefaroutsideit?Thatreckoningisthesubjectofthisbook.

—

None of it is news. The science that makes up the following twelvechapters has been culled from interviews with dozens of experts, andfromhundredsofpaperspublishedinthebestacademicjournalsovertheprevious decade or so. Since it is science, it is tentative, ever-evolving,andsomeofthepredictionsthatfollowwillsurelynotcomepreciselytopass. But it is an honest and fair portrait of the state of our collectiveunderstanding of the many multiplying threats that a warming planetposestoallofuspresentlylivingonit,andhopingwemaycontinuetodoso,inanindefiniteandundisturbedway.Littleofitisabout“nature”perse,andnoneconcernsthetragicfateof

the planet’s animals, which has been written about so elegantly andpoeticallybyothersthat,likeoursea-levelmyopia,itthreatenstooccludeour picture of what global warming means for us, the human animal.Until now, it seems to have been easier for us to empathize with theclimate plight of other species than our own, perhaps becausewe havesuchahardtimeacknowledgingorunderstandingourownresponsibilityand complicity in the changes now unfolding, and such an easier timeevaluatingthemorallysimplercalculusofpurevictimhood.Whatfollowsisinsteadakaleidoscopicaccountingofthehumancosts

ofhumanlifecontinuingasithasforageneration,whichwillfillupthe

planetwithonlymorehumans—whatongoingglobalwarmingspellsforpublic health, for conflict, for politics and food production and popculture,forurbanlifeandmentalhealthandthewayweimagineourownfuturesaswebegintoperceive,allaroundus,anaccelerationofhistoryand the diminishing of possibility that acceleration likely brings. Theforceofretributionwillcascadedowntousthroughnature,butthecosttonatureisonlyonepartofthestory;wewillallbehurting.Imaybeintheminorityinfeelingthattheworldcouldlosemuchofwhatwethinkofas“nature,”asfarasIcared,solongaswecouldgoonlivingaswehaveintheworldleftbehind.Theproblemis,wecan’t.

II

ElementsofChaos

H

HeatDeath

umans,likeallmammals,areheatengines;survivingmeanshavingto continually cool off, as panting dogs do. For that, the

temperature needs to be low enough for the air to act as a kind ofrefrigerant,drawingheatofftheskinsotheenginecankeeppumping.Atsevendegreesofwarming,thatwouldbecomeimpossibleforportionsoftheplanet’sequatorialband,andespecially the tropics,wherehumidityadds to the problem.And the effectwould be fast: after a few hours, ahumanbodywouldbecookedtodeathfrombothinsideandout.At eleven or twelve degrees Celsius of warming, more than half the

world’spopulation,asdistributedtoday,woulddieofdirectheat.Thingsalmostcertainlywon’tgetthathotanytimesoon,thoughsomemodelsofunabatedemissionsdobringusthatfareventually,overcenturies.Butatjustfivedegrees,accordingtosomecalculations,wholepartsoftheglobewouldbeliterallyunsurvivableforhumans.Atsix,summerlaborofanykind would become impossible in the lower Mississippi Valley, andeverybody in the United States east of the Rockies would suffer morefrom heat than anyone, anywhere, in the world today. New York Citywould be hotter than present-day Bahrain, one of the planet’s hottestspots, and the temperature in Bahrain “would induce hyperthermia inevensleepinghumans.”Fiveor sixdegrees isunlikelyby2100.The IPCC furnishesuswitha

median prediction of over four degrees, should we continue down thecurrent emissions path. That would deliver what today seems likeunthinkableimpacts—wildfiresburningsixteentimesasmuchlandintheAmericanWest,hundredsofdrownedcities.Citiesnowhometomillions,across India and the Middle East, would become so hot that steppingoutsideinsummerwouldbealethalrisk—infact,theywillbecomethat

waymuch sooner,withas little as twodegreesofwarming.Youdonotneedtoconsiderworst-casescenariostobecomealarmed.With direct heat, the key factor is something called “wet-bulb

temperature,”which alsomeasures humidity in a combinedmethod ashome-laboratory-kit as it sounds: the temperature is registered on athermometerwrappedinadampsockasit’sswungaroundintheair.Atpresent, most regions reach a wet-bulbmaximum of 26 or 27 degreesCelsius; the true red line for habitability is 35 degrees, beyond whichhumansbeginsimplydyingfromtheheat.Thatleavesagapof8degrees.Whatiscalled“heatstress”comesmuchsooner.Actually,we’retherealready.Since1980,theplanethasexperienceda

fiftyfold increase in the number of dangerous heat waves; a biggerincrease is to come. The five warmest summers in Europe since 1500have all occurred since 2002, and eventually, the IPCC warns, simplyworkingoutdoorsat that timeofyearwillbeunhealthy forpartsof theglobe.EvenifwemeettheParisgoals,citieslikeKarachiandKolkatawillannually encounter deadly heat waves like those that crippled them in2015,whenheatkilledthousandsinIndiaandPakistan.Atfourdegrees,thedeadlyEuropeanheatwaveof2003,whichkilledasmanyas2,000people a day, will be a normal summer. Then, it was one of the worstweather events in Continental history, killing 35,000 Europeans,including 14,000 French; perversely, the infirm fared relatively well,William Langewiesche has written, most of them watched over in thenursinghomes andhospitals of thosewell-off countries, and itwas thecomparativelyhealthyelderlywhoaccountedformostofthedead,manyleftbehindbyvacationingfamiliesescapingtheheat,withsomecorpsesrottingforweeksbeforethefamiliesreturned.Itwillgetworse.Inthat“businessasusual”scenario,aresearchteam

ledbyEthanCoffelcalculatedin2017,thenumberofdayswarmerthanwhatwereonce thewarmestdaysof the year couldgrowbya factorof100 by 2080. Possibly by a factor of 250. The metric Coffel uses is“person-days”:aunit thatcombines thenumberofpeopleaffectedwiththe number of days. Every year, there would be between 150 and 750million person-days with wet-bulb temperatures equivalent to today’smost severe—i.e., quite deadly—heat waves. There would be a millionperson-days each year with intolerable wet-bulb temperatures—combinations of heat and humidity beyond the human capacity for

survival. By the end of the century, theWorldBankhas estimated, thecoolest months in tropical South America, Africa, and the Pacific arelikelytobewarmerthanthewarmestmonthsattheendofthetwentiethcentury.We had heat waves back then, of course, deadly ones; in 1998, the

Indian summer killed 2,500. More recently, temperature spikes havegottenhotter.In2010,55,000diedinaRussianheatwavethatkilled700people inMoscow each day. In 2016, in themidst of a heat wave thatbaked theMiddle East for severalmonths, temperatures in Iraq broke100 degrees Fahrenheit in May, 110 in June, and 120 in July, withtemperaturesdippingbelow100,mostdays,onlyatnight.(AShiiteclericinNajafproclaimedtheheatwastheresultofanelectromagneticattackonthecountrybyAmericanforces,accordingtoTheWallStreetJournal,andsomestatemeteorologistsagreed.)In2018,thehottesttemperaturelikely ever recorded in April was registered in southeast Pakistan. InIndia,asingledayover95degreesFahrenheitincreasesannualmortalityratesbythree-quartersofapercent;in2016,astringofdaystopped120—inMay. InSaudiArabia,wheresummer temperaturesoftenapproachthatmark, 700,000 barrels of oil are burned each day in the summer,mostlytopowerthenation’sair-conditioning.That can helpwith the heat, of course, but air conditioners and fans

already account for fully 10 percent of global electricity consumption.Demandisexpectedtotriple,orperhapsquadruple,by2050;accordingto one estimate, theworldwill be adding 700million AC units by just2030. Another study suggests that by 2050 there will be, around theworld,more than nine billion cooling appliances of various kinds. But,theclimate-controlledmallsoftheArabemiratesaside,itisnotremotelyeconomical, let alone “green,” towholesale air-condition all the hottestpartsoftheplanet,manyofthemalsothepoorest.Andindeed,thecrisiswillbemostdramaticacrosstheMiddleEastandPersianGulf,wherein2015 the heat index registered temperatures as high as 163 degreesFahrenheit. As soon as several decades fromnow, the hajjwill becomephysicallyimpossibleformanyofthetwomillionMuslimswhocurrentlymakethepilgrimageeachyear.Itisnotjustthehajj,anditisnotjustMecca.Inthesugarcaneregion

ofElSalvador,asmuchasone-fifthof thepopulation—includingoveraquarterof themen—haschronickidneydisease, thepresumedresultof

dehydration from working the fields they were able to comfortablyharvestasrecentlyastwodecadesago.Withdialysis,whichisexpensive,those with kidney failure can expect to live five years; without it, lifeexpectancyismeasuredinweeks.Ofcourse,heatstresspromisestoassailus inplacesother thanourkidneys, too.As I type that sentence, in theCaliforniadesertinmid-June,itis121degreesoutsidemydoor.Itisnotarecordhigh.

—

This is among the things cosmologistsmean when they talk about theutter improbability of anything as advanced as human intelligenceevolvinganywhereinauniverseasinhospitabletolifeasthisone:everyuninhabitableplanetoutthereisareminderof justhowuniqueasetofcircumstancesisrequiredtoproduceaclimateequilibriumsupportiveoflife. No intelligent life that we know of ever evolved, anywhere in theuniverse, outside of the narrow Goldilocks range of temperatures thatenclosed all of human evolution, and that we have now left behind,probablypermanently.How much hotter will it get? The question may sound scientific,

invitingexpertise,buttheanswer isalmostentirelyhuman—whichis tosay, political. The menace of climate change is a mercurial one;uncertaintymakesitashape-shiftingthreat.Whenwilltheplanetwarmbytwodegrees,andwhenbythree?Howmuchsea-levelrisewillbehereby2030,by2050,by2100,asourchildrenareleavingtheearthtotheirchildrenandgrandchildren?Whichcitieswillflood,whichforestswilldryout,whichbreadbasketswill becomehusks?Thatuncertainty is amongthemostmomentousmetanarrativesthatclimatechangewillbringtoourculture over the next decades—an eerie lack of clarity about what theworldweliveinwillevenlooklike,justadecadeortwodowntheroad,when we will still be living in the same homes and paying the samemortgages, watching the same television shows andmaking appeals tomanyofthesamejusticesoftheSupremeCourt.Butwhilethereareafewthingssciencedoesnotknowabouthowtheclimatesystemwillrespondtoallthecarbonwe’vepumpedintotheair,theuncertaintyofwhatwillhappen—that haunting uncertainty—emerges not from scientificignorance but, overwhelmingly, from the open question of how we

respond.Thatis,principally,howmuchmorecarbonwedecidetoemit,which is not a question for the natural sciences but the human ones.Climatologists can, today, predict with uncanny accuracy where ahurricane will hit, and at what intensity, as much as a week out fromlandfall;thisisnotjustbecausethemodelsaregoodbutbecausealltheinputsareknown.Whenitcomestoglobalwarming,themodelsarejustasgood,butthekeyinputisamystery:Whatwillwedo?Thelessonsthereareunfortunatelybleak.Three-quartersofacentury

sinceglobalwarmingwasfirstrecognizedasaproblem,wehavemadenomeaningful adjustment to our production or consumption of energy toaccount for it and protect ourselves. For far too long, casual climateobservershavewatchedscientistsdrawpathwaystoastableclimateandconcludedthattheworldwouldadaptaccordingly;instead,theworldhasdonemoreor lessnothing,as though thosepathwayswould implementthemselves. Market forces have delivered cheaper and more widelyavailablegreenenergy,butthesamemarketforceshaveabsorbedthoseinnovations,whichistosayprofitedfromthem,whilecontinuingtogrowemissions.Politicshasproducedgesturesoftremendousglobalsolidarityand cooperation, then discarded those promises immediately. It hasbecomecommonplaceamongclimateactiviststosaythatwehave,today,all the toolswe need to avoid catastrophic climate change—evenmajorclimate change. It is also true. But political will is not some trivialingredient, always at hand.We have the tools we need to solve globalpoverty,epidemicdisease,andabuseofwomen,aswell.Itwasasrecentas2016thatthecelebratedParisclimateaccordswere

adopted—definingtwodegreesofglobalwarmingasamust-meettargetandrallyingalltheworld’snationstomeetit—andthereturnsarealreadydispiritingly grim. In 2017, carbon emissions grew by 1.4 percent,accordingtotheInternationalEnergyAgency,afteranambiguouscoupleofyearsoptimistshadhopedrepresentedaleveling-off,orpeak;instead,we’re climbing again. Even before the new spike, not a single majorindustrialnationwasontracktofulfill thecommitments itmadeintheParis treaty. Of course, those commitments only get us down to 3.2degrees; to keep the planet under 2 degrees of warming, all signatorynationshavetosignificantlybettertheirpledges.Atpresent,thereare195signatories,ofwhichonlythefollowingareconsideredeven“inrange”oftheir Paris targets: Morocco, Gambia, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia,

India, and the Philippines. This puts Donald Trump’s commitment towithdraw from the treaty in a useful perspective; in fact, his spitemayultimatelyproveperverselyproductive,sincetheevacuationofAmericanleadershiponclimateseemstohavemobilizedChina—givingXiJinpingan opportunity and an enticement to adopt a much more aggressiveposture towardclimate.Ofcourse thoserenewedChinesecommitmentsare,atthispoint,justrhetorical,too;thecountryalreadyhastheworld’slargestfootprint,andinthefirstthreemonthsof2018itsemissionsgrewby4percent.Chinacommandshalfof theplanet’s coal-powercapacity,withplantsthatonlyoperate,onaverage,halfofthetime—whichmeanstheir use could quickly grow. Globally, coal power has nearly doubledsince2000.According tooneanalysis, if theworldasawhole followedtheChineseexample,itwouldbringfivedegreesofwarmingby2100.In 2018, the United Nations predicted that at the current emissions

ratetheworldwouldpass1.5degreesby2040,ifnotsooner;accordingtothe 2017 National Climate Assessment, even if global carbonconcentration was immediately stabilized, we should expectmore thanhalf a degree Celsius of additional warming to come. Which is whystayingbelow2degreesprobablyrequiresnotjustcarbonscale-backbutwhat are called “negative emissions.” These tools come in two forms:technologies that would suck carbon out of the air (called CCS, for“carbon capture and storage”) and new approaches to forestry andagriculturethatwoulddothesame,inaslightlymoreold-fashionedway(bioenergywithcarboncaptureandstorage,or“BECCS”).According to a raft of recent papers, both are something close to

fantasy, at least at present. In 2018, the European Academies’ ScienceAdvisory Council found that existing negative-emissions technologieshave “limited realistic potential” to even slow the increase inconcentration of carbon in the atmosphere—let alone meaningfullyreducethatconcentration.In2018,NaturedismissedallscenariosbuiltonCCSas“magicalthinking.”Itisnotevensopleasanttoengageinthatthinking.Thereisnotmuchcarbonintheair,alltold,just410partspermillion, but it is everywhere, and so relying on carbon capture globallycould require large-scale scrubbing plantations nearly everywhere onEarth—theplanettransformedintosomethinglikeanair-recyclingplantorbiting the sun, an industrial satellite tracing a parabola through thesolar system. (This is not what Barbara Ward or Buckminster Fuller

meant by “spaceship earth.”) And while advances are sure to come,bringingcostsdownandmakingmoreefficientmachines,wecan’twaitmuch longer for that progress; we simply don’t have the time. Oneestimate suggests that, to have hopes of two degrees, we need to opennewfull-scalecarboncaptureplantsatthepaceofoneandahalfperdayeverydayforthenextseventyyears.In2018,theworldhadeighteenofthem,total.Thisisnotgood,butindifferenceisunfortunatelynothingnewwhenit

comestoclimate.Projectingfuturewarmingisafoolishgame,givenhowmany layers of uncertainty govern the outcome; but if a best-casescenario is now somewhere between 2 and 2.5 degrees of warming by2100,itseemsthatthelikeliestoutcome,thefattestpartofthebellcurveofprobability,sitsatabout3degrees,orjustabitabove.Probablyeventhat amount of warming would require significant negative-emissionsuse,giventhatouruseofcarbonisstillgrowing.Andthereisalsosomerisk from scientific uncertainty, the possibility that we areunderestimatingtheeffectsofthosefeedbackloopsinnaturalsystemsweonlypoorlyunderstand.Conceivably,ifthoseprocessesaretriggered,wecould hit 4 degrees of warming by 2100, even with a meaningfulreduction in emissions over the coming decades. But the track recordsinceKyotoimpliesthathumanshortsightednessmakesitunproductivetoofferpredictionsaboutwhatwillhappen,whenitcomestoemissionsandwarming;better toconsiderwhatcouldhappen.Thesky is literallythelimit.

—

Cities,wheretheworldwilloverwhelmingly liveinthenearfuture,onlymagnify the problem of high temperature. Asphalt and concrete andeverything else thatmakes a city dense, including human flesh, absorbambientheat, essentially storing it fora time likea slow-releasepoisonpill; this is especially problematic because, in a heat wave, nightlyreprievesarevital,allowingbodiestorecover.Whenthosereprievesareshorter, and shallower, flesh simply continues to simmer. In fact, theconcrete and asphalt of cities absorb somuchheat during the day thatwhenitisreleased,atnight,itcanraisethelocaltemperatureasmuchas22 degrees Fahrenheit, turning what could be bearably hot days into

deadly ones—as in the Chicago heat wave of 1995, which killed 739people, the direct-heat effects compounded by broken public healthinfrastructure. That commonly cited figure only reflects immediatedeaths; of the many thousands more who visited hospitals during theheat wave, almost half died within the year. Others merely sufferedpermanent brain damage. Scientists call this the “heat island” effect—eachcityitsownenclosedspace,andhotterthemorecrowdeditis.Of course, the world is rapidly urbanizing, with the United Nations

estimating that two-thirds of the global populationwill live in cities by2050—2.5billionnewurbanites,bythatcount.Foracenturyormore,thecityhas seemed like a visionof the future tomuchof theworld,whichkeeps inventingnew scales ofmetropolis: bigger than5millionpeople,bigger than 10, bigger than 20. Climate change won’t likely slow thatpattern bymuch, but itwillmake the greatmigrations it reflectsmoreperilous,withmanymillionsoftheworld’sambitiousfloodingintocitieswhosecalendarsaredottedwithdaysofdeadlyheat,gathering inthosenewmegalopoliseslikemothstoaflame.Intheory,climatechangecouldevenreversethosemigrations,perhaps

moretotallythancrimedidinmanyAmericancitiesinthelastcentury,turningurbanpopulations in certain parts of theworld outward as thecitiesthemselvesbecomeunbearable.Intheheat,roadsincitieswillmeltand train trackswill buckle—this is actuallyhappeningalready,but theimpactswillmushroom in the decades ahead. Currently, there are 354major cities with average maximum summertime temperatures of 95degreesFahrenheitorhigher.By2050,that list couldgrow to970,andthe number of people living in those cities and exposed to that deadlyheat could grow eightfold, to 1.6 billion. In the United States alone,70,000workershavebeen seriously injuredbyheat since 1992, andby2050, 255,000 are expected to die globally from direct heat effects.Already,asmanyas1billionareatriskforheatstressworldwide,andathird of theworld’s population is subject to deadly heat waves at leasttwentydays each year; by2100, that thirdwill grow tohalf, even ifwemanage to pull up short of two degrees. Ifwe don’t, the number couldclimbtothree-quarters.In theUnited States, heat stroke has a pathetic reputation—a plague

you learn about from summer camp, like swimming cramps. But heatdeathisamongthecruelestpunishmentstoahumanbody,justaspainful

anddisorientingashypothermia.Firstcomes“heatexhaustion,”mostlyamarkofdehydration:profusesweating,nausea,headache.Afteracertainpoint, though, water won’t help, your core temperature rising as yourbodysendsbloodoutwardtotheskin,hopingdesperatelytocoolitdown.The skin often reddens; internal organs begin to fail. Eventually youcould stop sweating. The brain, too, stops working properly, andsometimes,afteraperiodofagitationandcombativeness,theepisodeispunctuatedwitha lethalheartattack.“Whenitcomestoextremeheat,”Langewieschehaswritten,“youcannomoreescapetheconditionsthanyoucanshedyourskin.”

C

Hunger

limatesdifferandplantsvary,butthebasicruleofthumbforstaplecerealcropsgrownatoptimaltemperatureisthatforeverydegreeof

warming,yieldsdeclineby10percent.Someestimatesrunhigher.Whichmeansthatiftheplanetisfivedegreeswarmerattheendofthecentury,when projections suggest we may have as many as 50 percent morepeopleto feed,wemayalsohave50percent lessgraintogivethem.Oreven less, because yields actually decline faster the warmer things get.Andproteinsareworse: it takeseightpoundsofgraintoproduce justasinglepoundofhamburgermeat,butcheredfromacowthatspentitslifewarmingtheplanetwithmethaneburps.Globally,grainaccountsforabout40percentofthehumandiet;when

you add soybeans and corn, you get up to two-thirds of all humancalories.Overall, theUnitedNationsestimates that theplanetwillneednearlytwiceasmuchfoodin2050asitdoestoday—andalthoughthisisaspeculativefigure,it’snotabadone.Pollyannaishplantphysiologistswillpointoutthatthecereal-cropmathappliesonlytothoseregionsalreadyatpeakgrowingtemperature,andtheyareright—theoretically,awarmerclimate will make it easier to grow wheat in Greenland. But as apathbreakingpaperbyRosamondNaylorandDavidBattistipointedout,thetropicsarealreadytoohottoefficientlygrowgrain,andthoseplaceswhere grain is produced today are already at optimal growingtemperature—whichmeansevenasmallwarmingwillpushthemdownaslope of declining productivity. The same, broadly speaking, is true forcorn. At four degrees ofwarming, corn yields in theUnited States, theworld’s top producer of maize, are expected to drop by almost half.Predicted declines are not quite as dramatic in the next three biggestproducers—China,Argentina,Brazil—butineachcasethecountrywould

loseatleastafifthofitsproductivity.Adecadeago,climatologistsmighthave toldyou thatalthoughdirect

heatunderminedplantgrowth,theextracarbonintheatmospherewouldhave the opposite effect—a kind of airborne fertilizer. The effect isstrongestonweeds,though,anddoesnotseemtoholdforgrain.Andathigher concentrations of carbon, plants grow thicker leaves, whichsounds innocuous. But thicker leaves are worse at absorbing CO2, aneffect that means, by the end of the century, as much as 6.39 billionadditionaltonsintheatmosphereeachyear.Beyond carbon, climate change means staple crops are doing battle

withmoreinsects—theirincreasedactivitycouldcutyieldsanadditional2 to4percent—aswell as fungus anddisease,not tomention flooding.Some crops, like sorghum, are a bit more robust, but even in thoseregionswheresuchalternativeshavebeenastaple,theirproductionhasdiminishedrecently;andwhilegrainbreedershavesomehopethattheycanproducemoreheat-tolerant strains, they’vebeen trying fordecadeswithout success. Theworld’s naturalwheat belt ismoving poleward byabout160mileseachdecade,butyoucan’teasilymovecroplandsnorthafewhundredmiles,andnotjustbecauseit’sdifficulttosuddenlycleartheland occupied now by towns, highways, office parks, and industrialinstallations. Yields in places like remote areas of Canada and Russia,eveniftheywarmedbyafewdegrees,wouldbelimitedbythequalityofsoil there, since it takes many centuries for the planet to produceoptimallyfertiledirt.Thelandsthatarefertilearetheoneswearealreadyusing,andtheclimateischangingmuchtoofasttowaitforthenorthernsoil tocatchup.That soil,believe itornot, is literallydisappearing—75billiontonsofsoillosteachyear.IntheUnitedStates,therateoferosionistentimesashighasthenaturalreplenishmentrate;inChinaandIndia,itisthirtytofortytimesasfast.Evenwhenwe try to adapt, wemove too slowly. Economist Richard

Hornbeckspecializes in thehistoryof theAmericanDustBowl;hesaysthatfarmersofthateracouldconceivablyhaveadaptedtothechangingclimate of their time by cultivating different crops. But they didn’t,lacking credit to make the necessary investments—and were thereforeunable to shake inertia and ritual and the rootedness of identity. Soinstead the crops died out, in cascadingwaves crashing throughwhole

Americanstatesandallthepeoplelivinginthem.As it happens, a similar transformation is unfolding in theAmerican

West rightnow. In 1879, thenaturalist JohnWesleyPowell,who spenthis downtime as a soldier during the Battle of Vicksburg studying therocksthatfilledtheUniontrenches,divinedanaturalboundaryrunningdue north along the 100th meridian. It separated the humid—andtherefore cultivatable—natural farmland of what became the Midwestfromthearid,spectacular,but less farmable landof the trueWest.ThedivideranthroughTexas,Oklahoma,Kansas,Nebraska,andtheDakotas,and stretches south into Mexico and north into Manitoba, Canada,separatingmoredenselypopulatedcommunitiesfulloflargefarmsfromsparser, open land that was never truly made valuable by agriculture.Sincejust1980,thatboundaryhasmovedfully140mileseast,almosttothe 98th parallel, drying up hundreds of thousands of squaremiles offarmlandintheprocess.Theplanet’sonlyothersimilarboundaryistheoneseparatingtheSaharadesertfromtherestofAfrica.Thatdeserthasexpandedby10percent,too;inthewinter,thefigureis18percent.

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Theprivileged childrenof the industrializedWesthave long laughed atthepredictionsofThomasMalthus, theBritisheconomistwhobelievedthatlong-termeconomicgrowthwasimpossible,sinceeachbumpercroporepisodeofgrowthwouldultimatelyproducemorechildrentoconsumeorabsorbit—andasaresultthesizeofanypopulation,includingthatoftheplanetasawhole,wasacheckagainstmaterialwell-being.In1968,PaulEhrlichmadeasimilarwarning,updatedforatwenty-first-centuryplanetwithmany timesmorepeopleon it,withhiswidelyderidedThePopulation Bomb, which proposed that the economic and agriculturalproductivityoftheearthhadalreadyreacheditsnaturallimit—andwhichwaspublished,asithappened,justastheproductivitygainsfromwhat’scalled the “green revolution”were coming into focus. That term,whichtodayissometimesusedtodescribeadvancesincleanenergy,firstaroseto name the incredible boom in agricultural yields produced byinnovations in farmingpractices in themiddleof thetwentiethcentury.Inthehalfcenturysince,notonlyhastheworld’spopulationdoubledbutthe fractionofpeople living inextremepovertyhas fallenbya factorof

about six—from justmore than half of humanity to 10 percent. In theworld’sdevelopingcountries,undernourishmenthasdroppedfrommorethan30percentin1970tocloseto10percenttoday.These developments counsel sanguinity in the face of all kinds of

environmentalpressures, and inhis recentbookon themeaningof thetwentieth-century agricultural boom, the writer Charles Mann dividesthose who respond to the seeming challenge of resource scarcity withreflexiveoptimism,whomhecalls“wizards,”fromthosewhoseecollapsealways around the corner, whom he calls “prophets.” But though thegreen revolution seems almost too perfectly conceived and executed torefuteEhrlich’salarmism,Mannhimselfisnotsurewhatthelessonsare.ItmayyetbeabitearlytojudgeEhrlich—orperhapsevenhisgodfather,Malthus—sincenearlyalloftheastonishingproductivitygainsofthelastcenturytracebacktotheworkofasingleman,NormanBorlaug,perhapsthe best argument for the humanitarian virtue of America’s imperialcentury. Born to Iowa family farmers in 1914, he went to state school,found work at DuPont, and then, with the help of the RockefellerFoundation, developed a new collection of high-yield, disease-resistantwheat varieties that are now credited with saving the lives of a billionpeople worldwide. Of course, if those gains were a onetime boost—engineered,inlargepart,byasingleman—howcomfortablycanwecountonfutureimprovements?Theacademictermforthesubjectofthisdebateis“carryingcapacity”:

Howmuchpopulationcanagivenenvironmentultimatelysupportbeforecollapsingordegradingfromoveruse?Butitisonethingtoconsiderwhatmightbethemaximumyieldofaparticularplotofearthandanothertocontemplate how fully that number is governed by environmentalsystems—systemsfarlargerandmorediffuselydeterminedthanevenanimperial wizard like Borlaug could reasonably expect to command andcontrol.Globalwarming, inotherwords, ismore than justone input inan equation to determine carrying capacity; it is the set of conditionsunder which all of our experiments to improve that capacity will beconducted. In this way, climate change appears to be not merely onechallengeamongmanyfacingaplanetalreadystrugglingwithcivilstrifeand war and horrifying inequality and far too many other insolublehardships to iterate, but the all-encompassing stage onwhich all thosechallenges will bemet—awhole sphere, in other words, which literally

containswithinitalloftheworld’sfutureproblemsandallofitspossiblesolutions.Curiously,maddeningly,thesecanbethesame.Thegraphsthatshow

somuchrecentprogressinthedevelopingworld—onpoverty,onhunger,on education and infant mortality and life expectancy and genderrelationsandmore—are,practicallyspeaking,thesamegraphsthattracethedramaticriseinglobalcarbonemissionsthathasbroughttheplanettothebrinkofoverallcatastrophe.Thisisoneaspectofwhatismeantbythe term “climate justice.” Not only is it undeniably the case that thecruelestimpactsofclimatechangewillbebornebythoseleastresilientinthefaceofclimatetragedy,buttoalargedegreewhatcouldbecalledthehumanitariangrowthofthedevelopingworld’smiddleclasssincetheendoftheColdWarhasbeenpaidforbyfossil-fuel-drivenindustrialization—aninvestmentinthewell-beingoftheglobalsouthmadebymortgagingtheecologicalfutureoftheplanet.This is one reason that our global climate fate will be shaped so

overwhelmingly by the development patterns of China and India, whohavethetragicburdenoftryingtobringmanyhundredsofmillionsmoreinto theglobalmiddleclasswhileknowingthat theeasypaths takenbythe nations that industrialized in the nineteenth and even twentiethcenturiesarenowpathstoclimatechaos.Whichisnottosaytheywon’tfollowthemanyway:by2050,milkconsumptioninChinaisexpectedtogrowtotriplethecurrentlevel,thankstothechanging,West-facingtastesofitsemergingconsumerclasses,asingle-itemboominasinglecountrythatisexpected,allbyitself,toincreaseglobalgreenhouse-gasemissionsfromdairyfarmingbyabout35percent.Already, global food production accounts for about a third of all

emissions.Toavoiddangerousclimatechange,Greenpeacehasestimatedthat the world needs to cut itsmeat and dairy consumption in half by2050; everything we know about what happens when countries getwealthiersuggeststhiswillbeclosetoimpossible.Andturningawayfrommilkisonething;turningdowncheapelectrification,automobileculture,or the protein-heavy diets the world’s wealthy rely on to stay thin aremuchbiggerasks. In thepostindustrialWest,we trynot to thinkaboutthesebargains,whichhavebenefitedussoenormously.Whenwedo,itisoftenintheguiltyspiritofwhatcriticKrisBartkushasmemorablycalled“the Malthusian tragic”—namely, our inability to see any remaining

innocence in the quotidian life of the well-to-do West, given thedevastation thatwealth has imposed on theworld of naturalwonder itconqueredandthesufferingofthose,elsewhereontheplanet,leftbehindintheracetoendlessmaterialcomforts.Andasked,functionally,topayforthem.Ofcourse,mosthavenotembracedthattragic,orself-pitying,view.A

state of half-ignorance and half-indifference is a muchmore pervasiveclimate sickness than true denial or true fatalism. It is the subject ofWilliam Vollmann’s grand, two-partCarbon Ideologies, which opens—beyondtheepigraph“Acrimeissomethingsomeoneelsecommits,”fromSteinbeck—like this: “Someday, perhaps not long from now, theinhabitants of a hotter, more dangerous and biologically diminishedplanet than theoneonwhich I livedmaywonderwhat youand Iwerethinking,orwhetherwethoughtatall.”Formuchofthebook’sprologue,hewrites inapasttenserenderedfromanimagined,devastatedfuture.“Ofcoursewedidittoourselves;wehadalwaysbeenintellectuallylazy,andthelessaskedofus,thelesswehadtosay,”hewrites.“Wealllivedformoney,andthatiswhatwediedfor.”

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Droughtmaybeanevenbiggerproblemfor foodproduction thanheat,withsomeoftheworld’smostarablelandturningquicklytodesert.At2degreesofwarming,droughtswillwalloptheMediterraneanandmuchofIndia, andcornandsorghumall around theworldwill suffer, strainingglobal foodsupply.At2.5degrees, thanksmostly todrought, theworldcouldenteraglobal fooddeficit—needingmorecalories thantheplanetcan produce. At 3 degrees, there would be further drought—in CentralAmerica,Pakistan,thewesternUnitedStates,andAustralia.At5degrees,the whole earth would be wrapped in what the environmentalistMarkLynascalls“twoglobe-girdlingbeltsofperennialdrought.”Precipitationisnotoriouslyhardtomodelindetail,yetpredictionsfor

laterthiscenturyarebasicallyunanimous:bothunprecedenteddroughtsand unprecedented flood-producing rains. By 2080, without dramaticreductions inemissions,southernEuropewillbe inpermanentextremedrought,muchworsethantheAmericanDustBowleverwas.Thesamewill be true in Iraq andSyria andmuchof the rest of theMiddleEast;

someofthemostdenselypopulatedpartsofAustralia,Africa,andSouthAmerica; and the breadbasket regions of China. None of these places,whichtodaysupplymuchof theworld’s food,wouldbereliablesourcesgoing forward. As for the original Dust Bowl: the droughts in theAmerican plains and Southwest would not just be worse than in the1930s, a2015NASAstudypredicted,butworse thananydroughts inathousand years—and that includes those that struck between 1100 and1300,whichdriedupall theriverseastof theSierraNevadamountainsandmayhavebeenresponsibleforthedeathoftheAnasazicivilization.Remember,evenwiththeremarkablegainsofthelastdecades,wedo

notpresentlyliveinaworldwithouthunger.Farfromit:mostestimatesputthenumberofundernourishedat800millionglobally,withasmanyas100millionhungrybecauseofclimateshocks.Whatiscalled“hiddenhunger”—micronutrientanddietarydeficiencies—isconsiderablyhigher,affecting well over 1 billion people. The spring of 2017 brought anunprecedented quadruple famine to Africa and the Middle East; theUnitedNationswarnedthatthoseseparatestarvationeventsinSomalia,South Sudan,Nigeria, and Yemen could kill 20million that year. Thatwasasingleyearinasingleregion.Africaistodaystrainingtofeedabout1 billion people, a population expected to quadruple over the course ofthetwenty-firstcenturyto4billion.One hopes these population booms will bring their own Borlaugs,

ideally many of them. And already there are some hints of possibletechnological breakthroughs: China has invested in truly customizedfarming strategies to boost productivity and cut theuse of greenhouse-gas-producing fertilizer; in Britain, a “soil-free startup” announced itsfirst“harvest” in2018; in theUnitedStates,youalreadyhearabout theprospects for vertical farming, which saves farmland by stacking cropsindoors;andlab-grownprotein,whichdoesthesamebyculturingmeatsinside test tubes. But these remain vanguard technologies, distributedunequallyand,beingsoexpensive,unavailablefornowtothemanywhoare most in need. A decade ago, there was great optimism that GMOcrops could produce another green revolution, but today genemodification has been used mostly to make plants more resistant topesticides, pesticides manufactured and sold by the same companiesengineeringthecrops.AndculturalresistancehasgrownsorapidlythatWhole Foods now advertises its house brand of seltzer as “GMO-free

sparklingwater.”Itisfarfromclearhowmuchbenefiteventhoseabletotakeadvantage

ofvanguard techniqueswillbeable toreap.Over thepast fifteenyears,the iconoclastic mathematician Irakli Loladze has isolated a dramaticeffect of carbon dioxide on human nutrition unanticipated by plantphysiologists: itcanmakeplantsbigger,butthosebiggerplantsare lessnutritious. “Every leaf and every grass blade on earthmakesmore andmoresugarsasCO2 levelskeep rising,”Loladze toldPolitico, in a storyabout his work headlined “The Great Nutrient Collapse.” “We arewitnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere inhuman history—[an] injection that dilutes other nutrients in our foodsupply.”Since 1950, much of the good stuff in the plants we grow—protein,

calcium,iron,vitaminC,tonamejustfour—hasdeclinedbyasmuchasone-third,alandmark2004studyshowed.Everythingisbecomingmorelike junkfood.Eventheproteincontentofbeepollenhasdroppedbyathird.The problem has gotten worse as carbon concentrations have gotten

worse. Recently, researchers estimated that by 2050 as many as 150millionpeopleinthedevelopingworldwillbeatriskofproteindeficiencyas the result of nutrient collapse, since so many of the world’s poordependoncrops,ratherthananimalmeat,forprotein;138millioncouldsufferfromadeficiencyofzinc,essentialtohealthypregnancies;and1.4billion could face a dramatic decline in dietary iron—pointing to apossibleepidemicofanemia.In2018,ateamledbyChunwuZhulookedattheproteincontentofeighteendifferentstrainsofrice,thestaplecropformorethan2billionpeople,andfoundthatmorecarbondioxideintheair produced nutritional declines across the board—drops in proteincontent,aswellas in iron, zinc,andvitaminsB1,B2,B5, andB9.ReallyeverythingbutvitaminE.Overall,theresearchersfoundthat,actingjustthroughthatsinglecrop,rice,carbonemissionscouldimperilthehealthof600millionpeople.Inpreviouscenturies,empireswerebuiltonthatcrop.Climatechange

promisesanother,anempireofhunger,erectedamongtheworld’spoor.

T

Drowning

hat the sea will become a killer is a given. Barring a reduction ofemissions, we could see at least four feet of sea-level rise and

possiblyeightbytheendofthecentury.Aradicalreduction—ofthescalethat could make the Paris two-degree goal a conceivably attainable ifquiteoptimistictarget—couldstillproduceasmuchastwometers,orsixfeet,by2100.Perversely, for a generation now, we’ve been comforted by numbers

likethese—whenwethinktheworstthatclimatechangecanbringisanoceanafewfeethigher,anyonewholivesevenashortdistancefromthecoastfeelsliketheycanbreatheeasy.Inthatway,evenalarmistpopularwriting about global warming has been a victim of its own success, sofocused on sea-level rise that it has blinded readers to all the climatescourges beyond the oceans that threaten to terrorize the cominggenerations—directheat,extremeweather,pandemicdisease,andmore.Butas“familiar”assea-levelrisemayseem,itsurelydeservesitsplaceatthecenterofthepictureofwhatdamageclimatechangewillbring.Thatsomany feel already acclimated to the prospect of a near-futureworldwith dramatically higher oceans should be as dispiriting anddisconcerting as if we’d already come to accept the inevitability ofextendednuclearwar—becausethatisthescaleofdevastationtherisingoceanswillunleash.InTheWaterWillCome,JeffGoodell runs through just a fewof the

monuments—indeed, in some cases, whole cultures—that will betransformed intounderwater relics, likesunkenships, thiscentury:anybeach you’ve ever visited; Facebook’s headquarters, theKennedy SpaceCenter,andtheUnitedStates’largestnavalbase,inNorfolk,Virginia;theentire nations of the Maldives and the Marshall Islands; most of

Bangladesh, including all of the mangrove forests that have been thekingdomofBengaltigersformillennia;allofMiamiBeachandmuchofthe South Florida paradise engineered out of marsh and swamp andsandbar by rabid real-estate speculators less than a century ago; SaintMark’s Basilica in Venice, today nearly a thousand years old; VeniceBeach and Santa Monica in Los Angeles; the White House at 1600PennsylvaniaAvenue,aswellasTrump’s“WinterWhiteHouse”atMar-a-Lago, Richard Nixon’s in Key Biscayne, and the original, HarryTruman’s, in Key West. This is a very partial list. We’ve spent themillennia since Plato enamored with the story of a single drownedculture,Atlantis,whichifiteverexistedwasprobablyasmallarchipelagoofMediterraneanislandswithapopulationnumberinginthethousands—possibly tens of thousands. By 2100, if we do not halt emissions, asmuchas5percentoftheworld’spopulationwillbefloodedeverysingleyear.Jakarta isoneof theworld’s fastest-growingcities, todayhome toten million; thanks to flooding and literal sinking, it could be entirelyunderwater as soon as 2050.Already, China is evacuating hundreds ofthousandseverysummertokeepthemoutoftherangeoffloodinginthePearlRiverDelta.Whatwould be submerged by these floods are not just the homes of

thosewhoflee—hundredsofmillionsofnewclimaterefugeesunleashedontoaworldincapable,atthispoint,ofaccommodatingtheneedsofjusta fewmillion—but communities, schools, shoppingdistricts, farmlands,officebuildingsandhigh-rises,regionalculturessosprawlingthatjustafew centuries ago we might have remembered them as empires untothemselves,now suddenlyunderwatermuseums showcasing thewayoflifeintheoneortwocenturieswhenhumans,ratherthankeepingtheirsafedistance,rushedtobuildupatthecoastline.Itwilltakethousandsofyears,perhapsmillions,forquartzandfeldspartodegradeintosandthatmightreplenishthebeacheswelose.Muchoftheinfrastructureoftheinternet,onestudyshowed,couldbe

drowned by sea-level rise in less than two decades; and most of thesmartphonesweusetonavigateitaretodaymanufacturedinShenzhen,which,sittingrightinthePearlRiverDelta,islikelytobefloodedsoon,aswell. In 2018, the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly311,000 homes in the United States would be at risk of chronicinundationby2045—a timespan, as theypointedout,no longer thana

mortgage. By 2100, the number would be more than 2.4 millionproperties, or $1 trillion worth of American real estate—underwater.Climate changemaynotonlymake themiles along theAmerican coastuninsurable,itcouldrenderobsoletetheveryideaofdisasterinsurance;bytheendofthecentury,onerecentstudyshowed,certainplacescouldbe struckby sixdifferent climate-drivendisasters simultaneously. If nosignificant action is taken to curb emissions, one estimate of globaldamagesisashighas$100trillionperyearby2100.ThatismorethanglobalGDPtoday.Mostestimatesareabitlower:$14trillionayear,stillalmostafifthofpresent-dayGDP.Butthefloodingwouldn’tstopattheendofthecentury,sincesea-level

rise would continue for millennia, ultimately producing, in even thatoptimistic two-degree scenario, oceans six meters higher. What wouldthatlooklike?Theplanetwouldloseabout444,000squaremilesofland,whereabout375millionpeoplelivetoday—aquarteroftheminChina.Infact, the twenty citiesmost affected by such sea-level rise are all Asianmegalopolises—among them Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, andKolkata. Which does cast a climate shroud over the prospect, now somuch taken for grantedamong theNostradamusesof geopolitics, of anAsiancentury.Whateverthecourseofclimatechange,Chinawillsurelycontinueitsascent,butitwilldosowhilefightingbacktheocean,aswell—perhapsonereasonitisalreadysofocusedonestablishingcontrolovertheSouthChinaSea.Nearly two-thirdsof theworld’smajor cities areon the coast—not to

mention its power plants, ports, navy bases, farmlands, fisheries, riverdeltas,marshlands,andricepaddies—andeventhoseabovetenfeetwillfloodmuchmoreeasily,andmuchmoreregularly,ifthewatergetsthathigh. Already, flooding has quadrupled since 1980, according to theEuropeanAcademies’ ScienceAdvisory Council, and doubled since just2004.Evenunderan“intermediatelow”sea-level-risescenario,by2100high-tide flooding could hit the East Coast of the United States “everyotherday.”We haven’t even gotten to inland flooding—when rivers run over,

swollenbydelugesofrainorstormsurgeschanneleddownstreamfromthe sea. Between 1995 and 2015, this affected 2.3 billion and killed157,000 around the world. Under even the most radically aggressiveglobal emissions reduction regime, the further warming of the planet

from just the carbonwe’ve alreadypumped into the atmospherewouldincreaseglobalrainfalltosuchadegreethatthenumberaffectedbyriverfloodinginSouthAmericawoulddouble,accordingtoonepaper,from6millionto12million;inAfrica,itwouldgrowfrom24to35million,andin Asia from 70 to 156 million. All told, at just 1.5 degrees Celsius ofwarming,flooddamagewouldincreasebybetween160and240percent;at2degrees,thedeathtollfromfloodingwouldbe50percenthigherthantoday. In the United States, one recent model suggested that FEMA’srecentprojectionsoffloodriskwereoffbyafactorofthree,andthatmorethan40millionAmericanswereatriskofcatastrophicinundation.These effects will come to pass even with a radical reduction of

emissions, keep in mind. Without flood adaptation measures, largeswaths of northern Europe and the whole eastern half of the UnitedStateswillbeaffectedbyatleasttentimesasmanyfloods.Inlargepartsof India, Bangladesh, and Southeast Asia, where flooding is todaycatastrophically common, themultiplier could be just as high—and thebaseline is already so elevated that it annually produces humanitariancrisesonascaleweliketothinkwewouldnotforgetforgenerations.Instead, we forget them immediately. In 2017, floods in South Asia

killed 1,200 people, leaving two thirds of Bangladesh underwater;AntónioGuterres,thesecretary-generaloftheUnitedNations,estimatedthat41millionpeoplehadbeenaffected.Aswithsomuchclimatechangedata,thosenumberscannumb,but41millionisasmuchaseighttimesthe entire global population at the time of the Black Sea deluge 7,600years ago—reputedly so dramatic and catastrophic a flood that it mayhavegivenrisetoourNoah’sArkstory.Atthesametimeasthefloodshitin 2017, almost 700,000 Rohingya refugees fromMyanmar arrived inBangladesh, most of them in a single settlement site that became, inmonths,morepopulous thanLyon,France’s thirdbiggest city, andwaserectedinthepathoflandslidesjustasthenextmonsoonseasonarrived.

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Towhatdegreewewillbeabletoadapttonewcoastlines isprimarilyamatter of just how fast the water rises. Our understanding of thattimeline has been evolving disconcertingly fast. When the ParisAgreementwasdrafted, thosewriting itweresurethat theAntarctic ice

sheetswould remain stable evenas theplanetwarmed severaldegrees;theirexpectationwas thatoceanscould rise,atmost,only three feetbytheendofthecentury.Thatwasjustin2015.Thesameyear,NASAfoundthat this expectation was hopelessly complacent, suggesting three feetwas not a maximum but in fact a minimum. In 2017, the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggested eight feetwaspossible—stilljustinthiscentury.OntheEastCoast,scientistshavealready introduced a new term, “sunny day flooding”—when high tidealone,aidedbynoadditionalrainstorm,inundatesatown.In2018, amajor study found things accelerating faster still,with the

meltrateoftheAntarcticicesheettriplingjustinthepastdecade.From1992to1997,thesheetlost,onaverage,49billiontonsoficeeachyear;from 2012 to 2017, it was 219 billion. In 2016, climate scientist JamesHansenhadsuggestedsealevelcouldriseseveralmetersoverfiftyyears,ificemeltdoubledeverydecade;thenewpaper,keepinmind,registersatripling,andinthespaceofjustfiveyears.Sincethe1950s,thecontinenthas lost 13,000 squaremiles from its ice shelf; experts say its ultimatefatewillprobablybedeterminedbywhathumanaction is taken in justthenextdecade.All climatechange isgovernedbyuncertainty,mostly theuncertainty

of human action—what action will be taken, and when, to avert orforestallthedramatictransformationoflifeontheplanetthatwillunfoldintheabsenceofdramaticintervention.Eachofourprojections,fromthemostblasétothemostextreme,comeswrappedindoubt—theresultofsomanyestimatesandsomanyassumptionsthatitwouldbefoolishtotakeanyofthem,sotospeak,tothebank.But sea-level rise is different, because on top of the basicmystery of

human response it layers much more epistemological ignorance thangoverns any other aspect of climate change science, save perhaps thequestion of cloud formation. When water warms, it expands: this weknow. But the breaking-up of ice represents almost an entirely newphysics, never before observed in human history, and therefore onlypoorlyunderstood.Therearenow,thankstorapidArcticmelt,papersdevotedtowhatare

called the “damagemechanics” of ice-shelf loss.Butwedonot yetwellunderstandthosedynamics,whichwillbeoneofthemaindriversofsea-

level rise, and so cannot yet make confident predictions about howquickly ice sheets will melt. And even though we now have a decentpicture of the planet’s climatological past, never in the earth’s entirerecordedhistoryhastherebeenwarmingatanythinglikethisspeed—byone estimate, around ten times faster than at any point in the last 66millionyears.Everyyear,theaverageAmericanemitsenoughcarbontomelt10,000tonsoficeintheAntarcticicesheets—enoughtoadd10,000cubicmeters ofwater to the ocean. Everyminute, each of us adds fivegallons.OnestudysuggeststhattheGreenlandicesheetcouldreachatipping

point at just 1.2 degrees of global warming. (We are nearing thattemperature level today, already at 1.1 degrees.)Melting that ice sheetalone would, over centuries, raise sea levels six meters, eventuallydrowningMiamiandManhattanandLondonandShanghaiandBangkokandMumbai. Andwhile business-as-usual emissions trajectories warmtheplanetbyjustover4degreesby2100,becausetemperaturechangesare unevenly distributed around the planet, they threaten to warm theArcticby13.In2014,we learnedthattheWestAntarcticandGreenlandicesheets

wereevenmorevulnerabletomeltingthanscientistsanticipated—infact,theWestAntarcticsheethadalreadypasseda tippingpointofcollapse,more thandoubling its rate of ice loss in just five years.The samehadhappenedinGreenland,wheretheicesheetisnowlosingalmostabilliontonsof ice every singleday.The two sheets containenough ice to raiseglobal sea levels ten to twenty feet—each. In 2017, itwas revealed thattwoglaciersintheEastAntarcticsheetwerealsolosingiceatanalarmingrate—eighteenbilliontonsof iceeachyear,enoughtocoverNewJerseyin three feet of ice. If both glaciers go, scientists expect, ultimately, anadditional 16 feet of water. In total, the two Antarctic ice sheets couldraise sea level by 200 feet; in many parts of the world, the shorelinewould move by many miles. The last time the earth was four degreeswarmer,asPeterBrannenhaswritten,therewasnoiceateitherpoleandsealevelwas260feethigher.TherewerepalmtreesintheArctic.Betternottothinkwhatthatmeansforlifeattheequator.

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Aswithallelseinclimate,themeltingoftheplanet’sicewillnotoccurina vacuum, and scientists do not yet fully understand exactly whatcascading effects such collapses will trigger. One major concern ismethane, particularly themethane thatmight be released by ameltingArctic, where permafrost contains up to 1.8 trillion tons of carbon,considerablymorethaniscurrentlysuspendedintheearth’satmosphere.Whenitthaws,someofitwillevaporateasmethane,whichis,dependingon how you measure, at least several dozen times more powerful agreenhousegasthancarbondioxide.WhenIfirstbeganseriouslyresearchingclimatechange,theriskfrom

asuddenreleaseofmethanefromtheArcticpermafrostwasconsideredquitelow—infactsolowthatmostscientistsderidedcasualdiscussionofit as reckless fearmongering and deployedmockingly hyperbolic termslike“Arcticmethane timebomb”and“burpsofdeath” todescribewhatthey saw as a climate risk notmuchworthworrying about in the nearterm.Thenewssincehasnotbeenencouraging:oneNaturepaperfoundthatthereleaseofArcticmethanefrompermafrostlakescouldberapidlyaccelerated by bursts ofwhat is called “abrupt thawing,” already underway.Atmosphericmethanelevelshaverisendramaticallyinrecentyears,confusing scientists unsure of their source; new research suggests theamountofgasbeingreleasedbyArcticlakescouldpossiblydoublegoingforward.It’snotclearwhetherthismethanereleaseisneworjustthatwefinallybegantopayattentiontoit.Butwhiletheconsensusisstillthatarapid,suddenreleaseofmethane isunlikely, thenewresearch isacasestudy in why it is worthwhile to consider, and take seriously, suchunlikely-but-possibleclimate risks.Whenyoudefineanythingoutsideanarrowbandof likelihoodas irresponsible toconsider,or talkabout,orplan for, even unspectacular new research findings can catch you flat-footed.Today,alldoagreethatthatpermafrostismelting—thepermafrostline

having retreated eightymiles north in Canada over the last fifty years.The most recent IPCC assessment projects a loss of near-surfacepermafrostofbetween37and81percentby2100,thoughmostscientistsstill believe that carbon will be released slowly, and mostly as less-terrifyingcarbondioxide.Butasfarbackas2011,NOAAandtheNationalSnowandIceDataCenterpredictedthatthawingpermafrostwouldflipthewholeregionfrombeingwhatiscalledacarbonsink,whichabsorbs

atmosphericcarbon,toacarbonsource,whichreleasescarbon,asquicklyasthe2020s.By2100,thesamestudysaid,theArcticwillhavereleasedahundred billion tons of carbon. That is the equivalent of half of all thecarbonproducedbyhumanitysinceindustrializationbegan.Remember,thatistheArcticfeedbackloopthatdoesnotmuchconcern

many climate scientists in the near term. The one that concerns themmore,atpresent,iswhatiscalledthe“albedoeffect”:iceiswhiteandsoreflectssunlightbackintospaceratherthanabsorbingit;thelessice,themoresunlightisabsorbedasglobalwarming;andthetotaldisappearanceof that ice, Peter Wadhams has estimated, could mean a massivewarmingequivalent to theentire last twenty-fiveyearsofglobal carbonemissions.Thelasttwenty-fiveyearsofemissions,keepinmind,isabouthalf of the total that humanity has ever produced—a scale of carbonproduction that has pushed the planet from near-complete climatestabilitytothebrinkofchaos.All of this is speculative. But our uncertainty over each of these

dynamics—ice sheet collapse, Arcticmethane, the albedo effect—cloudsourunderstandingonlyofthepaceofchange,notitsscale.Infact,wedoknowwhat the endgame for oceans looks like, justnothow long itwilltakeustogetthere.Howmuchsea-levelriseisthat?TheoceanchemistDavidArcheristhe

researcher who has focused perhapsmost acutely onwhat he calls the“long thaw” impacts of globalwarming. Itmay take centuries, he says,even millennia, but he estimates that ultimately, even at just threedegrees of warming, sea-level rise will be at least fifty meters—that is,fullyonehundred timeshigher thanParispredicted for2100.TheU.S.GeologicalSurveyputstheultimatefigureateightymeters,ormorethan260feet.Theworldwouldperhapsnotbemadeliterallyunrecognizablebythat

flooding, but the distinction is ultimately semantic.Montreal would bealmost entirely underwater, as would London. The United States is anunexceptionalexample:atjust170feet,morethan97percentofFloridawoulddisappear,leavingonlyafewhillsinthePanhandle;andjustunder97 percent of Delaware would be submerged. Oceans would cover 80percent of Louisiana, 70 percent of New Jersey, and half of SouthCarolina, Rhode Island, andMaryland. San Francisco and Sacramento

wouldbeunderwater,aswouldNewYorkCity,Philadelphia,Providence,Houston, Seattle, and Virginia Beach, among dozens of other cities. Inmanyplaces, thecoastwouldretreatbyasmuchasonehundredmiles.ArkansasandVermont,landlockedtoday,wouldbecomecoastal.Therestoftheworldmayfareevenworse.Manaus,thecapitalofthe

BrazilianAmazon,wouldnot justbeon theoceanfront,butunderneathits waters, as would Buenos Aires and the biggest city in landlockedParaguay, Asunción, now more than five hundred miles inland. InEurope, in addition to London,Dublinwould be underwater, aswouldBrussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Stockholm, Riga and Helsinkiand Saint Petersburg. Istanbulwould flood, and the Black Sea and theMediterraneanwouldjoin.InAsia,youcouldforgetthecoastlinecitiesofDohaandDubaiandKarachiandKolkataandMumbai (toname justafew)andwouldbeabletotracethetrailofunderwatermetropolisesfromwhat is now close to desert, inBaghdad, all theway toBeijing, itself ahundredmilesinland.That260-footriseis,ultimately,theceiling—butitisaprettygoodbet

wewillgetthereeventually.Greenhousegasessimplyworkontoolongatimescale to avoid it, though what kind of human civilization will bearound to see that flooded planet is very much to be determined. Ofcourse,thescariestvariableishowquicklythatfloodwillcome.Perhapsit will be a thousand years, but perhapsmuch sooner.More than 600millionpeoplelivewithinthirtyfeetofsealeveltoday.

T

Wildfire

he time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is meant to be, inSouthern California, the start of rainy season. Not in 2017. The

Thomas Fire, the worst of those that roiled the region that fall, grew50,000acresinoneday,eventuallyburning440squaremilesandforcingtheevacuationsofmore than100,000Californians.Aweekafter itwassparked,itremained,intheominoussemi-clinicallanguageofwildfires,merely “15% contained.” For a poetic approximation, it was not a badestimateofhowmuchofahandlewehaveontheforcesofclimatechangethat unleashed the Thomas Fire and the many other environmentalcalamities for which it was an apocalyptic harbinger. That is to say,hardlyany.“ThecityburningisLosAngeles’sdeepestimageofitself,”JoanDidion

wrote in “Los Angeles Notebook,” collected in Slouching TowardsBethlehem,publishedin1968.Butthecultural impressionisapparentlynot all that deep, since the fires that broke out in the fall of 2017produced, in headlines and on television and via text messages, anastonishedrefrainoftheadjectives“unthinkable,”“unprecedented,”and“unimaginable.” Didion was writing about the fires that had sweptthrough Malibu in 1956, Bel Air in 1961, Santa Barbara in 1964, andWattsin1965;sheupdatedherlistin1989with“FireSeason,”inwhichshedescribedthefiresof1968,1970,1975,1978,1979,1980,and1982:“Since 1919, when the county began keeping records of its fires, someareashaveburnedeighttimes.”Thelistofdatescautions,ontheonehand,againstwildfirealarmism—

againstasortofcartoonishlyCalifornianenvironmentalpanic, inwhichallobserversareall-consumedbythepresentinstanceofdisaster.Butallfiresarenotequal.FiveofthetwentyworstfiresinCaliforniahistoryhit

thestateinthefallof2017,ayearinwhichoverninethousandseparateonesbrokeout,burningthroughmorethan1,240,000acres—nearlytwothousandsquaremilesmadesoot.ThatOctober, inNorthern California, 172 fires broke out in just two

days—devastationsocruelandsweepingthattwodifferentaccountswerepublishedintwodifferentlocalnewspapersoftwodifferentagingcouplestakingdesperatecover inpoolsas the firesswallowedtheirhomes.Onecouplesurvived,emergingaftersixexcruciatinghourstofindtheirhousetransformedintoanashmonument;intheotheraccount,itwasonlythehusbandwhoemerged,hiswifeoffifty-fiveyearshavingdiedinhisarms.AsAmericans tradedhorrorstories in theaftermathof those fires, theycould be forgiven for mixing up the stories, or being confused; thatclimate terror could be so general as to provide variations on such athemehadseemed,asrecentlyasthatSeptember,impossibletobelieve.The followingyearofferedanothervariation. In the summerof2018,

thefireswerefewerinnumber,totalingonlysixthousand.Butjustone,made up of a whole network of fires together called the MendocinoComplex, burned almost half amillion acres alone. In total,more thantwo thousand square miles in the state turned to flame, and smokeblanketed almost half the country. Things were worse to the north, inBritishColumbia,wheremorethanthreemillionacresburned,producingsmokethatwould—ifitfollowedthepatternofpreviousCanadianplumes—travel across the Atlantic to Europe. Then, in November, came theWoolsey Fire, which forced the evacuation of 170,000, and the CampFire,whichwassomehowworse,burningthroughmorethan200squaremiles and incinerating an entire town so quickly that the evacuees,50,000 of them, found themselves sprinting past exploding cars, theirsneakersmelting to the asphalt as they ran. Itwas thedeadliest fire inCaliforniahistory,arecordthathadbeensetalmostacenturybefore,bytheGriffithParkFireof1933.If thesewildfireswerenotunprecedented, inCaliforniaat least,what

did we mean when we called them that? Like September 11, whichfollowedseveraldecadesofmorbidAmericanfantasiesabouttheWorldTradeCenter, thisnewclassof terror lookedtoahorrifiedpublic likeaclimateprophecy,madeinfear,nowmadereal.That prophecy was threefold. First, the simple intuition of climate

horrors—an especially biblical premonition when the plague is out-of-control fire, like adust stormof flame.Second, the expanding reachofwildfires inparticular,whichnowcan feel, inmuchof theWest,onlyagustofbadwindaway.Butperhaps themostharrowingof theways inwhich the fires seemed to confirm our cinematic nightmares was thethird: that climate chaos could breach ourmost imperious fortresses—thatis,ourcities.With Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Harvey, Irma, and Michael,

Americanshavegottenacquaintedwiththethreatofflooding,butwateris just the beginning. In the affluent cities of the West, even thoseconscious of environmental change have spent the last few decadeswalking our street grids and driving our highways, navigating oursuperabundant supermarkets and all-everywhere internet and believingthat we had built our way out of nature. We have not. A paradisedreamscape erected in a barren desert, L.A. has always been animpossible city, as Mike Davis has so brilliantly written. The sight offlames straddling the eight-lane I-405 is a reminder that it is stillimpossible.Infact,gettingmoreso.Foratime,wehadcometobelievethat civilization moved in the other direction—making the impossiblefirst possible and then stable and routine.With climate change,we aremoving instead towardnature,andchaos, intoanewrealmunboundedbytheanalogyofanyhumanexperience.

—

Twobig forcesconspire topreventus fromnormalizing fires like these,thoughneitherisexactlyacauseforcelebration.Thefirstisthatextremeweather won’t let us, since it won’t stabilize—so that even within adecade,it’safairbetthatthesefires,whichnowoccupythenightmaresofeveryCalifornian,will be thought of as the “oldnormal.” The good olddays.Thesecondforceisalsocontainedinthestoryofthewildfires:theway

thatclimatechange is finallystrikingclose tohome.Somequitespecialhomes. The California fires of 2017 burned the state’s wine crop,blowtorchedmillion-dollarvacationproperties,andthreatenedboththeGettyMuseumandRupertMurdoch’sBel-Air estate.Theremaynot betwobettersymbolsof the imperiousnessofAmericanmoneythanthose

two structures. Nearby, the sunshiny children’s fantasia of Disneylandwas quickly canopied, as the fires began to encroach, by an eerilyapocalyptic orange sky.On local golf courses, theWestCoast’swealthystill showedup for their tee times, swinging their clubs just yards fromblazing fires in photographs that could not have been more perfectlystagedtoskewerthecountry’sindifferentplutocracy.Thefollowingyear,AmericanswatchedtheKardashiansevacuateviaInstagramstories,thenreadabout theprivate firefighting forces they employed, the restof thestatereliantonconscriptedconvictsearningaslittleasadollaraday.By accidents of geography and by the force of its wealth, theUnited

States has, to this point, been mostly protected from the devastationclimatechangehasalreadyvisitedonpartsoftheless-developedworld—mostly.Thefactthatwarmingisnowhittingourwealthiestcitizensisnotjust anopportunity foruglybursts of liberal schadenfreude; it is also asign of just how hard, and how indiscriminately, it is hitting. All of asudden,it’sgettingalothardertoprotectagainstwhat’scoming.What is coming? Much more fire, much more often, burning much

moreland.Overthelastfivedecades,thewildfireseasoninthewesternUnited States has already grown by two and a halfmonths; of the tenyearswiththemostwildfireactivityonrecord,ninehaveoccurredsince2000. Globally, since just 1979, the season has grown by nearly 20percent,andAmericanwildfiresnowburntwiceasmuchlandastheydidas recently as 1970. By 2050, destruction fromwildfires is expected todouble again, and in some places within the United States the areaburned could grow fivefold. For every additional degree of globalwarming,itcouldquadruple.Whatthismeansisthatatthreedegreesofwarming, our likely benchmark for the end of the century, the UnitedStatesmightbedealingwithsixteentimesasmuchdevastationfromfireaswearetoday,wheninasingleyeartenmillionacreswereburned.Atfourdegreesofwarming,thefireseasonwouldbefourtimesworsestill.The California fire captain believes the term is already outdated: “Wedon’tevencallitfireseasonanymore,”hesaidin2017.“Takethe‘season’out—it’syear-round.”But wildfires are not an American affliction; they are a global

pandemic. In icy Greenland, fires in 2017 appeared to burn ten timesmore area than in 2014; and in Sweden, in 2018, forests in the ArcticCircle went up in flames. Fires that far north may seem innocuous,

relativelyspeaking,sincetherearenotsomanypeopleupthere.Buttheyare increasing more rapidly than fires in lower latitudes, and theyconcernclimatescientistsgreatly:thesootandashtheygiveoffcanlandonandblackenicesheets,whichthenabsorbmoreofthesun’sraysandmeltmorequickly.AnotherArctic firebrokeouton theRussia-Finlandborder in2018,andsmokefromSiberian fires that summerreachedallthewaytothemainlandUnitedStates.Thatsamemonth,thetwenty-firstcentury’ssecond-deadliestwildfirehadsweptthroughtheGreekseaside,killing ninety-nine. At one resort, dozens of guests tried to escape theflamesbydescendinganarrowstonestaircaseintotheAegean,onlytobeengulfedalongtheway,dyingliterallyineachother’sarms.Theeffectsof these firesarenot linearorneatlyadditive. Itmightbe

more accurate to say that they initiate a new set of biological cycles.Scientists warn that, even as California is baked into brush by a drierfuture,makinginevitablemoreandmoredamagingfires,theprobabilityof unprecedented-seeming rainfalls will grow, too—as much as athreefold increase of events like that which produced the state’s GreatFloodof1862.Andmudslidesareamongtheclearestillustrationsofwhatnewhorrorsthatheralds;inSantaBarbarathatJanuary,thetown’slow-lying homes were pounded by themountains’ detritus cascading downthehillsidetowardtheoceaninanendlessbrownriver.Onefather,inapanic, put his young children up on his kitchen’s marble countertop,thinking it thestrongest featureof thehouse, thenwatchedasa rollingbouldersmashedthroughthebedroomwherethechildrenhadbeenjustmomentsbefore.Onekindergartnerwhodidn’tmakeitwasfoundclosetotwomilesfromhishome,inagulleytracedbytraintracksclosetothewaterfront,havingbeencarriedthere,presumably,onacontinuouswaveofmud.Twomiles.Each year, globally, between 260,000 and 600,000 people die from

smoke fromwildfires, andCanadian fireshavebeen linked to spikes inhospitalizationsasfarawayastheEasternSeaboardoftheUnitedStates.DrinkingwaterinColoradowasdamagedforyearsbythefalloutfromasingle wildfire in 2002. In 2014, Canada’s Northwest Territories wereblanketedwithwildfiresmoke,producinga42percentspike inhospitalvisits for respiratory ailments and what one study called a “profound”negativeeffecton individualwell-being. “Oneof the strongest emotionsthatpeople feltwas isolation,” the lead researcher later said. “There’s a

sense of not being able to get away.Where do you go? There’s smokeeverywhere.”

—

Whentreesdie—bynaturalprocesses,byfire,atthehandsofhumans—they release into the atmosphere the carbon stored within them,sometimesforaslongascenturies.Inthisway,theyarelikecoal.Whichis why the effect of wildfires on emissions is among the most fearedclimate feedback loops—that the world’s forests, which have typicallybeen carbon sinks, would become carbon sources, unleashing all thatstoredgas.Theimpactcanbeespeciallydramaticwhenthefiresravageforests arising out of peat. Peatland fires in Indonesia in 1997, forinstance, released up to 2.6 billion tons of carbon—40 percent of theaverage annual global emissions level. And more burning only meansmorewarmingonlymeansmoreburning.InCalifornia,asinglewildfirecan entirely eliminate the emissions gainsmade that year by all of thestate’saggressiveenvironmentalpolicies.Firesofthatscalehappennowevery year. In this way, they make a mockery of the technocratic,melioristapproachtoemissionsreduction.IntheAmazon,whichin2010suffered its second “hundred-year drought” in the space of five years,100,000fireswerefoundtobeburningin2017.Atpresent,thetreesoftheAmazontakeinaquarterofallthecarbon

absorbed by the planet’s forests each year. But in 2018, JairBolsonarowas elected president of Brazil promising to open the rain forest todevelopment—whichistosay,deforestation.Howmuchdamagecanonepersondototheplanet?AgroupofBrazilianscientistshasestimatedthatbetween 2021 and 2030, Bolsonaro’s deforestation would release theequivalent of 13.12 gigatons of carbon. Last year, the United Statesemitted about 5 gigatons. This means that this one policy would havebetween two and three times the annual carbon impact of the entireAmerican economy, with all of its airplanes and automobiles and coalplants. The world’s worst emitter, by far, is China; the country wasresponsiblefor9.1gigatonsofemissionsin2017.ThismeansBolsonaro’spolicyistheequivalentofadding,ifjustforayear,awholesecondChinato theplanet’s fossil fuel problem—and, on topof that, awhole secondUnitedStates.

Globally, deforestation accounts for about 12 percent of carbonemissions,andforestfiresproduceasmuchas25percent.Theabilityofforest soils to absorb methane has fallen by 77 percent in just threedecades, and some of those studying the rate of tropical deforestationbelieve it could deliver an additional 1.5 degrees Celsius of globalwarmingeveniffossilfuelemissionsimmediatelyceased.Historically, the emissions rate from deforestation was even higher,

withtheclearingofwoodsandflatteningofforestscausing30percentofemissionsfrom1861to2000;until1980,deforestationplayedagreaterrole in increases of hottest-day records than did direct greenhouse-gasemissions.Thereisapublichealthimpactaswell:everysquarekilometerof deforestation produces twenty-seven additional cases of malaria,thankstowhatiscalled“vectorproliferation”—whenthetreesareclearedout,thebugsmovein.This is not simply a wildfire phenomenon; each climate threat

promisestotriggersimilarlybrutalcycles.Thefiresshouldbeterrorizingenough, but it is the cascading chaos that reveals the true cruelty ofclimatechange—itcanupendandturnviolentlyagainstuseverythingwehave ever thought tobe stable.Homesbecomeweapons, roadsbecomedeathtraps,airbecomespoison.Andtheidyllicmountainvistasaroundwhich generations of entrepreneurs and speculators have assembledentire resort communities become, themselves, indiscriminate killers—andaremade,witheachsuccessivedestabilizingevent,onlymorelikelytokillagain.

H

DisastersNoLongerNatural

umans used to watch the weather to prophesy the future; goingforward, we will see in its wrath the vengeance of the past. In a

four-degree-warmerworld, theearth’secosystemwillboilwithsomanynatural disasters that we will just start calling them “weather”: out-of-control typhoons and tornadoes and floods and droughts, the planetassaulted regularly with climate events that not so long ago destroyedwhole civilizations.The strongesthurricaneswill comemoreoften, andwe’ll have to invent new categories with which to describe them;tornadoeswillstrikemuchmorefrequently,andtheirtrailsofdestructioncouldgrowlongerandwider.Hailrockswillquadrupleinsize.Earlynaturalists talkedoften about “deep time”—theperception they

had,contemplatingthegrandeurofthisvalleyorthatrockbasin,oftheprofound slownessofnature.But theperspective changeswhenhistoryaccelerates. What lies in store for us is more like what aboriginalAustralians, talkingwithVictorian anthropologists, called “dreamtime,”or “everywhen”: the semi-mythical experience of encountering, in thepresent moment, an out-of-time past, when ancestors, heroes, anddemigods crowded an epic stage. You can find it already by watchingfootage of an iceberg collapsing into the sea—a feeling of historyhappeningallatonce.It is. The summer of 2017, in the Northern Hemisphere, brought

unprecedentedextremeweather:threemajorhurricanesarisinginquicksuccessionintheAtlantic;theepic“500,000-year”rainfallofHurricaneHarvey,droppingonHoustonamilliongallonsofwaterfornearlyeverysinglepersonintheentirestateofTexas;thewildfiresofCalifornia,ninethousandofthemburningthroughmorethanamillionacres,andthoseinicyGreenland,tentimesbiggerthanthosein2014;thefloodsofSouth

Asia,clearing45millionfromtheirhomes.Thentherecord-breakingsummerof2018made2017seempositively

idyllic. It brought an unheard-of global heat wave, with temperatureshitting 108 in Los Angeles, 122 in Pakistan, and 124 in Algeria. In theworld’soceans,sixhurricanesandtropicalstormsappearedontheradarsatonce, includingone,TyphoonMangkhut, thathit thePhilippinesandthenHongKong,killingnearlyahundredandwreakingabilliondollarsindamages,andanother,HurricaneFlorence,whichmorethandoubledtheaverageannualrainfallinNorthCarolina,killingmorethanfiftyandinflicting$17billionworthofdamage.TherewerewildfiresinSweden,alltheway in theArcticCircle, and across somuchof theAmericanWestthathalfthecontinentwasfightingthroughsmoke,thosefiresultimatelyburningcloseto1.5millionacres.PartsofYosemiteNationalParkwereclosed, as were parts of Glacier National Park in Montana, wheretemperaturesalsotopped100.In1850,theareahad150glaciers;today,allbut26aremelted.

—

By 2040, the summer of 2018 will likely seem normal. But extremeweatherisnotamatterof“normal”;itiswhatroarsbackatusfromtheever-worsening fringe of climate events. This is among the scariestfeatures of rapid climate change: not that it changes the everydayexperienceoftheworld,thoughitdoesthat,anddramatically;butthatitmakesonce-unthinkableoutliereventsmuchmorecommon,andusherswholenewcategoriesofdisaster intotherealmofthepossible.Already,stormshavedoubledsince1980,accordingto theEuropeanAcademies’ScienceAdvisoryCouncil;anditisnowestimatedthatNewYorkCitywillsuffer“500-year”floodsonceeverytwenty-fiveyears.Butsea-levelriseismore dramatic elsewhere, which means that storm surges will bedistributedunequally; insomeplaces,stormsonthatscalewillhitevenmore frequently. The result is a radically accelerated experience ofextreme weather—what was once centuries’ worth of natural disastercompressedintojustadecadeortwo.InthecaseofHawaii’sEastIsland,which disappeared underwater during a single hurricane, into a day ortwo.The climate effects on extreme precipitation events—often called

delugesoreven“rainbombs”—areevenclearerthanthoseonhurricanes,since themechanism is about as straightforward as it gets:warmer aircan holdmoremoisture than cooler air. Already, there are 40 percentmore intense rainstorms in theUnitedStates than in themiddleof thelastcentury.IntheNortheast,thefigureis71percent.Theveryheaviestdownfalls are today three-quartersheavier than theywere in 1958, andonlygettingmoreso.TheislandofKauai,inHawaii,isoneofthewettestplacesonEarth, andhas in recentdecades enduredboth tsunamis andhurricanes;whenaclimate-change-drivenraineventhitinApril2018,itliterallybroketheraingauges,andtheNationalWeatherServicehadtoofferabest-guessestimate:fiftyinchesofwaterintwenty-fourhours.When it comes to extreme weather, we are already living in

unprecedented times. In America, the damages from quotidianthunderstorms—the unexceptional kind—have increased more thansevenfoldsincethe1980s.Poweroutagesfromstormshavedoubledjustsince 2003. When Hurricane Irma first emerged, it was with suchintensity that some meteorologists proposed creating an entirely newcategoryofhurricaneforit—aCategory6.AndthencameMaria,rollingthroughtheCaribbeananddevastatingastringofislandsforthesecondtimeinasingleweek—twostormsofsuchintensitythattheislandsmightbe prepared to endure them once a generation, or perhaps even lessoften. In Puerto Rico, Maria wiped out power and running water formuchoftheislandformonths,floodingitsagriculturallandssofullythatone farmerpredicted the islandwouldn’tproduceany food for thenextyear.Initsaftermath,Mariaalsoshowcasedoneoftheuglieraspectsofour

climateblindness.PuertoRicansareU.S.citizens,and livenot far fromthemainlandonanislandmillionsofAmericanshavevisitedpersonally.Andyetwhenclimatedisasterstruckthere,weprocessedtheirsuffering,perhapsoutofpsychologicalself-interest,asforeignandfaraway.Trumpbarely mentioned Puerto Rico in the week afterMaria, and while thatmaynotsurprise,neitherdidtheSundaytalkshows.Bytheweekend,afewdaysafterthehurricanetraversedtheisland,itwasoffthefrontpageof The New York Times as well. When Trump’s feud with the heroicmayorofSanJuanandhisproblematicvisittotheisland—duringwhichhetossedpapertowelsintoacrowdwithoutpowerorwaterlikeT-shirtsat a Knicks game—made the hurricane a partisan issue, Americans did

begin to focus on the destruction a bit more. But the attention paidremainstrivialcomparedtothehumanitariantoll—andwhencomparedto the response tonaturaldisasters thathave recentlyhit theAmericanmainland. “We’re getting some intimations of how the ruling classintendstohandletheaccumulatingdisastersoftheAnthropocene,”astheculturaltheoristMcKenzieWark,oftheNewSchool,wrote.“We’reonourown.”And in the future, all that was once unprecedented becomes quickly

routine.RememberHurricane Sandy?By 2100, floods of that scale areexpectedasmanyasseventeen timesmoreoften inNewYork.Katrina-level hurricanes are expected to double in frequency. Looking globally,researchershavefoundanincreaseof25to30percentinCategory4and5hurricanesforjustonedegreeCelsiusofglobalwarming.Betweenjust2006and2013,thePhilippineswerehitbyseventy-fivenaturaldisasters;overthelastfourdecadesinAsia,typhoonshaveintensifiedbybetween12 and 15 percent, and the proportion of Category 4 and 5 storms hasdoubled; in someareas, ithas tripled.By2070,Asianmegacities couldlose as much as $35 trillion in assets due to storms, up from just $3trillionin2005.Wearesofarfrominvestinginadequatedefensesagainstthesestorms

that we are still building out into their paths—as though we arehomesteaders stakingclaim to landclearedeach summerby tornadoes,committing ourselves blindly to generations being punished by naturaldisaster. In fact, it is worse than that, since paving over stretches ofvulnerablecoast,aswe’vedonemostconspicuouslyinHoustonandNewOrleans, stops up natural drainage systems with concrete that extendseachepicflood.Wetellourselvesweare“developing”theland—insomecases,fabricatingitfrommarsh.Whatwearereallybuildingarebridgestoourownsuffering,sinceit’snotjustthosenewconcretecommunitiesbuilt right into the floodplain that are vulnerable, but all thosecommunitiesbehindthem,builtontheexpectationthattheoldswampycoastlinecouldprotectthem.Whichdoescallintoquestionjustwhatwemean,intheageoftheAnthropocene,bythephrase“naturaldisaster.”Dreamtimeweatherwon’tstopattheshore,butwillblanketthelifeof

everyhumanlivingontheplanet,nomatterhowfarfromthecoast.Thewarmer the Arctic, the more intense the blizzards in the northernlatitudes—that’s what’s given the American Northeast 2010’s

“Snowpocalypse,”2014’s“Snowmageddon,”and2016’s“Snowzilla.”Theinlandeffectsofclimatechangearebeingfeltinwarmerseasons,

too. InApril 2011—justonemonth—758 tornadoes swept theAmericancountryside. ThepreviousApril recordhadbeen267, and themost foranypreviousmonthinrecordedhistorywas542.Thenextmonth,therewasanotherwave,includingthetornadothatkilled138peopleinJoplin,Missouri. What’s called America’s “tornado alley” has moved fivehundredmilesinjustthirtyyears,andwhile,technically,scientistsaren’tsure that climate change increases tornado formation, the paths ofdestruction tornadoes leave are getting longer, and they are gettingwider;theyarisefromthunderstorms,whichareincreasing—thenumberof days on which they are possible growing asmuch as 40 percent by2100,accordingtooneassessment.TheUnitedStatesGeologicalSurvey—notanotablyalarmistcornerofeventhetemperamentallyconservativefederalbureaucracy—recently“war-gamed”anextremeweatherscenariothey called “ARkStorm”: winter storms strike California, producingfloodingintheCentralValleythreehundredmileslongandtwentymileswide,andmoredestructivefloodinginLosAngeles,OrangeCounty,andthe Bay Area up north, altogether forcing evacuation of more than amillionCalifornians;windspeedsreachhurricanelevelsof125milesperhourinpartsofthestate,andatleast60milesperhourthroughoutmuchof it; landslides cascade down from the SierraNevadamountains; anddamage,alltold,reaches$725billion,nearlythreetimestheestimateforamassiveearthquakeinthestate,themuch-feared“BigOne.”In the past, even the recent past, disasters like these arrived with

otherworldlyforceandincomprehensiblemorallogic.Wecouldseethemcoming, on radar and by satellite, but could not interpret them—notlegibly, not in ways that really made sense of them in relation to oneanother. Even atheists and agnosticsmight find themselveswhisperingthe phrase “act ofGod” in the aftermath of a hurricane, orwildfire, ortornado, if only to express how inexplicable it felt to endure suchsufferingwithnoauthorbehindit,noonetoblameforit.Climatechangewillchangethis.

—

Evenaswesettleintothinkingofnaturaldisastersasaregularfeatureof

our weather, the scope of devastation and horror they bring will notdiminish.Therearecascadeeffectshere,too:aheadofHurricaneHarvey,thestateofTexascutoffHouston’sair-qualitymonitors,fearingthey’dbedamaged; immediately afterward, a cloud of “unbearable” smells begandrifting out of the city’s petrochemical plants.Ultimately, nearly half abillion gallons of industrial wastewater surged out of a singlepetrochemicalplantintoGalvestonBay.Alltold,thatonestormproducedmore than a hundred “toxic releases,” including 460,000 gallons ofgasoline, 52,000poundsof crudeoil, andamassive,quarter-mile-widedischarge of hydrogen chloride, which, when it mixes with moisture,becomeshydrochloricacid,“whichcanburn,suffocate,andkill.”DownthecoastinNewOrleans,thestormhitwaslessdirect,butthere

thecityhadalreadybeenknockedoffline—withoutafullcomplementofdrainpumpsafteranAugust5storm.WhenKatrinahadhitNewOrleansin 2005, it was not walloping a thriving city—the 2000 population of480,000 had declined from a peak of over 600,000 in 1960. After thestorm,itwasaslowas230,000.Houstonisadifferentcase.Oneof thefastest-growing cities in the country in 2017—greater Houston evenincludedthefastest-growingsuburbinthecountrythatyear—ithasmorethanfivetimesasmanyresidentsasNewOrleans.It’satragicironythatmanyof thosenewarrivalswhomoved into thepathof thisstormoverthelastdecadeswerebroughttherebytheoilbusiness,whichhasworkedtirelessly to undermine public understanding of climate change andderailglobalattemptsatreducingcarbonemissions.Onesuspectsthisisnotthelast500-yearstormthoseworkerswillseebeforeretirement—northelasttobeseenbythehundredsofoilrigsoffthecoastofHouston,orthe thousandmorebobbingnowelsewhereoff theGulfCoast,until thetollofouremissionsbecomessobrutallyclearthatthoserigsarefinallyretired.The phrase “500-year storm” is also very helpful on the question of

resilience. Even a devastated community, buckled in suffering, canendurealongperiodofrecoveryifitiswealthyandpoliticallystableandneedstorebuildonlyonceacentury—perhapsevenonceeveryfiftyyears.But rebuilding for a decade in the wake of spectacular storms that hitonceadecade,oronceeverytwodecades,isanentirelydifferentmatter,evenforcountriesasrichastheUnitedStatesandregionsaswell-offasgreaterHouston.NewOrleansisstillreelingfromKatrina,adozenyears

on,with theLowerNinthWardbarelyone-thirdaspopulatedas itwasbefore the storm.And it surely doesn’t help that the entire coastlineofLouisianaisbeingswallowedbythesea,with2,000squaremilesalreadygone. The state loses a football field of land every single hour. In theFlorida Keys, 150miles of road need to be raised to stay ahead of sealevel,costingasmuchas$7millioneachmile,orupto$1billion,total.Thecounty’s2018roadbudgetwas$25million.Fortheworld’spoor,recoveryfromstormslikeKatrinaandIrmaand

Harvey, hitting more and more often, is almost impossible. The bestchoice is often simply to leave. In the months after Hurricane Mariadevastated Puerto Rico, thousands of islanders arrived in Florida,thinkingitmightbeforgood.Ofcourse,thatlandisdisappearing,too.

S

FreshwaterDrain

eventy-one percent of the planet is covered in water. Barely morethan2percentofthatwaterisfresh,andonly1percentofthatwater,

at most, is accessible, with the rest trapped mostly in glaciers. Whichmeans, in essence, asNational Geographic has calculated, only 0.007percentoftheplanet’swaterisavailabletofuelandfeeditssevenbillionpeople.Think of freshwater shortages and you probably feel an itch in your

throat, but in fact hydration is just a sliver ofwhatwe needwater for.Globally, between 70 and 80 percent of freshwater is used for foodproductionandagriculture,withanadditional10to20percentsetasideforindustry.Andthecrisisisnotprincipallydrivenbyclimatechange—that 0.007 percent should be, believe it or not, plenty, not just for thesevenbillionofusherebutforasmanyasninebillion,perhapsevenabitmore.Ofcourse,wearelikelyheadingnorthofninebillionthiscentury,toaglobalpopulationofatleasttenandpossiblytwelvebillion.Aswithfoodscarcity,muchofthegrowthisexpectedinpartsoftheworldalreadymost strained by water shortage—in this case, urban Africa. In manyAfricancountriesalready,youareexpectedtogetbyonaslittleastwentylitersofwatereachday—lessthanhalfofwhatwaterorganizationssayisnecessary for public health. As soon as 2030, global water demand isexpectedtooutstripsupplyby40percent.Today, the crisis is political—which is to say, not inevitable or

necessary or beyond our capacity to fix—and, therefore, functionallyelective. That is one reason it is nevertheless harrowing as a climateparable: an abundant resource made scarce through governmentalneglectand indifference,bad infrastructureandcontamination,carelessurbanization and development. There is no need for a water crisis, in

otherwords,butwehaveoneanyway,andaren’tdoingmuchtoaddressit.Somecitieslosemorewatertoleaksthantheydelivertohomes:evenintheUnitedStates, leaksandtheftaccount foranestimated lossof16percentoffreshwater;inBrazil,theestimateis40percent.Inbothcases,aseverywhere,scarcityplaysoutsonakedlyonastagedefinedbyhave-and-have-notinequitiesthattheresultingdramaofresourcecompetitioncan hardly be called, truly, a competition; the deck is so stacked thatwater shortage looksmore like a tool of inequality. The global result isthatasmanyas2.1billionpeoplearoundtheworlddonothaveaccesstosafedrinkingwater,and4.5billiondon’thavesafelymanagedwaterforsanitation.Like global warming, the water crisis is soluble, at present. But that

0.007percentleavesanawfullythinmargin,andclimatechangewillcutinto it. Half of the world’s population depends on seasonal melt fromhigh-elevationsnowandice,depositsthataredramaticallythreatenedbywarming.Even ifwehit theParis targets, theglaciersof theHimalayaswilllose40percentoftheiriceby2100,orpossiblymore,andtherecouldbewidespreadwatershortagesinPeruandCalifornia,theresultofglaciermelt. At four degrees, the snow-capped Alps could look more likeMorocco’sAtlasMountains,with70percentlesssnowbytheendofthecentury. As soon as 2020, asmany as 250million Africans could facewatershortagesduetoclimatechange;bythe2050s, thenumbercouldhit a billion people in Asia alone. By the same year, the World Bankfound,freshwateravailabilityincitiesaroundtheworldcoulddeclinebyas much as two-thirds. Overall, according to the United Nations, fivebillionpeoplecouldhavepooraccesstofreshwaterby2050.TheUnitedStateswon’tbespared—boomtownPhoenixis,forinstance,

already in emergency planningmode,which should not surprise, giventhatevenLondonisbeginningtoworryoverwatershortages.Butgiventhe reassurances of wealth—which can buy stopgap solutions andadditionalshort-termsupply—theUnitedStateswillnotbetheworsthit.In India, already, 600 million face “high to extreme water stress,”according to a 2018 government report, and 200,000 people die eachyearfromlackingorcontaminatedwater.By2030,accordingtothesamereport, India will have only half the water it needs. In 1947, when thecountry was formed, per capita water availability in Pakistan stood at5,000 cubicmeters; today, thanksmostly to population growth, it is at

1,000;andsooncontinuedgrowthandclimatechangewillbringitdownto400.Inthelasthundredyears,manyoftheplanet’slargestlakeshavebegun

dryingup,fromtheAralSeaincentralAsia,whichwasoncetheworld’sfourthlargestandwhichhas lostmorethan90percentof itsvolumeinrecentdecades,toLakeMead,whichsuppliesmuchofLasVegas’swaterandhaslostasmuchas400billiongallonsinasingleyear.LakePoopó,once Bolivia’s second biggest, has completely disappeared; Iran’s LakeUrmiahasshrunkmore than80percent in thirtyyears.LakeChadhasmoreorlessevaporatedentirely.Climatechangeisonlyonefactorinthisstory,butitsimpactisnotgoingtoshrinkovertime.What goes on within those lakes that survive is perhaps just as

distressing. In China’s Lake Tai, for instance, the blooming ofwarmwater-friendly bacteria in 2007 threatened the drinking water oftwomillionpeople;theheating-upofEastAfrica’sLakeTanganyikahasimperiledthefishstockharvestedandeatenbymillionsinfouradjacent,hungry nations. Freshwater lakes, by the way, account for up to 16percentoftheworld’snaturalmethaneemissions,andscientistsestimatethat climate-fueled aquatic plant growth could double those emissionsoverthenextfiftyyears.We’realreadyracing,asashort-termfixfortheworld’sdroughtboom,

to drain underground water deposits known as aquifers, but thosedeposits took millions of years to accumulate and aren’t coming backanytimesoon.IntheUnitedStates,aquifersalreadysupplyafifthofourwaterneeds;asBrianClarkHowardhasnoted,wells thatused todrawwaterat500feetnowrequirepumpsatleasttwiceasdeep.TheColoradoRiverBasin,whichserveswatertosevenstates,losttwelvecubicmilesofgroundwaterbetween2004and2013;theOgallalaAquiferinpartoftheTexasPanhandlelost15feetinadecade,andisexpectedtodrainby70percent over the next fifty years in Kansas. In the meantime, they’refracking in that drinking water. In India, in just the next two years,twenty-onecitiescouldexhausttheirgroundwatersupply.

—

The firstDayZero inCapeTownwas inMarch2018, thedaywhen thecity,afewmonthsearlierandenduringitsworstdroughtindecades,had

predicteditstapswouldrunproverbiallydry.Sitting in a living room in a modern apartment in an advanced

metropolissomewhereinthedevelopedworld,thisthreatmayseemhardtocredit—somanycities lookingnowadays like fantasiesofendlessandon-demand abundance for the world’s wealthy. But of all urbanentitlements, the casual expectation of never-ending drinking water isperhapsthemostdeeplydelusional.Ittakesquitealottobringthatwatertoyoursink,yourshower,andyourtoilet.As climate crises so often do, in Cape Town the drought aggravated

existing conflicts. In a memorable first-person account written at thetime,CapetonianAdamWelzdescribedtheepisode,whichdidendbeforethe citywent completelydry, asanoperatic enactmentof familiar localproblems:mostly wealthy whites complaining thatmostly poor blacks,many ofwhom receive a small allocation free,were draining thewatersupply;socialmediaaflamewithaccusationsof idleor indifferentblackSouthAfricans leavingwaterpipesrunningunattendedandshantytownbusinesses running off stolen water. Black South Africans pointed thefingeratsuburbanwhiteswithpoolsandlawns,makinghayover“orgiesof flushing in the toilet stalls of upscale shopping malls.” Conspiracytheories circulated involving federal indifference and withheld Israelitechnology,andaccusationsofbad faithbounced from localauthoritiesto national ones to meteorologists—altogether serving, as is almostalways thecasewhencommunitiesmust respondcollectively toclimatethreats, as a buffet of excuses to not act. At the peak of the crisis, themayor announced that nearly two-thirds of the city, 64 percent, werefailingtoabidebythecity’snewwaterrestrictions,whichaimedtolimitwateruseto23gallonsperpersoneachday.TheaverageAmericangoesthroughfourtofivetimesthatmuch;inaridUtah,foundedonaMormonprophecy predicting the arrival of an Eden in the desert, the averagecitizen goes through, each day, 248 gallons. In February, Cape Townhalvedthe individualallotment to13gallons,andthearmypreparedtosecurethecity’swaterfacilities.But accusations of individual irresponsibility were a kind of

weaponizedredherring,astheyoftenareincommunitiesreckoningwiththeonsetofclimatepain.Wefrequentlychoosetoobsessoverpersonalconsumption,inpartbecauseitiswithinourcontrolandinpartasaverycontemporaryformofvirtuesignaling.Butultimatelythosechoicesare,

in almost all cases, trivial contributors, ones that blind us to themoreimportantforces.Whenitcomestofreshwater,thebiggerpictureisthis:personalconsumptionamountstosuchathinsliverthatonlyinthemostextremedroughtscanitevenmakeadifference.Evenbeforethedrought,oneestimatefoundthatSouthAfricahadninemillionpeoplewithoutanyaccess to water for personal consumption at all; the amount of waterrequiredtosatisfytheneedsofthosemillionsisonlyaboutone-thirdtheamountofwaterused, eachyear, toproduce thenation’swine crop. InCalifornia, where droughts are punctuated by outrage over pools andever-greenlawns,totalurbanconsumptionaccountsforonly10percent.In South Africa, eventually, the crisis passed—a combination of

aggressivewaterrationingandtheendofthedryseason.Butyoucouldbe forgiven, considering the news coverage of Cape Town, for thinkingthattheSouthAfricancitywasthefirsttostaredownaDayZero.Infact,SãoPaulodidit in2015,afteratwo-yeardrought, limitingwaterusetotwelvehoursadayforsomeresidentsinanaggressiverationingsystemthat shuttered businesses and forcedmass layoffs. In 2008, Barcelona,facing the worst drought the city had seen since Catalonians begankeepingrecords,hadtobargeindrinkingwaterfromFrance.InsouthernAustralia,the“millenniumdrought”beganwithlowrainfallin1996andcontinued, through a Death Valley–like trough that lasted eight years,beginningin2001andendingonlywhenLaNiñarainfallfinallyrelievedtheareain2010.Riceandcottonproductionintheregionfell99and84percent,respectively.Riversandlakesshriveledupandwetlandsturnedacidic.In2018,intheIndiancityofShimla,oncethesummertimehomeoftheBritishRaj,thetapsrandryforweeksinMayandJune.Andwhileagricultureisoftenhitthehardestbyshortages,waterissues

arenotexclusivelyrural.Fourteenoftheworld’stwentybiggestcitiesarecurrentlyexperiencingwaterscarcityordrought.Fourbillionpeople,itisestimated, already live in regions facing water shortages at least onemontheachyear—that’sabouttwo-thirdsoftheplanet’spopulation.Halfabillionareinplaceswheretheshortagesneverend.Today,atjustonedegreeofwarming,thoseregionswithatleastamonthofwatershortageseachyearincludejustaboutalloftheUnitedStateswestofTexas,wherelakesandaquifersarebeingdrainedtomeetdemand,andstretchingupintowesternCanadaanddowntoMexicoCity;almostallofNorthAfricaand the Middle East; a large chunk of India; almost all of Australia;

significantpartsofArgentinaandChile;andeverythinginAfricasouthofZambia.

—

As long as it has had advocates, climate change has been sold under asaltwater banner—melting Arctic, rising seas, shrinking coastlines. Afreshwater crisis is more alarming, since we depend on it far moreacutely. It is also closer at hand. But while the planet commands thenecessaryresourcestodaytoprovidewaterfordrinkingandsanitationtoalltheworld’speople,thereisnotthenecessarypoliticalwill—oreventheinclination—todoso.Over the next three decades, water demand from the global food

system is expected to increase by about 50 percent, from cities andindustryby50to70percent,andfromenergyby85percent.Andclimatechange, with its coming megadroughts, promises to tighten supplyconsiderably.Infact,theWorldBank,initslandmarkstudyofwaterandclimate change “High and Dry,” found that “the impacts of climatechangewillbechanneledprimarilythroughthewatercycle.”Thebank’sforebodingwarning:thatwhenitcomestothecruellycascadingeffectsofclimate change, water efficiency is as pressing a problem, and asimportantapuzzletosolve,asenergyefficiency.Withoutanymeaningfuladaptation in the distribution of water resources, the World Bankestimates,regionalGDPcoulddecline,simplyduetowaterinsecurity,byasmuchas14percentintheMiddleEast,12percentinAfrica’sSahel,11percentincentralAsia,and7percentineastAsia.ButofcourseGDPisatbestacrudemeasureofenvironmentalcost.A

moreeye-openingledgeriskeptbyPeterGleickofthePacificInstitute:asimple listofallarmedconflicts tiedupwithwater issues,beginning in3,000BCwiththeancientSumerianlegendofEa.Gleicklistsnearlyfivehundredwater-relatedconflictssince1900;almosthalfoftheentire listissincejust2010.Partofthat,Gleickacknowledges,isareflectionoftherelativeabundanceofrecentdata,andpartofitisthechangingnatureofwar—conflictsthatused tounfoldalmost exclusivelybetween statesarenow,inanerawherestateauthorityhasweakenedinmanyplaces,likelytosparkwithinstatesandbetweengroups.Thefive-yearSyriandroughtthat stretched from 2006 to 2011, producing crop failures that created

political instability and helped usher in the civil war that produced aglobal refugee crisis, is one vivid example. Gleick is personally morefocusedonthestrangewarunfoldinginYemensince2015—technicallyacivilwar,butpracticallyaproxyregionalwarbetweenSaudiArabiaandIran,andconceptuallya sortofworldwar inminiature,withAmericanandRussianinvolvementaswell.There,thehumanitariancosthasbeencarriedasmuchbywaterasbyblood;inpartbecauseoftargetedattacksonwaterinfrastructure,thenumberofcholeracasesgrewtoonemillionin2017,whichmeans in a single year roughly4percentof the countrycontractedthedisease.“There’sasayinginthewatercommunity,”Gleicktellsme.“Ifclimate

changeisashark,thewaterresourcesaretheteeth.”

W

DyingOceans

etendtoseeoceansasunfathomable,theclosestthingwehaveonthisplanettoouterspace:dark,forbidding,and,especiallyinthe

depths,quiteweirdandmysterious.“Whohasknowntheocean?”RachelCarsonwroteinheressay“Undersea,”publishedtwenty-fiveyearsbeforeshe tackled the desecration of the planet’s land by human hands, andindustrial“cure-alls,”inSilentSpring:“NeitheryounorI,withourearth-bound senses, know the foamand surge of the tide that beats over thecrab hiding under the seaweed of his tide-pool home; or the lilt of thelong,slowswellsofmid-ocean,whereshoalsofwanderingfishpreyandarepreyedupon,andthedolphinbreaksthewavestobreathetheupperatmosphere.”But the ocean isn’t the other; we are. Water is not a beachside

attractionforlandanimals:at70percentoftheearth’ssurfaceitis,byanenormous margin, the planet’s predominant environment. Along witheverything else it does, oceans feed us: globally, seafood accounts fornearlyafifthofallanimalproteininthehumandiet,andincoastalareasit can provide much more. The oceans also maintain our planetaryseasons,throughprehistoriccurrentsliketheGulfStream,andmodulatethetemperatureoftheplanet,absorbingmuchoftheheatofthesun.Perhaps “has fed,” “hasmaintained,” and “hasmodulated” are better

terms, since global warming threatens to undermine each of thosefunctions.Already,fishpopulationshavemigratednorthbyhundredsofmilesinsearchofcolderwaters—flounderby250milesofftheAmericanEast Coast, mackerel so far from their Continental home that thefishermenchasingthemarenolongerboundbyrulessetbytheEuropeanUnion. One study tracing human impact on marine life found only 13percent of the ocean undamaged, and parts of the Arctic have been so

transformed by warming that scientists are beginning to wonder howlongtheycankeepcallingthosewaters“arctic.”Andhowevermuchsea-levelriseandcoastalfloodinghavedominatedourfearsabouttheimpactofclimatechangeontheplanet’soceanwater, there ismuchmorethanjustthattoworryover.At present,more than a fourth of the carbon emitted by humans is

suckedupbytheoceans,whichalso,inthepastfiftyyears,haveabsorbed90 percent of globalwarming’s excess heat.Half of that heat has beenabsorbedsince1997,andtoday’sseascarryatleast15percentmoreheatenergy than theydid in the year 2000—absorbing three times asmuchadditionalenergy,injustthosetwodecades,asiscontainedintheentireplanet’s fossil fuel reserves. But the result of all that carbon dioxideabsorptioniswhat’scalled“oceanacidification,”whichisexactlywhatitsounds like, and which is also already burning through some of theplanet’swater basins—youmay remember these as theplacewhere lifearose in the first place. All on its own—through its effect onphytoplankton, which release sulfur into the air that helps cloudformation—oceanacidificationcouldaddbetweenaquarterandhalfofadegreeofwarming.

—

You have probably heard of “coral bleaching”—that is, coral dying—inwhich warmer ocean waters strip reefs of the protozoa, calledzooxanthellae,thatprovide,throughphotosynthesis,upto90percentoftheenergyneedsofthecoral.Eachreefisanecosystemascomplexasamoderncity,andthezooxanthellaeareitsfoodsupply,thebasicbuildingblock of an energy chain;when they die, thewhole complex is starvedwith military efficiency, a city under siege or blockade. Since 2016, asmuch as half of Australia’s landmark Great Barrier Reef has beenstrippedinthisway.Theselarge-scaledie-outsarecalled“massbleachingevents”;oneunfolded,globally,from2014to2017.Already,corallifehasdeclinedsomuchthat ithascreatedanentirelynewlayer intheocean,between30and150metersbelowthesurface,whichscientistshavetakentocallinga“twilightzone.”According to theWorldResources Institute,by2030oceanwarmingandacidificationwillthreaten90percentofallreefs.

Thisisverybadnews,becausereefssupportasmuchasaquarterofallmarine life and supply food and income for half a billion people. Theyalso protect against flooding from storm surges—a function that offersvalue in the many billions, with reefs presently worth at least $400million annually to Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Cuba, andMexico—$400 million annually to each. Ocean acidification will alsodamagefishpopulationsdirectly.Thoughscientistsaren’tyetsurehowtopredict the effects on the stuffwehaul outof theocean to eat, theydoknowthatinacidwaters,oystersandmusselswillstruggletogrowtheirshells,andthatrisingcarbonconcentrationswill impair fishes’ senseofsmell—whichyoumaynothaveknowntheyhad,butwhichoftenaidsinnavigation.OffthecoastsofAustralia,fishpopulationshavedeclinedanestimated32percentinjusttenyears.Ithasbecomequitecommontosaythatwearelivingthroughamass

extinction—aperiod inwhichhuman activity hasmultiplied the rate atwhich species are disappearing from the earth by a factor perhaps aslargeasathousand.Itisprobablyalsofairtocallthisaneramarkedbywhatiscalledoceananoxification.Overthepastfiftyyears,theamountofoceanwaterwith no oxygen at all has quadrupled globally, giving us atotal of more than four hundred “dead zones”; oxygen-deprived zoneshavegrownbyseveralmillionsquarekilometers,roughlythesizeofallofEurope;andhundredsofcoastalcitiesnowsitonfetid,under-oxygenatedocean. This is partly due to the simple warming of the planet, sincewarmerwaters can carry less oxygen. But it is also partly the result ofstraightforwardpollution—arecentGulfofMexicodeadzone,all9,000square miles of it, was powered by the runoff of fertilizer chemicalswashingintotheMississippifromtheindustrialfarmsoftheMidwest.In2014, a not-atypical toxic event struck Lake Erie, when fertilizer fromcornandsoyfarmsinOhiospawnedanalgaebloomthatcutoffdrinkingwater for Toledo. And in 2018, a dead zone the size of Florida wasdiscoveredintheArabianSea—sobigthatresearchersbelieveditmightencompasstheentire63,700-square-mileGulfofOman,seventimesthesize of the dead zone in theGulf ofMexico. “The ocean,” said the leadresearcherBastienQueste,“issuffocating.”Dramaticdeclines inoceanoxygenhaveplayeda role inmanyof the

planet’s worstmass extinctions, and this process by which dead zonesgrow—chokingoffmarine lifeandwipingout fisheries—isalreadyquite

advanced not only in the Gulf of Mexico but just off Namibia, wherehydrogensulfideisbubblingoutoftheseaalongathousand-milestretchoflandknownastheSkeletonCoast.Thenameoriginallyreferredtothedetritus ofwrecked ships, but today it’smore apt than ever.Hydrogensulfideisalsooneofthethingsscientistssuspectfinallycappedtheend-Permianextinction,onceallthefeedbackloopshadbeentriggered.It isso toxic that evolution has trained us to recognize the tiniest, safesttraces, which is why our noses are so exquisitely skilled at registeringflatulence.

—

Andthenthereisthepossibleslowdownofthe“oceanconveyorbelt,”thegreatcirculatorysystemmadeupof theGulfStreamandothercurrentsthatistheprimarywaytheplanetregulatesregionaltemperatures.Howdoesthiswork?ThewateroftheGulfStreamcoolsoffintheatmosphereof the Norwegian Sea, making the water itself denser, which sends itdownintothebottomoftheocean,whereitisthenpushedsouthwardbymore Gulf Stream water—itself cooling in the north and falling to theocean floor—eventually all the way to Antarctica, where the cold waterreturnstothesurfaceandbeginstoheatupandtravelnorth.Thetripcantakeathousandyears.As soonas the conveyorbelt became the subject of real study, in the

1980s,therewerethoseoceanographerswhoworrieditmightshutdown,whichwouldleadtoadramaticdisequilibrationoftheplanet’sclimate—thehotterpartsgettingmuchhotterandthecolderpartsmuchcolder.Atotalshutdownwouldbeinconceivablycatastrophic,thoughtheimpactslookdeceptivelyinnocuousonfirstscan—acolderEurope,moreintenseweather,additionalsea-levelrise.Invariably,thisisdescribedastheDayAfter Tomorrow scenario, and it is a strange twist of fate that soforgettable a movie has become the memorable shorthand for thisparticularworst-casenightmare.A shutdown of the conveyor belt is not a scenario that any credible

scientists worry about on any human timescale. But a slowdown isanothermatter.Already,climatechangehasdepressedthevelocityoftheGulfStreambyasmuchas15percent,adevelopmentthatscientistscall“an unprecedented event in the past millennium,” believed to be one

reason the sea-level rise along the East Coast of the United States isdramaticallyhigherthanelsewhereintheworld.Andin2018,twomajorpapers triggered a new wave of concern over the conveyor belt,technicallycalledAtlanticMeridionalOverturningCirculation,whichwasfound to bemoving at its slowest rate in at least 1,500 years. This hadhappenedaboutahundredyearsaheadofthescheduleofevenalarmedscientists andmarked what the climate scientist Michael Mann called,ominously,a“tippingpoint.”Further change,of course, is to come: thetransformationof theoceanbywarmingmaking theseunknownwatersdoubly unknowable, remodeling the planet’s seas before we ever wereabletodiscovertheirdepthsandallthelifesubmergedthere.

O

UnbreathableAir

ur lungsneedoxygen,but it isonlya fractionofwhatwebreathe,and the fraction tends to decline the more carbon is in the

atmosphere.Thatdoesn’tmeanweareat riskof suffocation—oxygen isfar too abundant for that—butwewill nevertheless suffer.WithCO2 at930partspermillion(morethandoublewherewearetoday),cognitiveabilitydeclinesby21percent.Theeffectsaremorepronouncedindoors,whereCO2tendstobuildup

—that’sonereasonyouprobably feela littlemoreawakewhen takingabriskwalkoutsidethanyoudoafterspendingalongdayinsidewiththewindowsclosed.Andit’salsoareasonelementaryschoolclassroomshavebeenfound,byonestudy,toalreadyaverage1,000partspermillion,withalmostaquarterof thosesurveyedinTexasover3,000—quitealarmingnumbers, given that these are the environments we’ve designed topromote intellectual performance. But classrooms are not the worstoffenders: other studies have shown even higher concentrations onairplanes, with effects you can probably groggily recall from pastexperience.Butcarbonis,moreorless,theleastofit.Goingforward,theplanet’s

airwon’t just bewarmer; itwill likely also be dirtier,more oppressive,and more sickening. Droughts have a direct impact on air quality,producingwhat is now known as dust exposure and in the days of theAmericanDust Bowlwas called “dust pneumonia”; climate changewillbring new dust storms to those plains states, where deaths from dustpollutionareexpectedtomorethandoubleandhospitalizationstotriple.Thehotter theplanetgets, themoreozone forms,andby themiddleofthiscenturyAmericansshouldsuffera70percent increase indayswith

unhealthy ozone smog, the National Center for Atmospheric Researchhasprojected.Bythe2090s,asmanyas2billionpeoplegloballywillbebreathing air above theWHO “safe” level. Already, more than 10,000peopledie fromairpollutiondaily.That is considerablymore eachday—eachday—thanthetotalnumberofpeoplewhohaveeverbeenaffectedbythemeltdownsofnuclearreactors.Thisisnotaslam-dunkargumentin favorofnuclearpower,ofcourse,sincethecomparison isn’tsoneat:therearemany,manymorefossilfuelchimneysdisgorgingtheirtrailsofblack smoke than fission facilities with their finger-trap towers andclouds of white vapor. But it is a startling mark of just how all-encompassing our regime of carbon pollution really is, enclosing theplanetinatoxicswaddle.In recent years, researchershaveuncoveredawhole secrethistoryof

adversitywovenintotheexperienceofthelasthalfcenturybythehandofleaded gasoline and lead paint, which seem to have dramaticallyincreasedratesofintellectualdisabilityandcriminality,anddramaticallydecreased educational attainment and lifetime earnings, wherever theywereintroduced.Theeffectsofairpollutionseemstarkeralready.Small-particulate pollution, for instance, lowers cognitive performance overtime somuch that researchers call the effect “huge”: reducing ChinesepollutiontotheEPAstandard,forinstance,wouldimprovethecountry’sverbaltestscoresby13percentanditsmathscoresby8percent.(Simpletemperature rise has a robust and negative impact on test taking, too:scores go down when it’s hotter out.) Pollution has been linked withincreased mental illness in children and the likelihood of dementia inadults.Ahigherpollutionlevelintheyearababyisbornhasbeenshownto reduce earnings and labor force participation at age thirty, and therelationship of pollution to premature births and low birth weight ofbabies issostrongthat thesimple introductionofE-ZPass inAmericancitiesreducedbothproblems,inthevicinityoftollplazas,by10.8percentand 11.8 percent, respectively, just by cutting down on the exhaustexpelledwhencarsslowedtopaythetoll.Thenthereisthemorefamiliarhealththreatfrompollution.In2013,

meltingArcticiceremodeledAsianweatherpatterns,deprivingindustrialChinaofthenaturalwind-ventilationpatternsithadcometodependon,and, as a result, blanketing much of the country’s north in anunbreathable smog. An obtuse-seeming metric called the Air Quality

Index categorizes the risks according to an idiosyncratic unit scaletabulating thepresenceofavarietyofpollutants: thewarningsbeginat51–100, and at 201–300 include promises of “significant increase inrespiratoryeffectsinthegeneralpopulation.”Theindextopsoutwiththe301–500range,warningof“seriousaggravationofheartorlungdiseaseand prematuremortality in persons with cardiopulmonary disease andthe elderly” and “serious risk of respiratory effects in the generalpopulation”; at that level, “everyone shouldavoidall outdoor exertion.”TheChinese “airpocalypse”of2013doubled thehighendof thatupperrange,reachingapeakAirQualityIndexof993,andscientistsstudyingthe phenomenon suggested that China had inadvertently invented anentirely new and unstudied kind of smog, one that combined the “peasoup” pollution of industrial-era Europe and the small-particulatepollutionthathaslatelycontaminatedsomuchofthedevelopingworld.Thatyear,smogwasresponsiblefor1.37milliondeathsinthecountry.Outside of China, most saw the photographs and video of a world

capitalblanketedbygraysothickitblottedoutthesunasasign,notofthestateof theplanet’satmosphere,butof justhowbackward thatonecountrywas—justhowfarChinalaggedbehindthequality-of-lifeindicesofthefirstworld,whateveritsrapideconomicgrowthsuggestedaboutitsplaceintheglobalpeckingorder.Then,intherecordCaliforniawildfireseasonof2017,theairaroundSanFranciscowasworsethanonthesameday inBeijing. InNapa, theAirQuality Indexhit 486. InLosAngeles,therewasa runonsurgicalmasks; inSantaBarbara, residentsscoopedash fromtheirdrainpipesby thehandful. InSeattle, the followingyear,wildfiresmokemadeitunsafeforanyone,anywhere,tobreatheoutside.WhichgaveAmericansonemorereason—panicabouttheirownhealth—to lookaway from the situation inDelhi,where in2017 theAirQualityIndexreached999.The Indian capital is home to 26 million people. In 2017, simply

breathing itsairwas theequivalentof smokingmore than twopacksofcigarettes a day, and local hospitals saw a patient surge of 20 percent.RunnersinDelhi’shalfmarathoncompetedwiththeirheadswrappedbywhitemasks. And air that thickwith smut is hazardous in otherways:visibilitywassolowthatcarscrashedinpileupsonDelhi’shighways,andUnitedcanceledflightsinandoutofthecity.New research shows that even short-term exposure to particulate

pollution can dramatically increase rates of respiratory infections, witheveryadditionaltenmicrogramspercubicmeterassociatedwithariseindiagnoses between 15 and 32 percent. Blood pressure goes up, too. In2017,TheLancet reported,ninemillionprematuredeathsgloballywerefromsmall-particulatepollution;morethanaquarterwereinIndia.Andthatwasbeforefinalfigureswereinfromthatyear’sspike.In Delhi, much of the pollution comes from the burning of nearby

farmland;butelsewheresmall-particulatesmogisproducedprimarilybydiesel and gas exhaust and other industrial activity. The public healthdamage is indiscriminate, touching nearly every human vulnerability:pollutionincreasesprevalenceofstroke,heartdisease,cancerofallkinds,acute and chronic respiratory diseases like asthma, and adversepregnancy outcomes, including premature birth.New research into thebehavioral and developmental effects is perhaps even scarier: airpollution has been linked toworsememory, attention, and vocabulary,andtoADHDandautismspectrumdisorders.Pollutionhasbeenshowntodamagethedevelopmentofneurons in thebrain,andproximity toacoalplantcandeformyourDNA.Inthedevelopingworld,98percentofcitiesareenvelopedbyairabove

the thresholdof safetyestablishedby theWHO.Getoutofurbanareasand the problem doesn’t much improve: 95 percent of the world’spopulation isbreathingdangerouslypollutedair.Since2013,Chinahasundertakenanunprecedentedcleanupofitsair,butasof2015pollutionwasstillkillingmorethanamillionChineseeachyear.Globally,oneoutofsixdeathsiscausedbyairpollution.

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Pollutionlikethisisn’tnewsinanymeaningfulsense;youcanfindomensaboutthetoxicityofsmogandthedangersofblackenedair,forinstance,in the writing of Charles Dickens, rarely appreciated as anenvironmentalist.Buteveryyearwearediscoveringmoreandmorewaysinwhichourindustrialactivityispoisoningtheplanet.One particular note of alarm has been struck by what seems like an

entirely new—or newly understood—pollution threat: microplastics.Globalwarmingdidnotbringusmicroplasticsinanydirectway,andyettheirrapidconquestofournaturalworldhasbecomeanirresistiblefable

about just what kind of transformation is meant by the word“Anthropocene,” and just how much the world’s booming consumercultureistoblame.Environmentalists probably know already about “the Great Pacific

garbage patch”—that mass of plastic, twice the size of Texas, floatingfreely in thePacificOcean. It isnotactuallyan island—in fact, it isnotactually a stablemass, only rhetorically convenient for us to thinkof itthatway.And it ismostlycomposedof larger-scaleplastics,of thekindvisibletothehumaneye.Themicroscopicbits—700,000ofthemcanbereleasedintothesurroundingenvironmentbyasinglewashing-machinecycle—are more insidious. And, believe it or not, more pervasive: aquarter of fish sold in Indonesia and California contain plastics,accordingtoonerecentstudy.Europeaneatersofshellfish,oneestimatehassuggested,consumeatleast11,000bitseachyear.Thedirecteffectonoceanlifeisevenmorestriking.Thetotalnumber

ofmarine species said to be adversely affected by plastic pollution hasrisenfrom260in1995,whenthefirstassessmentwascarriedout,to690in2015and 1,450 in2018.Amajorityof fish tested in theGreatLakescontainedmicroplastics,asdidthegutsof73percentoffishsurveyedinthenorthwestAtlantic.OneU.K.supermarketstudyfoundthatevery100grams of mussels were infested with 70 particles of plastic. Some fishhave learned to eat plastic, and certain species of krill are nowfunctioning as plastic processing plants, churning microplastics intosmallerbits thatscientistsarenowcalling“nanoplastics.”Butkrillcan’tgrind italldown; inonesquaremileofwaternearToronto,3.4millionmicroplasticparticleswererecently trawled.Ofcourse, seabirdsarenotimmune:oneresearcherfound225piecesofplastic inthestomachofasinglethree-month-oldchick,weighing10percentofitsbodymass—theequivalentofanaveragehumancarryingabouttentotwentypoundsofplasticinadistendedbelly.(“Imaginehavingtotakeyourfirstflightoutto seawith all that in your stomach,” the researcher told theFinancialTimes,adding:“Aroundtheworld,seabirdsaredecliningfasterthananyotherbirdgroup.”)Microplasticshavebeenfoundinbeer,honey,andsixteenofseventeen

testedbrandsofcommercialseasalt,acrosseightdifferentcountries.Themorewetest,themorewefind;andwhilenobodyyetknowsthehealthimpact on humans, in the oceans a plasticmicrobead is said to be one

million times more toxic than the water around it. Chances are, if westartedslicingopenhumancadaverstolookformicroplastics—aswearebeginning to do with tau proteins, the supposed markers of CTE andAlzheimer’s—we’d be finding plastic in our own flesh, too. We canbreatheinmicroplastics,evenwhenindoors,wherethey’vebeendetectedsuspended in theair, anddoalreadydrink them: theyare found in thetapwaterof94percentof all testedAmerican cities.Andglobalplasticproductionisexpectedtotripleby2050,whentherewillbemoreplasticintheoceanthanfish.

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Plasticpanichasastrangerelationshiptoclimatechange,inthatitseemsto draw on premonitions about the degradation of the planet whilefocusingonsomethingthathasverylittletodowithglobalwarming.Butit’snotonlycarbonemissions thatare tiedup inclimatechange.Otherpollutionis,too.Oneoftheconnectionsisrelativelyattenuated:plasticsare produced by industrial activity that also produces pollutants,includingcarbondioxide.Asecond ismoredirectbut, in theschemeofthings,trivial:whenplasticsdegrade,theyreleasemethaneandethylene,anotherpowerfulgreenhousegas.But a third relationship between non-carbon pollution and the

temperatureoftheplanetisfarmorehorrifying.Thisisnottheproblemof plastic but of “aerosol pollution”—the blanket term for any particlessuspendedinouratmosphere.Aerosolparticlesactuallysuppressglobaltemperature,mostlybyreflectingsunlightbackintoouterspace.Inotherwords, all of thenon-carbonpollutionwe’veexhausted fromourpowerplants and our factories and our automobiles—suffocating some of thelargest and most prosperous cities of the world and consigning manymillions of the lucky to hospital beds, and many millions of others toearly deaths—all of that pollution has been, perversely, reducing theamountofglobalwarmingwearecurrentlyexperiencing.Howmuch?Probablyabouthalfadegree—andpossiblymore.Already,

aerosolshavebeenreflectingsomuchsunlightawayfromtheearththat,intheindustrialera,theplanethasonlyheateduptwo-thirdsasmuchasit would have otherwise. If we had somehow managed to producepreciselythesamevolumeofcarbonemissionssincethebeginningofthe

IndustrialRevolutionaswehave,whilesomehowkeepingtheskiesclearofaerosolpollution,thetemperaturerisewouldbehalfagainhigherthanitisnow.TheresultiswhattheNobellaureatePaulCrutzenhascalleda“Catch-22” and what the climate writer Eric Holthaus has described,perhapsmore incisively,asa“devil’sbargain”:achoicebetweenpublic-health-destroying pollution on the one hand, and, on the other, clearskies whose very clearness and healthiness will dramatically accelerateclimate change. Eliminate that pollution and you savemillions of liveseachyear,butalsocreateadramaticspikeinwarming.Thatwouldbringustobetween1.5and2degreeswarmerthanthepreindustrialbaseline—pushing us right up to the threshold of 2 degrees of warming, longthought to be the border separating a livable future from climatecatastrophe.For almost a generation now, engineers and futurists have

contemplated the practical implications of this phenomenon, and theprospectofsuppressingglobaltemperaturewithaprogramofsuspendedparticles—thatis,pollutingtheaironpurposetokeeptheplanetcooler.Oftengrouped togetherunder theumbrella term “geoengineering,” thisprospecthasbeenreceivedbythepublicasaworst-casescenario,nearlyscience fiction—andhas, in fact, informedmuchof therecentsci-fi thathasaddresseditself totheclimatecrisis.Andyet ithasgainedaterrificamountofcurrencyamongthemostconcernedclimatescientists,manyofwhomwillalsonote thatnoneof thequitemodestgoalsof theParisclimateaccordscanbeachievedwithoutnegative-emissionstechnologies—atpresentprohibitivelyexpensive.Carbon capture may indeed prove to be “magical thinking,” but the

cruder technologies—we know these will work. Rather than suckingcarbonoutof theatmosphere,wecould shootpollution into the skyonpurpose;perhapsthemostplausibleversioninvolvessulfurdioxide.Thatwouldturnoursunsetsveryred,wouldbleachthesky,wouldmakemoreacidrain.Itwouldalsocause tensof thousandsof additionalprematuredeaths

each year, through its effect on air quality. A 2018 paper suggested itwould rapidly dry the Amazon, producing many more wildfires. Thenegative effect on plant growth would entirely cancel out the positiveeffectonglobal temperature,according toanother2018paper; inotherwords,atleastintermsofagriculturalyield,solargeoengineeringwould

offernonetbenefitatall.Once we began such a program, we could never stop. Even a brief

interruption,atemporarydispersalofourredsulfurumbrella,couldsendthe planet plunging several degrees of warming forward into a climateabyss. Which would make whatever installations were sustaining thatumbrellaquitevulnerabletopoliticalgamesmanshipandterrorism,asitsadvocates themselveswould acknowledge. And yetmany scientists stilldescribe geoengineering as an inevitability—it’s just so cheap, they say.Evenanenvironmentalistbillionaire,goingrogue,couldmakeithappenontheirown.

R

PlaguesofWarming

ockisarecordofplanetaryhistory,erasaslongasmillionsofyearsflattenedbytheforcesofgeologicaltimeintostratawithamplitudes

ofjustinches,orjustaninch,orevenless.Iceworksthatway,too,asaclimate ledger, but it is also frozen history, some of which can bereanimatedwhenunfrozen.Therearenow,trappedinArcticice,diseasesthat havenot circulated in the air formillions of years—in some cases,sincebeforehumanswerearoundtoencounterthem.Whichmeansourimmune systems would have no idea how to fight back when thoseprehistoricplaguesemergefromtheice.Already,inlaboratories,severalmicrobes have been reanimated: a 32,000-year-old “extremophile”bacteriarevivedin2005,an8-million-year-oldbugbroughtback to lifein2007,a3.5-million-year-oldoneaRussianscientist self-injected,outof curiosity, just to see what would happen. (He survived.) In 2018,scientistsrevivedsomethingabitbigger—awormthathadbeenfrozeninpermafrostforthelast42,000years.The Arctic also stores terrifying diseases frommore recent times. In

Alaska, researchers have discovered remnants of the 1918 flu thatinfectedasmanyas500million,andkilledasmanyas50million—about3percentoftheworld’spopulation,andalmostsixtimesasmanyashaddied in the world war for which the pandemic served as a kind ofgruesomecapstone.Scientistssuspectsmallpoxand thebubonic plagueare trapped in Siberian ice, among many other diseases that haveotherwisepassedintohumanlegend—anabridgedhistoryofdevastatingsickness,leftoutlikeeggsaladintheArcticsun.Manyofthesefrozenorganismswon’tactuallysurvivethethaw;those

thathavebeenbroughtbacktolifehavebeenreanimatedtypicallyunderfastidiouslabconditions.Butin2016,aboywaskilledandtwentyothers

infected by anthrax released when retreating permafrost exposed thefrozen carcass of a reindeer killed by the bacteria at least seventy-fiveyearsearlier;morethantwothousandpresent-dayreindeerdied.

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What concerns epidemiologistsmore than ancient diseases are existingscourges relocated, rewired, or even re-evolved by warming. The firsteffect is geographical. Before the early modern period, humanprovincialitywasaguardagainstpandemic—abugcouldwipeoutatown,orakingdom,oreven inanextremecasedevastateacontinent—but inmostinstancesitcouldn’ttravelmuchfartherthanitsvictims,whichistosay,notveryfaratall.TheBlackDeathkilledasmuchas60percentofEurope,butconsider, foragruesomecounterfactual,howbigits impactmighthavebeeninatrulyglobalizedworld.Today, evenwithglobalizationand the rapid interminglingofhuman

populations, our ecosystems are mostly stable, and this functions asanother limit—we know where certain bugs can spread, and know theenvironments in which they cannot. (This is why certain vectors ofadventure tourism require dozens of new vaccines and prophylacticmedications, and why New Yorkers traveling to London don’t need toworry.)But global warming will scramble those ecosystems, meaning it will

helpdiseasetrespassthoselimitsassurelyasCortésdid.Thefootprintofevery mosquito-borne illness is presently circumscribed, but thosebordersaredisappearingrapidly,asthetropicsexpand—thecurrentrateis thirtymilesperdecade. InBrazil, forgenerations, yellow fever sat inthe Amazon basin, where the Haemagogus and Sabethes mosquitoesthrived, making the disease a concern for those who lived, worked, ortraveled deep into the jungle, but only for them; in 2016, it left theAmazon,asmoreandmoremosquitoesfannedoutoftherainforest;andby 2017 it had reached areas around the country’s megalopolises, SãoPauloandRiodeJaneiro—morethanthirtymillionpeople,manyofthemlivinginshantytowns,facingthearrivalofadiseasethatkillsbetween3and8percentofthoseinfected.Yellow fever is just one of the plagues that will be carried by

mosquitoes as they migrate, conquering more andmore of a warming

world—the globalization of pandemic disease. Malaria alone kills amillion people each year already, infecting many more, but you don’tworrymuchaboutit ifyouarelivinginMaineorFrance.Asthetropicscreepnorthwardandmosquitoesmigratewith them,youmay;over thecourseofthenextcentury,moreandmoreoftheworld’spopulationwillbelivingundertheshadowofdiseaseslikethese.Youdidn’tmuchworryaboutZikabeforeacoupleofyearsago,either.As it happens, Zikamay also be a goodmodel of a secondworrying

effect—diseasemutation.One reasonyouhadn’theard aboutZikauntilrecently is that it had been trapped in Uganda and Southeast Asia;another is that it did not, until recently, appear to cause birth defects.Scientists still don’t entirely understand what happened or what theymissed,evennow,severalyearsaftertheplanetseemedgrippedbypanicaboutmicrocephaly:itcouldbethatthediseasechangedasitcametotheAmericas, the result of a geneticmutation or in adaptive response to anew environment; or that Zika produces those devastating prenataleffectsonlywhenanotherdiseaseispresent,possiblyonelesscommoninAfrica; or that something about the environment or immunologicalhistoryinUgandaprotectsmothersandtheirunbornchildren.But there are things we do know for sure about how climate affects

somediseases.Malaria, for instance, thrives in hotter regions,which isonereasontheWorldBankestimatesthatby2030,3.6billionpeoplewillbereckoningwithit—100millionasadirectresultofclimatechange.

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Projections like those depend not just on climate models but on anintricate understanding of the organism at play. Or, rather, organisms.Malariatransmissioninvolvesboththediseaseandthemosquito;Lymedisease,boththediseaseandthetick—whichisanotherepidemiologicallythreatening creature whose universe is rapidly expanding, thanks toglobal warming. As Mary Beth Pfeiffer has documented, Lyme casecountshavespikedinJapan,Turkey,andSouthKorea,wherethediseasewas literallynonexistentasrecentlyas2010—zerocases—andnow livesinsidehundredsmoreKoreanseachyear.IntheNetherlands,54percentof the country’s land is now infested; in Europe as a whole, Lymecaseloads are now three times the standard level. In theUnited States,

there are likely around 300,000 new infections each year—and sincemanyofeven those treated forLymecontinue toshowsymptomsyearsafter treatment, the numbers can stockpile. Overall, the number ofdisease cases frommosquitoes, ticks, and fleas have tripled in theU.S.over just the last thirteen years, with dozens of counties across thecountry encountering ticks for the first time. But the effects of theepidemic can be seen perhaps most clearly in animals other thanhumans: inMinnesota, during the 2000s,winter ticks helped drop themoose population by 58 percent in a single decade, and someenvironmentalists believe the species could be eradicated entirely fromthestateassoonas2020.InNewEngland,deadmoosecalveshavebeenfoundsucklingasmanyas90,000engorgedticks,oftenkillingthecalvesnotthroughLymediseasebutsimpleanemia,theeffectofthatnumberofbugseachdrawingafewmillilitersofbloodfromthemoose.Thosethatsurvivearefarfromrobust,manyhavingscratchedsoincessantlyattheirownhides to clear it of ticks that they completely eliminated their ownhair, leavingbehinda spookygrayskin thathasearned themthename“ghostmoose.”Lyme is still, in relative terms,ayoungdisease,andonewedon’tyet

understandall thatwell:weattributea verymysteriousand incoherentsetofsymptomstoit,fromjointpaintofatiguetomemorylosstofacialpalsy,almostasacatchallexplanationforailmentswecannotpinpointinpatientswhoweknowhavebeenbittenbyabugcarryingthebug.Wedoknowticks,however,assurelyasweknowmalaria—therearenotmanyparasiteswe understand better. But there aremany,manymillionsweunderstand worse, which means our sense of how climate change willredirect or remodel them is shrouded in a foreboding ignorance. Andthen thereare theplagues thatclimatechangewill confrontuswith fortheveryfirsttime—awholenewuniverseofdiseaseshumanshaveneverbeforeknowntoevenworryabout.“New universe” is not hyperbole. Scientists guess the planet could

harbor more than a million yet-to-be-discovered viruses. Bacteria areeventrickier,andsoweprobablyknowaboutevenfewerofthem.Perhapsscariestarethosethatlivewithinus,peacefullyfornow.More

than99percentofeventhosebacteriainsidehumanbodiesarepresentlyunknown to science, which means we are operating in near-totalignoranceabouttheeffectsclimatechangemighthaveonthebugsin,for

instance,ourguts—abouthowmanyofthebacteriamodernhumanshavecome to rely on, like unseen factory workers, for everything fromdigesting our food to modulating our anxiety, could be rewired,diminished,orentirelykilledoffbyanadditionalfewdegreesofheat.Overwhelmingly, of course, the viruses and bacteria making homes

inside us are nonthreatening to humans—at present. Presumably, adifference of a degree or two in global temperature won’t dramaticallychangethebehaviorofthemajorityofthem—probablythevastmajority,eventheoverwhelmingmajority.Butconsiderthecaseof thesaiga—theadorable,dwarflikeantelope,nativetocentralAsia.InMay2015,nearlytwo-thirdsof theglobalpopulationdied in the spanof justdays—everysinglesaigainanareathesizeofFlorida,thelandsuddenlydottedwithhundredsof thousandsofsaigacarcassesandnotone lonesurvivor.Aneventlikethisiscalleda“mega-death,”thisonesostrikingandcinematicthat it gave rise, immediately, to a whole raft of conspiracy theories:aliens, radiation, dumped rocket fuel. But no toxins were found byresearcherspokingthroughthekillingfields—intheanimalsthemselves,in the soil, in the local plants. The culprit, it turned out, was a simplebacteria,Pasteurellamultocida,whichhadlivedinsidethesaiga’stonsils,without threatening its host in any way, for many, many generations.Suddenly it had proliferated, emigrated to the bloodstream, and fromtheretotheanimals’liver,kidneys,andspleen.Why?“TheplaceswherethesaigasdiedinMay2015wereextremelywarmandhumid,”EdYongwroteinTheAtlantic.“Infact,humiditylevelswerethehighesteverseenintheregionsincerecordsbeganin1948.Thesamepatternheldfortwoearlier, and much smaller, die-offs from 1981 and 1988. When thetemperaturegetsreallyhot,andtheairgetsreallywet,saigadie.Climateisthetrigger,Pasteurellaisthebullet.”This is not to saywe nowunderstandwhat precisely about humidity

weaponizedPasteurella,orhowmanyoftheotherbacteria livinginsidemammals like us—the 1 percent we have identified, or perhaps moreworryingly the 99 percent we house without any knowledge orunderstanding—might be similarly triggered by climate, friendly,symbioticbugswithwhomwe’velivedinsomecasesformillionsofyears,transformedsuddenly intocontagionsalreadyinsideus.Thatremainsamystery. But ignorance is no comfort. Presumably climate change willintroduceustosomeofthem.

T

EconomicCollapse

hemurmuringmantra of globalmarkets—whichprevailedbetweenthe end of the Cold War and the onset of the Great Recession,

promising something like their own eternal reign—is that economicgrowthwillsaveusfromanythingandeverything.But in the aftermath of the 2008 crash, a number of historians and

iconoclastic economists studyingwhat they call “fossil capitalism” havestartedtosuggestthattheentirehistoryofswifteconomicgrowth,whichbegansomewhatsuddenlyintheeighteenthcentury, isnottheresultofinnovation or the dynamics of free trade, but simply our discovery offossil fuels and all their raw power—a onetime injection of that new“value”intoasystemthathadpreviouslybeencharacterizedbyunendingsubsistenceliving.Thisisaminorityview,amongeconomists,andyettheprécis version of the perspective is quite powerful. Before fossil fuels,nobodylivedbetterthantheirparentsorgrandparentsorancestorsfromfivehundredyearsbefore,except in the immediateaftermathofagreatplagueliketheBlackDeath,whichallowedtheluckysurvivorstogobbleuptheresourcesliberatedbymassgraves.IntheWestespecially,wetendtobelievewe’veinventedourwayoutof

that endless zero-sum, scratch-and-claw resource scramble—both withparticularinnovations,likethesteamengineandcomputer,andwiththedevelopment of a dynamic capitalistic system to reward them. Butscholars likeAndreasMalmhave a different perspective:we have beenextractedfromthatmuckonlybyasingularinnovation,oneengineerednotbyentrepreneurialhumanhandsbutinfactmillionsofyearsbeforethe first ones ever dug at the earth—engineered by time and geologicweight,whichmanymillennia ago pressed the fossils of Earth’s earliercarbon-based life forms (plants, small animals) into petroleum, like

lemonunderapress.Oilisthepatrimonyoftheplanet’sprehumanpast:what stored energy the earth can produce when undisturbed formillennia.Assoonashumansdiscoveredthatstorehouse,theysetaboutplunderingit—sofastthat,atvariouspointsoverthelasthalfcentury,oilforecastershavepanickedaboutrunningout.In1968,thelaborhistorianEric Hobsbawm wrote, “Whoever says Industrial Revolution, sayscotton.”Today,hewouldprobablysubstitute“fossilfuel.”The timeline of growth is just about perfectly consistent with the

burningofthosefuels,thoughdoctrinaireeconomistswouldarguethereismuchmore to the equation of growth. Generations being as long astheyareandhistoricalmemoryasshort, theWest’sseveralcenturiesofrelatively reliable and expanding prosperity have endowed economicgrowthwith the reassuring aura of permanence:we expect it, on somecontinents,atleast,andrageagainstourleadersandeliteswhenitdoesnotcome.Butplanetaryhistoryisverylong,andhumanhistory,thoughabriefer interval, is long, too.Andwhilethepaceof technologicalchangewe call progress is today dizzying and may yet invent new ways ofbuffering us from the blows of climate change, it is also not hard toimaginethoseflushcenturies,enjoyedbynationswhocolonizedtherestof the planet to produce them, as an aberration. Earlier empires hadboomyears,too.

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Youdonothavetobelievethateconomicgrowthisamirageproducedbyfossil fumes toworry that climate change is a threat to it—in fact, thisproposition forms the cornerstone around which an entire edifice ofacademicliteraturehasbeenbuiltoverthelastdecade.Themostexcitingresearchon theeconomicsofwarminghascome fromSolomonHsiangandMarshallBurkeandEdwardMiguel,whoarenothistoriansoffossilcapitalism but who offer some very bleak analysis of their own: in acountry that’salready relativelywarm,everydegreeCelsiusofwarmingreducesgrowth,onaverage,byaboutonepercentagepoint(anenormousnumber, considering we count growth in the low single digits as“strong”).Thisisthesterlingworkinthefield.Comparedtothetrajectoryof economic growthwithno climate change, their averageprojection isfor a 23 percent loss in per capita earning globally by the end of this

century.Tracingtheshapeoftheprobabilitycurveisevenscarier.Thereisa51

percent chance, this research suggests, that climate changewill reduceglobaloutputbymorethan20percentby2100,comparedwithaworldwithoutwarming,anda12percentchancethatitlowerspercapitaGDPby50percentormorebythen,unlessemissionsdecline.Bycomparison,the Great Depression dropped global GDP by about 15 percent, it isestimated—the numbers weren’t so good back then. The more recentGreat Recession lowered it by about 2 percent, in a onetime shock;Hsiangandhiscolleaguesestimateaone-in-eightchanceofanongoingandirreversibleeffectby2100thatistwenty-fivetimesworse.In2018,ateam led by Thomas Stoerk suggested that these estimates could bedramaticunderestimates.The scale of that economic devastation is hard to comprehend. Even

within the postindustrial nations of thewealthyWest, where economicindicators suchas theunemployment rateandGDPgrowthcirculateasthoughtheycontainthewholemeaningoflifeinthem,figureslikethesearealittlebithardtofathom;we’vebecomesousedtoeconomicstabilityand reliable growth that the entire spectrumof conceivability stretchesfromcontractionsofabout15percent,effectswestudystillinhistoriesoftheDepression,togrowthabouthalfasfast—about7percent,whichtheworldasawholelastachievedduringtheglobalboomoftheearly1960s.Theseareexceptionalonetimepeaksandtroughs,extendingfornomorethanafewyears,andmostofthetimewemeasureeconomicfluctuationsin ticks of decimal points—2.9 this year, 2.7 that.What climate changeproposesisaneconomicsetbackofanentirelydifferentcategory.Thebreakdownbycountry isperhapsevenmorealarming.There are

places that benefit, in the north, where warmer temperatures canimprove agriculture and economic productivity: Canada, Russia,Scandinavia, Greenland. But in the mid-latitudes, the countries thatproduce the bulk of the world’s economic activity—the United States,China—losenearlyhalfof theirpotentialoutput.Thewarmingnear theequator isworse,with losses throughoutAfrica, fromMexico toBrazil,and in India and SoutheastAsia approaching 100percent. Indiaalone,one study proposed, would shoulder nearly a quarter of the economicsuffering inflicted on the entire world by climate change. In 2018, theWorldBankestimated that thecurrentpathof carbonemissionswould

sharplydiminish the living conditionsof800million living throughoutSouthAsia.Onehundredmillion,theysay,willbedraggedintoextremepovertybyclimatechangejustoverthenextdecade.Perhaps“backinto”ismoreappropriate:manyofthemostvulnerablearethosepopulationsthat have just extracted themselves from deprivation and subsistenceliving, through developing-world growth powered by industrializationandfossilfuel.Andtohelpbufferoroffsettheimpacts,wehavenoNewDealrevival

waitingaroundthecorner,noMarshallPlanready.Theglobalhalvingofeconomic resources would be permanent, and, because permanent, wewould soon not even know it as deprivation, only as a brutally cruelnormal against which we might measure tiny burps of decimal-pointgrowthasthebreathofanewprosperity.Wehavegottenusedtosetbackson our erratic march along the arc of economic history, but we knowthemassetbacksandexpectelasticrecoveries.Whatclimatechangehasin store is not that kind of thing—not a Great Recession or a GreatDepressionbut,ineconomicterms,aGreatDying.

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How could that come to be? The answer is partly in the precedingchapters—naturaldisaster,flooding,publichealthcrises.Allofthesearenot just tragedies but expensive ones, and beginning already toaccumulate at an unprecedented rate. There is the cost to agriculture:morethanthreemillionAmericansworkonmorethantwomillionfarms;ifyieldsdeclineby40percent,marginswilldecline, too, inmanycasesdisappearingentirely,thesmallfarmsandcooperativesandevenempiresof agribusinesses slipping underwater (to use the oddly appositeaccountant’smetaphor)anddrowningunderdebtallthosewhoownandworkthosearidfields,manyofthemoldenoughtorememberthesameplains’ age of plenty. And then there is the real flooding: 2.4 millionAmerican homes and businesses, representingmore than $1 trillion inpresent-day value, will suffer chronic flooding by 2100, according to a2018studybytheUnionofConcernedScientists.Fourteenpercentofthereal estate inMiami Beach could be flooded by just 2045. This is justwithinAmerica,thoughitisn’tonlySouthFlorida;infact,overthenextfew decades, the real-estate impact will be almost $30 billion in New

Jerseyalone.Thereisadirectheatcosttogrowth,asthereistohealth.Someofthese

effectswecanseealready—forinstance,thewarpingoftraintracksorthegrounding of flights due to temperatures so high that they abolish theaerodynamicsthatallowplanestotakeoff,whichisnowcommonplaceatheat-stricken airports like the one in Phoenix. (Every round-trip planeticket from New York to London, keep inmind, costs the Arctic threemore square meters of ice.) From Switzerland to Finland, heat waveshavenecessitatedtheclosureofpowerplantswhencooling liquidshavebecome toohot to do their job.And in India, in 2012, 670million lostpower when the country’s grid was overwhelmed by farmers irrigatingtheirfieldswithoutthehelpofthemonsoonseason,whichneverarrived.Inallbuttheshiniestprojectsinallbutthewealthiestpartsoftheworld,theplanet’sinfrastructurewassimplynotbuiltforclimatechange,whichmeansthevulnerabilitiesareeverywhereyoulook.Other, less obvious effects are also visible—for instance,productivity.

Forthepast fewdecades,economistshavewonderedwhythecomputerrevolution and the internet have not brought meaningful productivitygains to the industrialized world. Spreadsheets, database managementsoftware, email—these innovations alone would seem to promise hugegainsinefficiencyforanybusinessoreconomyadoptingthem.Butthosegainssimplyhaven’tmaterialized; infact,theeconomicperiodinwhichthose innovations were introduced, along with literally thousands ofsimilarcomputer-drivenefficiencies,hasbeencharacterized,especiallyinthedevelopedWest,bywageandproductivitystagnationanddampenedeconomic growth.One speculative possibility: computers havemadeusmoreefficientandproductive,butat the same timeclimate changehashadtheoppositeeffect,diminishingorwipingoutentirelytheimpactoftechnology. How could this be? One theory is the negative cognitiveeffects of direct heat and air pollution, both ofwhich are accumulatingmore research support by the day. And whether or not that theoryexplainsthegreatstagnationofthelastseveraldecades,wedoknowthat,globally,warmertemperaturesdodampenworkerproductivity.Theclaimseemsbothfar-fetchedandintuitive,since,ontheonehand,

youdon’timagineafewticksoftemperaturewouldturnentireeconomiesinto zombiemarkets, and since, on the other, you yourself have surelylabored at work on a hot day with the air-conditioning out and

understand how hard that can be. The bigger-picture perspective isharder to swallow, at least at first. It may sound like geographicdeterminism,butHsiang,Burke,andMiguelhave identifiedanoptimalannual average temperature for economic productivity: 13 degreesCelsius,whichjustsohappenstobethehistoricalmedianfortheUnitedStatesandseveralotheroftheworld’sbiggesteconomies.Today,theU.S.climate hovers around 13.4 degrees, which translates into less than 1percent of GDP loss—though, like compound interest, the effects growover time.Of course, as the countryhaswarmedover the last decades,particularregionshaveseentheirtemperaturesrise,someofthemfromsuboptimal levels to something closer to an ideal setting, climate-wise.The greater SanFranciscoBayArea, for instance, is sitting pretty rightnow,atexactly13degrees.This iswhat itmeanstosuggest thatclimatechange isanenveloping

crisis, one that touches every aspect of the way we live on the planettoday. But the world’s suffering will be distributed as unequally as itsprofits,withgreatdivergencesbothbetweencountriesandwithinthem.Already-hot countries like India and Pakistan will be hurt the most;withintheUnitedStates,thecostswillbeshoulderedlargelyintheSouthandMidwest,wheresomeregionscouldloseupto20percentofcountyincome.Overall,thoughitwillbehithardbyclimateimpacts,theUnitedStates

isamongthemostwell-positioned toendure—itswealthandgeographyare reasons that America has only begun to register effects of climatechangethatalreadyplaguewarmerandpoorerpartsoftheworld.Butinpartbecauseithassomuchtolose,andinpartbecauseitsoaggressivelydevelopeditsverylongcoastlines,theU.S.ismorevulnerabletoclimateimpactsthananycountryintheworldbutIndia,anditseconomicillnesswon’tbequarantinedat theborder.Inaglobalizedworld, there iswhatZhengtaoZhangandotherscallan“economicrippleeffect.”They’vealsoquantified it, and found that the impact grows alongwithwarming. Atone degree Celsius, with a decline in American GDP of 0.88 percent,global GDP would fall by 0.12 percent, the American losses cascadingthrough the world system. At two degrees, the economic ripple effecttriples,thoughhere,too,theeffectsplayoutdifferentlyindifferentpartsoftheworld;comparedtotheimpactofAmericanlossesatonedegree,attwodegreestheeconomicrippleeffectinChinawouldbe4.5timeslarger.

The radiating shockwaves issuingout fromother countries are smallerbecausetheireconomiesaresmaller,butthewaveswillbecomingfromnearlyeverycountry in theworld, like radiosignalsbeamedout fromawholeglobalforestoftowers,eachtransmittingeconomicsuffering.Forbetteror forworse, in thecountriesof thewealthyWestwehave

settledoneconomicgrowthasthesinglebestmetric,howeverimperfect,ofthehealthofoursocieties.Ofcourse,usingthatmetric,climatechangeregisters—with its wildfires and droughts and famines, it registersseismically. The costs are astronomical already, with single hurricanesnowdeliveringdamageinthehundredsofbillionsofdollars.Shouldtheplanet warm 3.7 degrees, one assessment suggests, climate changedamagescouldtotal$551trillion—nearlytwiceasmuchwealthasexistsintheworldtoday.Weareontrackformorewarmingstill.Overthelastseveraldecades,policyconsensushascautionedthatthe

worldwouldonlytolerateresponsestoclimatechangeiftheywerefree—or, even better, if they could be presented as avenues of economicopportunity. That market logic was probably always shortsighted, butoverthelastseveralyears,asthecostofadaptationintheformofgreenenergy has fallen so dramatically, the equation has entirely flipped:wenow know that it will be much, much more expensive to not act onclimate thanto takeeventhemostaggressiveactiontoday. Ifyoudon’tthinkof thepriceofa stockorgovernmentbondasan insurmountablebarrier to the returns you’ll receive, you probably shouldn’t think ofclimateadaptationasexpensive,either.In2018,onepapercalculatedtheglobal cost of a rapid energy transition, by 2030, to be negative $26trillion—inotherwords,rebuildingtheenergyinfrastructureoftheworldwouldmakeusallthatmuchmoney,comparedtoastaticsystem,inonlyadozenyears.Every day we do not act, those costs accumulate, and the numbers

quickly compound. Hsiang, Burke, and Miguel draw their 50 percentfigure from the very high end of what’s possible—truly a worst-casescenario for economic growth under the sign of climate change. But in2018, Burke and several other colleagues published a major paperexploring the growth consequences of some scenarios closer to ourpresentpredicament. In it, they consideredoneplausiblebut still quiteoptimistic scenario, in which the world meets its Paris Agreementcommitments, limiting warming to between 2.5 and 3 degrees. This is

probably about the best-case warming scenario we might reasonablyexpect;globally,relativetoaworldwithnoadditionalwarming,itwouldcutper-capitaeconomicoutputbytheendofthecentury,Burkeandhiscolleaguesestimate,bybetween15and25percent.Hitting fourdegreesofwarming,whichliesonthelowendoftherangeofwarmingimpliedbyourcurrentemissionstrajectory,wouldcutintoitby30percentormore.This is a trough twice as deep as the deprivations that scarred ourgrandparentsinthe1930s,andwhichhelpedproduceawaveoffascism,authoritarianism, andgenocide.But you canonly really call it a troughwhenyouclimboutofitandlookbackfromanewpeak,relieved.Theremay not be any such relief or reprieve from climate deprivation, andthough, as in any collapse, there will be those few who find ways tobenefit, the experienceofmostmaybemore like thatofminersburiedpermanentlyatthebottomofashaft.

C

ClimateConflict

limatologists are very carefulwhen talking about Syria. Theywantyou toknow thatwhile climate changedidproduce adrought that

contributedtothecountry’scivilwar,itisnotexactlyfairtosaythattheconflict is the result of warming; next door, for instance, Lebanonsufferedthesamecropfailuresandremainedstable.Butwarsarenotcausedbyclimatechangeonly inthesamewaythat

hurricanes are not caused by climate change, which is to say they aremademore likely,which is to say thedistinction is semantic. If climatechangemakesconflictonly3percentmorelikelyinagivencountry,thatdoes not mean it is a trivial effect: there are almost two hundredcountriesintheworld,whichmultipliesthelikelihood,meaningthatriseintemperaturecouldyieldthreeor fourorsixmorewars.Overthe lastdecade, researchers have even managed to quantify some of thenonobvious relationships between temperature and violence: for everyhalfdegreeofwarming,theysay,societieswillseebetweena10and20percent increase in the likelihood of armed conflict. In climate science,nothingissimple,butthearithmeticisharrowing:aplanetfourdegreeswarmer would have perhaps twice asmany wars as we do today. Andlikelymore.As is the casewithnearly every aspect of climate chaos,meeting the

Parisgoalswillnotsaveusfromthisbloodshed,infactfarfromit;evenanastonishing,improbableefforttolimitwarmingtotwodegreeswouldstill,bythismath,resultinatleast40percent,andperhapsasmuchas80percent,morewar.This,inotherwords,isourbest-casescenario:atleasthalfagainasmuchconflictasweseetoday,whenfewwatchingthenews each night would say we are enjoying an abundance of peace.Already,climatechangehaselevatedAfrica’sriskofconflictbymorethan

10 percent; in that continent, by just 2030, projected temperatures areexpectedtocause393,000additionaldeathsinbattle.

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“Battle”—the word feels like a relic when you come across it. In thewealthyWest,we’vecometopretendthatwarisananomalousfeatureofmodernlife,sinceitseemstohavebeenretiredasfullyfromoureverydayexperience as polio. But globally, there are nineteen ongoing armedconflictshotenoughtoclaimatleastathousandliveseachyear.Nineofthembeganmorerecentlythan2010,andmanymoreunfoldatsmallerscalesofviolence.Thatallofthesecountsareexpectedtospikeinthecomingdecadesis

one reason that, as nearly every climate scientist I’ve spoken to haspointed out, the U.S. military is obsessed with climate change, thePentagon issuing regular climate threatassessmentsandplanning foraneweraofconflictgovernedbyglobalwarming.(ThisisstilltrueintheTrump era, when lesser federal outfits like the GovernmentAccountability Office deliver grim warnings about climate, too.) ThedrowningofAmericannavybasesbysea-levelriseistroubleenough,andthe melting of the Arctic promises to open an entirely new theater ofconflict, once nearly as foreign-seeming as the space race. (It alsopositionsthecountryprimarilyagainstAmerica’soldrivalstheRussians,nowrevivedasadversaries.)Giventherightwar-gamingcastofmind, it isalsopossibletoseethe

aggressive Chinese construction activity in the South China Sea, wherewholenewartificialislandshavebeenerectedformilitaryuse,asakindofdryrun,sotospeak, for lifeasasuperpower ina floodedworld.Thestrategicopportunityisclear,withsomanyoftheexistingfootholds—likeallthoselow-lyingislandstheUnitedStatesonceusedtostepping-stoneitsownempireacrossthePacific—expectedtodisappearbytheendofthecentury, if not before. The Marshall Islands archipelago, for instance,seizedbytheU.S.duringWorldWarII,couldberendereduninhabitableby sea-level rise as soon asmidcentury, theU.S.Geological Survey haswarned; its islandswill be underwater even ifwemeet the Paris goals.And what is taken down with them is quite scary. Beginning with thebombing at Bikini Atoll, these islands were ground zero for American

atom bomb testing just after the war; the U.S. military has only ever“cleanedup” one islandof radioactivity,whichmakes them theworld’slargestnuclearwastesite.Butforthemilitary,climatechangeisnotjustamatterofgreat-power

rivalry executed across a transformed map. Even for those in theAmerican military who expect the country’s hegemony to endureindefinitely, climate change presents a problem, because being theworld’spolicemanisquiteabitharderwhenthecrimeratedoubles.Andit’s not just Syria where climate has contributed to conflict. SomespeculatethattheelevatedlevelofstrifeacrosstheMiddleEastoverthepastgenerationreflectsthepressuresofglobalwarming—ahypothesisallthemore cruel considering thatwarming began to acceleratewhen theindustrialized world extracted and then burned the region’s oil. FromBoko Haram to ISIS to the Taliban and militant Islamic groups inPakistan,droughtandcropfailurehavebeenlinkedtoradicalization,andtheeffectmaybeespeciallypronouncedamidethnicstrife:from1980to2010,a2016studyfound,23percentofconflictintheworld’sethnicallydiverse countries began in months stamped by weather disaster.According to one assessment, thirty-two countries—from Haiti to thePhilippinesand India toCambodia, eachheavilydependenton farmingand agriculture—face “extreme risk” of conflict and civil unrest fromclimatedisruptionsoverthenextthirtyyears.Whataccountsfortherelationshipbetweenclimateandconflict?Some

of it comes down to agriculture and economics: when yields drop andproductivityfalls,societiescanfalter,andwhendroughtsandheatwaveshit, the shocks can be felt evenmore deeply, electrifying political faultlinesandproducingorexposingothersnooneknewtoworryover.Alothastodowiththeforcedmigrationthatcanresultfromthoseshocks,andwith the political and social instability that migration often produces;when things go south, those who are able tend to flee, not always toplacesreadytowelcomethem—infact,recenthistoryshows,oftenquitetheopposite.Andtodaymigrationisalreadyatarecordhigh,withalmostseventymilliondisplacedpeoplewanderingtheplanetrightnow.Thatisthe outbound impact; but the local one is oftenmore profound. Thosewho remain in a region ravaged by extreme weather often findthemselvesnavigatinganentirelynewsocialandpoliticalstructure,ifoneenduresatall.Anditisnotjustweakstatesthatcanfallatthehandsof

climatepressures; in recent years, scholarshave compileda long list ofempires buckled, at least in part, by climate effects and events: Egypt,Akkadia,Rome.This complex calculus is what makes researchers reluctant to assign

blame for conflictneatly, but complexity ishowwarmingarticulates itsbrutality.Like thecost togrowth,war isnotadiscrete impactofglobaltemperature rise but something more like an all-encompassingaggregationofclimatechange’sworsttremorsandcascades.TheCenterforClimateandSecurity,astate-focusedthinktank,organizesthethreatsfrom climate change into six categories: “Catch-22 states,” in whichgovernmentshaverespondedtolocalclimatechallenges—toagriculture,for example—by turning toward a globalmarketplace that is nowmorethan ever vulnerable to climate shocks; “brittle states,” stable on thesurface—butonlybyarunofgoodclimate luck;“fragilestates,”suchasSudan, Yemen, and Bangladesh, where climate impacts have alreadyeaten into trust in state authority, or worse; “disputed zones amongstates,” like theSouthChinaSeaorArctic; “disappearingstates,”whichtheymeanliterally,asinthecaseoftheMaldives;and“non-stateactors,”likeISIS,whichcanseizelocalresources,suchasfreshwater,asawayofapplying leverage against the nominal state authority or the localpopulation. In each case, climate is not the sole cause but the sparkignitingacomplexbundleofsocialkindling.This complexitymay also be one reasonwe cannot see the threat of

escalating war very clearly, choosing to regard conflict as somethingdeterminedprimarilybypoliticsandeconomicswhenallthreeareinfactgoverned, like everything else, by the conditions established by ourrapidlychangingclimate.Overthe lastdecadeorso, the linguistStevenPinker has made a second career out of suggesting that, in the Westespecially,weareunabletoappreciatehumanprogress—areinfactblindtoallofthemassiveandrapidimprovementstheworldhaswitnessedinless violence and war and poverty, reduced infant mortality, andenhancedlifeexpectancy.It’strue,weare.Whenyoulookatthecharts,the trajectoryof thatprogress seems inarguable: somany fewer violentdeaths, so much less extreme deprivation, a global middle classexpandingbythehundredsofmillions.Butagain,thatstoryisaboutthewealthbroughtby industrializationand the transformationsof societiesbynewfoundwealthpoweredbyfossilfuel.Itisastorywrittenlargelyby

Chinaand,toalesserextent,therestofthedevelopingworld,whichhasdevelopedby industrializing.Andthecostofmuchof thatprogress, thebalance come due for all the industrialization that mademiddle-class-ness possible for the billions of people in the global south, is climatechange—which we are, ironically, far too sanguine about, Pinkerincluded.Worsestill,thewarmingunleashedbyallourprogressheraldsareturntoviolence.Evenwhenitcomestowar,historicalmemoryhasasadisticallyshort

half-life,horrorsandtheircausesgauzilyevanescingintofamiliarfolklorein less than the span of a single generation.Butmostwars throughouthistory,itisimportanttoremember,havebeenconflictsoverresources,often ignited by resource scarcity, which is what an earth denselypopulated and denuded by climate changewill yield. Thosewars don’ttendtoincreasethoseresources;mostofthetime,theyincineratethem.

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Thefolkloreofstateconflictcastsalongshadow—thepatchworkquiltofnationstuggedapartintoaghastly,mutuallydamagingdisarray.Climatetugs at the individual threads of conflict, too: personal irritability,interpersonalconflict,domesticviolence.Heat frays everything. It increases violent crime rates, swearing on

socialmedia, and the likelihood that amajor-leaguepitcher, coming tothe mound after his teammate has been hit by a pitch, will hit anopposingbatter in retaliation.Thehotter it gets, the longerdriverswillhonk theirhorns in frustration; andeven in simulations,policeofficersaremore likely to fireon intruderswhentheexercisesareconducted inhotterweather.By2099,onespeculativepapertabulated,climatechangein theUnited Stateswould bring about an additional 22,000murders,180,000 rapes, 3.5 million assaults, and 3.76 million robberies,burglaries, and acts of larceny. The statistics of the past are moreinarguable, and even the arrival of air-conditioning in the developedworld inthemiddleof the lastcenturydid little tosolvetheproblemofthesummercrimewave.It’s not just temperature effects. In 2018, a team of researchers

examining an enormous data set of more than 9,000 American citiesfound that air pollution levels positively predicted incidents of every

single crime category they looked at—from car theft and burglary andlarcenyuptoassault,rape,andmurder.Andthentherearethewaysthatclimate impacts can cascade into violence more circuitously. Between2008and2010,GuatemalawashitbyTropicalStormArthur,HurricaneDolly, Tropical Storm Agatha, and Tropical Storm Hermine—this acountrythatwasalreadyoneofthetenmostaffectedbyextremeweatherandreelinginthesameyearsfromtheeruptionofalocalvolcanoandaregional earthquake. All told, almost three million were left “foodinsecure,” and at least 400,000 needed humanitarian assistance; fromthe 2010 disasters alone, the country sustained damages totalingmorethan a billion dollars, or roughly a quarter of the national budget,devastating its roads and supply chains. In 2011, itwas hit by TropicalStorm12E,and,inthewakeofthedisasters,farmersturnedtogrowingpoppies; organized crime, already an enormous problem, exploded—which should perhaps not surprise us, given that recent research hasshown that the Sicilian mafia was produced by drought. Today,Guatemalahasthefifth-highesthomiciderateintheworld;accordingtoUNICEF, it is the second most dangerous country in the world forchildren. Historically, the country’s cash crops have been coffee andsugarcane; in the coming decades, climate change could make both ofthemungrowable.

W

“Systems”

hat I call cascades, climate scientists call “systems crises.”Thesecrises are what the American military means when it names

climate change a “threat multiplier.” The multiplication, when it fallsshort of conflict, produces migration—that is, climate refugees. Since2008,byonecount,ithasalreadyproduced22millionofthem.IntheWest,weoftenthinkofrefugeesasafailed-stateproblem—that

is,aproblemthatthebrokenandimpoverishedpartsoftheworldinflictonrelativelymorestable,andwealthier,societies.ButHurricaneHarveyproducedatleast60,000climatemigrantsinTexas,andHurricaneIrmaforced the evacuation of nearly 7million. Aswith somuch else, it willonlygetworsefromhere.By2100,sea-levelrisealonecoulddisplace13millionAmericans—afewpercentofthecountry’stotalpopulation.Manyof those sea-level refugees will come from the country’s southeast—chieflyFlorida,where2.5millionareexpectedtobefloodedoutofgreaterMiami; andLouisiana,where theNewOrleansarea ispredicted to losehalfamillion.As an unusually wealthy country, the United States is, for now,

unusuallysuitedtowithstandsuchdisruptions—onecanalmostimagine,over the course of a century, tens of millions of resettled Americansadapting to a ravaged coastline and a new geography for the country.Almost.Butwarmingisnotjustamatterofsealevel,anditshorrorswillnot hit nations like theUnited States first. In fact, the impacts will begreatestintheworld’sleastdeveloped,mostimpoverished,andthereforeleast resilient nations—almost literally a story of the world’s richdrowning the world’s poor with their waste. The first country toindustrialize and produce greenhouse gas on a grand scale, theUnitedKingdom, is expected to suffer least from climate change. The world’s

slowest-developing countries, producing the least emissions, will beamongthosehardesthit;theclimatesystemoftheDemocraticRepublicof Congo, one of the world’s poorest countries, is scheduled to beespeciallyprofoundlyperturbed.The Congo is mostly landlocked, and mountainous, but in the next

generationofwarmingthosefeatureswillnotbeprotections.Wealthwillbe a buffer for some countries, but not a safeguard, as Australia islearningalready:by far therichestofall thecountriesstaringdownthemostintense,mostimmediatewarmingbarrages,itisanearlytestcaseofhowtheworld’saffluentsocietieswillbend,orbuckle,orrebuildunderthepressureof temperaturechanges likely tohit therestof thewell-offworld only later this century. The country was founded on genocidalindifference to thenative landscapeand thosewho inhabited it, and itsmodern ambitions have always been precarious: Australia is today asociety of expansive abundance, jerry-rigged onto a very harsh andecologicallyunforgivingland.In2011,asingleheatwavethereproducedsignificant tree dieback and coral bleaching, the death of plant life,crashes in local birdpopulations anddramatic spikes in thenumberofcertain insects, and transformations of ecosystems both marine andterrestrial. When the country enacted a carbon tax, its emissions fell;when,underpoliticalpressure,thetaxwasrepealed,theyroseagain.In2018, the country’s parliament declared globalwarming a “current andexistential national security risk.” A few months later, its climate-conscious prime minister was forced to resign, for the shame ofattemptingtohonortheParisaccords.The wheels of all communities are greased by abundance; baked by

deprivation, they stall and crack. The paths are familiar ones, even tothose who have only ever known affluence, their lives creamilyfrictionless but stimulated by entertainments tracing the arc of socialdecline:market breakdowns, price gouging, the hoarding of goods andservices by thewell-off andwell-armed, the retreat of law enforcementintoself-enrichment,andthedisappearanceofanyexpectationofjusticemakingsurvivalsuddenlyamatterofentrepreneurialskill.Morethan140millionpeopleinjustthreeregionsoftheworldwillbe

made climate migrants by 2050, the World Bank projected in a 2018study, assuming current warming and emissions trends: 86 million insub-Saharan Africa, 40 million in South Asia, and 17 million in Latin

America. Themost commonly cited estimate from the United Nations’InternationalOrganizationforMigrationsuggestsnumbersabithigher—200million, total, by 2050. These figures are quite high—higher thanmost non-advocates credit. But according to the U.N. IOM, climatechangemayunleashasmanyasabillionmigrantsontheworldby2050.One billion—that is about as many people as live today in North andSouthAmericacombined.Imaginethetwocontinentssuddenlydrownedinthesea,thewholeNewWorldsubmerged,andeveryoneleftbobbingatthe surface now fighting for a foothold, somewhere, anywhere, and, ifsomeoneelseisscramblingforthesamedryspot,scramblingtogettherefirst.

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The system in crisis is not always “society”; the system can also be thebody. Historically, in the United States, more than two-thirds ofoutbreaks of waterborne disease—illnesses smuggled into humansthroughalgaeandbacteriathatcanproducegastrointestinalproblems—were preceded by unusually intense rainfall, disrupting local watersupplies. The concentration of salmonella in streams, for instance,increases significantly after heavy rainfall, and the country’s mostdramaticoutbreakofwaterbornediseasecamein1993,whenmorethan400,000inMilwaukeefell ill fromcryptosporidiumimmediatelyafterastorm.Sudden rainfall shocks—both deluges and their opposite, droughts—

can devastate agricultural communities economically, but also producewhat scientists call, with understatement, “nutritional deficiencies” infetusesandinfants;inVietnam,thosewhopassedthroughthatcrucibleearlyon,andsurvived,wereshowntostartschoollaterinlife,doworsewhen they got there, and grow less tall than their peers. In India, thesame cycle-of-poverty pattern holds. The lifelong impacts of chronicmalnutrition aremore troubling still for being permanent: diminishingcognitiveability,flattenedadultwages,increasedmorbidity.InEcuador,climate damage has been seen even inmiddle-class children,who bearthe mark of rainfall shocks and extreme temperatures on their wagestwenty to sixty years after the fact. The effects begin in thewomb, andtheyareuniversal,withmeasurabledeclinesinlifetimeearningsforevery

day over ninety degrees during a baby’s nine months in utero. Theimpactsaccumulatelaterinlife,too.AnenormousstudyinTaiwanfoundthat, foreverysingleunitofadditionalairpollution, the relative riskofAlzheimer’sdoubled.Similarpatternshavebeenobserved fromOntariotoMexicoCity.Asconditionsofenvironmentaldegradationbecomemoreuniversal,it

may,perversely,requiremoreimaginationtoconsidertheircosts.Whenthe deprived are no longer outlier communities but instead wholeregions, whole countries, conditions that once may have seemedinhumane now appear, to a future generation who knows no better,simply “normal.” In the past, we have looked in horror at the stuntedgrowthofnationalpopulationswhopassedthroughfaminesbothnatural(Sudan, Somalia) andman-made (Yemen, North Korea). In the future,climatechangemaystuntusall, inonewayoranother,withnocontrolgroupentirelyspared.You might expect these premonitions to settle like sediments into

family planning. And indeed, among the young andwell-off in EuropeandtheUnitedStates,forwhomreproductivechoicesareoftenfreightedwith politicalmeaning, they have. Among this outwardly conscientiouscohort,thereismuchworryaboutbringingnewchildrenintoadegradedworld, full of suffering, and about “contributing” to the problem bycrowdingtheclimatestagewithmoreplayers,eacha littleconsumptionmachine.“Want to fight climatechange?”TheGuardian asked in2017.“Have fewer children.” That year and the next, the paper publishedseveralvariationsonthetheme,asdidmanyotherpublicationsdeliveredtothelifestyleclass,includingTheNewYorkTimes:“Addthistothelistofdecisionsaffectedbyclimatechange:ShouldIhavechildren?”Theeffectonthepersonaldecisionsoftheconsumerclassisperhapsa

narrowwayofthinkingaboutglobalwarming,thoughitdemonstratesastrain of strange ascetic pride among the well-to-do. (“The egoism ofchild-bearing is like the egoism of colonizing a country,” the novelistSheila Heti writes, in a representative passage fromMotherhood, hermeditationonthemeaningofparenthood,whichshechosetoavoid.)Butof course furtherdegradation isn’t inescapable; it isoptional.Eachnewbaby arrives in a brand-new world, contemplating a whole horizon ofpossibilities.Theperspectiveisnotnaive.Weliveinthatworldwiththem—helpingmake it for them,andwith them,and forourselves.Thenext

decades are not yet determined. A new timer begins with every birth,measuringhowmuchmoredamagewillbedonetotheplanetandthelifethis child will live on it. The horizons are just as open to us, howeverforeclosedandforeordainedtheymayseem.Butweclosethemoffwhenwesayanythingaboutthefuturebeinginevitable.Whatmaysoundlikestoicwisdomisoftenanalibiforindifference.

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In a world of suffering, the self-interested mind cravescompartmentalization, and one of the most interesting frontiers ofemerging climate science traces the imprint left on our psychologicalwell-being by the force of global warming, which can overwhelmwhatevermethodswedevisetocope—thatis,thementalhealtheffectsofaworldonfire.Perhapsthemostpredictablevectoristrauma:betweenaquarter and a half of all those exposed to extreme weather events willexperiencethemasanongoingnegativeshocktotheirmentalhealth.InEngland,floodingwasfoundtoquadruplelevelsofpsychologicaldistress,evenamongthoseinaninundatedcommunitybutnotpersonallyaffectedby the flooding. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 62 percent ofevacueesexceeded thediagnostic threshold foracute stressdisorder; inthe region as a whole, nearly a third had PTSD. Wildfires, curiously,yieldedalowerincidence—just24percentofevacueesintheaftermathofoneseriesofCaliforniablazes.Butathirdofthosewholivedthroughfirewerediagnosed,initsaftermath,withdepression.Eventhosewatchingtheeffectsfromthesidelinessufferfromclimate

trauma.“Idon’tknowofasinglescientistthat’snothavinganemotionalreactiontowhat isbeing lost,”CamilleParmesan,whosharedthe2007Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, has said. Grist has called thephenomenon “climate depression,” Scientific American “environmentalgrief.”Andwhileitmayseemintuitivethatthosecontemplatingtheendof the world find themselves despairing, especially when their calls ofalarmhavegonealmostentirelyunheeded,itisalsoaharrowingforecastofwhatisinstorefortherestoftheworld,asthedevastationofclimatechangeslowlyrevealsitself.Inthesenseofpsychologicaldistress,whichsomanyof themendure, climate scientists are the canaries in our coalmine.Thismaybewhysomanyofthemseemconcernedwiththerisksof

cryingwolfaboutwarming: they’ve learnedenoughaboutpublicapathyto worry themselves into knots about just when, and precisely how, toraisethealarm.Incertainplaces,thatalarmhasbeenraisedforthem.Thosestudying

thephenomenonareonly sufferingsecondhand—which isa signof justhow intense the firsthand impact has been. Unsurprisingly, climatetrauma isespeciallyharsh in theyoung—in this,our folkwisdomaboutthe impressionablemindsof children is reliable.Thirty-twoweeksafterHurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, killing forty, more than half ofchildren surveyed had moderate PTSD and more than a third had asevere form; in thehigh-impact areas, 70percent of children scored inthemoderate-to-severerangefullytwenty-onemonthsaftertheCategory5storm.Bydismalcontrast,soldiersreturningfromwarareestimatedtosufferfromPTSDataratebetween11and31percent.Oneespeciallydetailedstudyexaminedthementalhealthfalloutfrom

HurricaneMitch, a Category 5 storm and the second-deadliest Atlantichurricane on record, which struck Central America in 1998, leaving11,000 dead. In Posoltega, the most hard-hit region of Nicaragua,childrenhada27percentchanceofhavingbeenseriously injured,a31percentchanceofhavinglostafamilymember,anda63percentchanceof theirhomehavingbeendamagedordestroyed.You can imagine theaftereffects. Ninety percent of adolescents in the area were left withPTSD,withtheaverageadolescentboyregisteringatthehighendoftherangeof“severe”PTSD,andtheaverageteenagegirlregisteringoverthethresholdof“verysevere.”Sixmonthsafterthestorm,fouroutofeveryfive teenage survivors from Posoltega suffered from depression; morethanhalf,thestudyfound,compulsivelynursedwhattheauthorscalled,abiteuphemistically,“vengefulthoughts.”And then there are themore surprisingmental health costs. Climate

affects both the onset and the severity of depression, The Lancet hasfound. Rising temperature and humidity are married, in the data, toemergency-room visits for mental health issues. When it’s hotter out,psychiatrichospitals see spikes in proper inpatient admissions, aswell.Schizophrenics, especially, are admitted atmuchhigher rateswhen thetemperatures are higher, and, inside those hospitals,ward temperaturesignificantly increasessymptomseverity inschizophrenicpatients.Heatwaves bring waves of other things, too: mood disorders, anxiety

disorders,dementia.Heatproducesviolenceandconflictbetweenpeople,weknow,andsoit

shouldprobablynotsurpriseusthatitalsogeneratesaspikeinviolenceagainst oneself. Each increase of a single degree Celsius in monthlytemperature is associated with almost a percentage point rise of thesuiciderateintheUnitedStates,andmorethantwopercentagepointsinMexico; an unmitigated emissions scenario could produce 40,000additional suicides in these countries by 2050. One startling paper byTamma Carleton has suggested that global warming is alreadyresponsiblefor59,000suicides,manyof themfarmers, inIndia—whereone-fifth of all theworld’s suicides now occur, andwhere suicide rateshavedoubledsince just1980.Whentemperaturesarealreadyhigh,shefound,ariseof justoneadditionaldegree,onasingleday,willproduceseventyadditionalcorpses,eachdeadbythefarmer’sownhand.

—

If you havemade it this far, you are a brave reader. Any one of thesetwelve chapters contains, by rights, enough horror to induce a panicattackineventhemostoptimisticofthoseconsideringit.Butyouarenotmerely considering it; you are about to embark on living it. In manycases,inmanyplaces,wealreadyare.In fact, what is perhaps most remarkable about all of the research

summarized to this point—concerning not only refugees, health, andmentalhealth,butalsoconflictand foodsupplyandsea levelandallofthe other elements of climate disarray—is that it is research emergingfromtheworldweknowtoday.Thatis,aworldjustonedegreewarmer;aworldnotyetdeformedanddefacedbeyondrecognition;aworldboundlargely by conventions devised in an age of climate stability, nowbarrelingheadlong intoanageof somethingmore like climate chaos, aworldweareonlybeginningtoperceive.Some climate research is speculative, of course, projecting our best

insights into physical processes and human dynamics onto planetaryconditionsnohumanbeingofanyageorerahaseverexperienced.Someofthesepredictionswillsurelybefalsified;thatishowscienceproceeds.Butallofoursciencearisesfromprecedent,andthenexteraforclimatechange has none. The twelve elements of climate chaos are, asDonald

Rumsfeld once put it in his incongruously useful phrasing, the “knownknowns.”Thisistheleastconcerningcategory;therearetwomore.These sketchesmay feel exhaustive, at timesevenoverwhelming.But

theyaremerelysketches,tobefilledinandfleshedoutoverthecomingdecades—if the previous decades are any guide, more often by bleakersciencethanbyreassuringfindings.Forallourearnedconfidenceinourknowledgeofglobalwarming—thatitisreal,thatitisanthropogenic,thatitisdrivingsea-levelriseandArcticmeltandtherest—westillknowonlyso much. Twenty years ago, there was no meaningful research on therelationshipbetweenclimatechangeandeconomicgrowth;tenyearsago,notmuchaboutclimateandconflict.Fiftyyearsago,therewashardlyanyresearchaboutclimatechangewhatsoever.The pace of that scholarship is exhilarating, but it also counsels

humility; there remains somuchwedonot knowabout theway globalwarmingaffectsthewaywelivetoday.Nowpicturehowmuchwe’llknowfiftyyearsfromnow—andhowmuchmoregruesomeourself-immolationwilllikelyseem,evenifweavoiditsworstoutcomes.WillwarmingtriggerrapidfeedbackloopspoweredbythereleaseofArcticmethane,orbythedramatic slowdownof theocean’s circulationsystem? It’s impossible tosayforsure.Willweprotectourselvesbydispersingsulfurintoourownnow-redatmosphere,subjectingtheentireplanettotheuncertainhealtheffects of those particles, or by erecting carbon-sucking plantations thesize of continents? It’s difficult to predict. These, then, are among the“known unknowns.” And that oracle Rumsfeld furnished us with oneconceptualcategoryscarierstill.Which all means that these twelve threats described in these twelve

chaptersyieldaportraitofthefutureonlyasbestasitcanbepaintedinthepresent.What actually lies aheadmayprove even grimmer, thoughthereverse,ofcourse,isalsopossible.Themapofournewworldwillbedrawn in part by natural processes that remain mysterious, but moredefinitivelybyhumanhands.Atwhatpointwill the climate crisis growundeniable, un-compartmentalizable? How much damage will havealready been selfishly done?How quickly will we act to save ourselvesandpreserveasmuchofthewayof lifeweknowtodayaspossible?Forthesakeofclarity,I’vetreatedeachofthethreatsfromclimatechange—sea-level rise, food scarcity, economic stagnation—as discrete threats,which they are not. Some may prove offsetting, some mutually

reinforcing, and others merely adjacent. But together they form alatticework of climate crisis, beneathwhich at least some humans, andprobablymanybillions,willlive.How?

III

TheClimateKaleidoscope

I

Storytelling

tshouldbenogreatprizetoberightabouttheendoftheworld.Buthumans have told those stories incessantly, across millennia, the

lessons shifting with each imagined Armageddon. You’d think that aculturewoven throughwith intimationsofapocalypsewouldknowhowtoreceivenewsofenvironmentalalarm.Butinsteadwehaverespondedtoscientistschannelingtheplanet’scriesformercyasthoughtheyweresimply cryingwolf. Today, themoviesmay bemillenarian, butwhen itcomestocontemplatingreal-worldwarmingdangers,wesuffer fromanincredible failure of imagination.This is climate’s kaleidoscope:we canbe mesmerized by the threat directly in front of us without everperceivingitclearly.On-screen, climate devastation is everywhere you look, and yet

nowhereinfocus,asthoughwearedisplacingouranxietiesaboutglobalwarmingbyrestaging themin theatersofourowndesignandcontrol—perhaps out of hope that the end of days remains “fantasy.”Game ofThrones opens with an unmistakable climate prophecy, but warns“winter is coming”; the premise of Interstellar is an environmentalscourge, but the scourge is a crop blight. Children of Men depictscivilization in semi-collapse, but collapsed by a fertility menace.MadMax: Fury Road unfurls like a global-warming panorama, a scrollingsagaofaworldmadedesert,butitspoliticalcrisiscomes,infact,fromanoilshortage.TheprotagonistofTheLastManonEarthismadethatwaybyasweepingvirus,thefamilyofAQuietPlaceishushedbygiantinsectpredators lurking in the wilderness, and the central cataclysm of the“Apocalypse” season of American Horror Story is a throwback—anuclearwinter.Inthemanyzombieapocalypsesofthiseraofecologicalanxiety, the zombies are invariably rendered as an alien force, not an

endemicone.Thatis,notasus.What does itmean to be entertained by a fictional apocalypse aswe

staredownthepossibilityofarealone?Onejobofpopcultureisalwaysto serve stories that distract even as they appear to engage—to deliversublimation and diversion. In a time of cascading climate change,Hollywood is also trying tomake sense of our changing relationship tonature,whichwehave longregardedfromat leastanarm’s length—butwhich,amidthischange,hasreturnedasachaoticforceweneverthelessunderstand,onsomelevel,asourfault.Theadjudicationofthatguilt isanother thing entertainment can do, when law and public policy fail,thoughourculture,likeourpolitics,specializesinassigningtheblametoothers—in projecting rather than accepting guilt. A form of emotionalprophylaxisisalsoatwork:infictionalstoriesofclimatecatastrophewemay also be looking for catharsis, and collectively trying to persuadeourselveswemightsurviveit.Already, with the world just one degree warmer, wildfires and heat

wavesandhurricaneshaveinundatedthenews,andpromisetocascadeshortlythroughourstoriesandinnerlives,makingwhatmayseemtodayaculturesuffusedwithintuitionsofdoomlooklikeacomparativelynaiveseason. End-of-the-world nightmares will blossom, including inchildren’sbedrooms,wheresiblingsoncewhisperedworriesoverthefactof death or themeaning of godlessness or the possibility of protractednuclearwar;amongtheirparents,climatetraumawilltakeitsplaceinthepop-psychological vernacular, if often as a scapegoat formorepersonalfrustrations and anxieties.What will happen at two degrees, or three?Presumably, as climate change colonizes anddarkensour lives andourworld, it will do the same for our nonfiction, so much so that climatechange may come to be regarded, at least by some, as the only trulyserioussubject.In fictional narratives, in pop entertainments, and in what was once

praised as “high” culture, a different, weirder course suggests itself. Atfirst,perhapsarevivaloftheantiquatedgenreknownas“DyingEarth”—initiated in English by Lord Byron with his poem “Darkness,” writtenafteravolcanoeruptionintheEastIndiesgavetheNorthernHemisphere“TheYearWithoutaSummer.”Thatenvironmentalalarmwasechoedinsimilar fiction of the Victorian era, including H. G. Wells’s The TimeMachine, which depicted a distant future in whichmost humans were

enslavedtroglodytes,laboringundergroundforthebenefitofapamperedandverysmallabovegroundelite;inanevenfurtherfuture,almostalllifeonEarthhaddied.Ournewversionmight includeepic lamentations, aflourishing of what’s been called already “climate existentialism.” Onescientist recently described to me the book she was working on as“BetweentheWorldandMemeetsTheRoad.”But the scope of the world’s transformation may just as quickly

eliminatethegenre—indeedeliminateanyefforttonarrativizewarming,whichcouldgrowtoolargeandtooobviousevenforHollywood.Youcantellstories“about”climatechangewhileitstillseemsamarginalfeatureofhumanlife,oranoverwhelmingfeatureoflivesmarginaltoyourown.But at threedegreesofwarming, or four,hardly anyonewill be able tofeel insulated from its impacts—or want to watch it on-screen as theywatchitouttheirwindows.Andsoasclimatechangeexpandsacrossthehorizon—as it begins to seem inescapable, total—it may cease to be astory and become, instead, an all-encompassing setting. No longer anarrative,itwouldrecedeintowhatliterarytheoristscallmetanarrative,succeeding those—like religious truth or faith in progress—that havegovernedthecultureofearliereras.Thiswouldbeaworldinwhichthereisn’t much appetite anymore for epic dramas about oil and greed, butwhere even romantic comedies would be staged under the sign ofwarming,assurelyasscrewballcomedieswereextrudedbytheanxietiesof the Great Depression. Science fiction would be seen as even moreprophetic, but the books that most eerily predicted the crisis will gounread, much like The Jungle or even Sister Carrie today: Why readabout the world you can see plainly out your own window? At themoment, stories illustrating global warming can still offer an escapistpleasure, even if that pleasure often comes in the form of horror. Butwhenwecannolongerpretendthatclimatesufferingisdistant—intimeorinplace—wewillstoppretendingaboutitandstartpretendingwithinit.

—

In his book-length essay The Great Derangement, the Indian novelistAmitavGhoshwonderswhyglobalwarmingandnaturaldisasterhaven’tyetbecomepreoccupationsof contemporary fiction,whywedon’t seem

able to adequately imagine real-world climate catastrophe, why fictionhasn’tyetmadethedangersofwarmingsufficiently“real”tous,andwhywehaven’thadaspateofnovels inthegenrehebasically imagines intohalfexistenceandnames“theenvironmentaluncanny.”Others call it “cli-fi”: genre fiction sounding environmental alarm,

didactic adventure stories, often preachy in their politics. Ghosh hassomethingelseinmind:thegreatclimatenovel.“Consider,forexample,thestoriesthatcongealaroundquestionslike,‘WherewereyouwhentheBerlinWallfell?’or‘Wherewereyouon9/11?’ ”hewrites.“Williteverbepossible to ask, in the same vein, ‘Where were you at 400 ppm?’ or‘WherewereyouwhentheLarsenBiceshelfbrokeup?’ ”Hisanswer:Probablynot,becausethedilemmasanddramasofclimate

changearesimplyincompatiblewiththekindsofstorieswetellourselvesaboutourselves,especiallyinconventionalnovels,whichtendtoendwithupliftandhopeandtoemphasizethejourneyofanindividualconsciencerather than themiasmaofsocial fate.This isanarrowdefinitionof thenovel,butalmosteverythingaboutourbroadernarrativeculturesuggeststhatclimatechangeisamajormismatchofasubjectforallthetoolswehaveathand.Ghosh’squestionapplieseven tocomic-bookmovies thatmighttheoreticallyillustrateglobalwarming:Whowouldtheheroesbe?Andwhatwouldtheybedoing?Thepuzzleprobablyhelpsexplainwhysomanypopentertainmentsthatdotrytotackleclimatechange,fromTheDayAfterTomorrowon,aresocornyandpedantic:collectiveactionis,dramatically,asnore.Theproblemisevenmoreacuteingaming,whichispoisedto joinor

evensupplantnovelsandmoviesandtelevision,andwhichisbuilt,asanarrative genre, even more obsessively around the imperatives of theprotagonist—i.e., you. It also promises at least a simulation of agency.That could grow more comforting in the coming years, assuming wecontinuetoproceed,zombie-likeourselves,downapathtoruin.Already,the world’s most popular game, Fortnite, invites players into acompetition for scarce resources during an extreme weather event—asthoughyouyourselfmightconquerandtotallyresolvetheissue.There is also, beyond the hero problem, a villain problem. Literary

fictionmaynotaccommodateepic storiesof thekind forwhichclimatechange fashions a natural setting, but, in the genre fiction and

blockbustermoviespaceat least,wehaveanumberofmodelsathand,fromsuperherosagastoalien-invasionnarratives.Storiesdon’tgetmoreelemental and familiar than those that used to be described as “managainstnature.”ButinMoby-DickorTheOldManandtheSeaormanylesserexamples,naturewastypicallyametaphor,encasingatheologicalor metaphysical force. That was because nature remained mysterious,inexplicable. Climate change has changed that, too. We know themeaningofextremeweatherandnaturaldisaster,now,thoughtheystillarrivewithakindofpropheticmajesty:themeaningisthatthereismoreto come, and that it is our doing. You wouldn’t have to do much inrewrites to IndependenceDay to reboot it as cli-fi. But, in the place ofaliens,whowoulditsheroesbefightingagainst?Ourselves?Villainywaseasiertograspinstoriesdepictingtheprospectofnuclear

Armageddon, the intuitive analogy to climate change, which ruledAmerican culture for a generation. That was the whole cartoon ofDr.Strangelove—thatthe fateof theworldsat in thehandsofa fewinsanepeople; if it all blew up, we’d know exactly who to blame. That moralclarity was not Stanley Kubrick’s, or a projection of his nihilism, butsomething like the opposite: conventional wisdom about geopolitics inthe then-adolescent nuclear age. The same logic of responsibilityappeared in Thirteen Days, Robert Kennedy’s memoir of the Cubanmissilecrisis,whichenduredinpartbecauseitcomportedsoneatlywiththe lived experienceof its average reader through thoseweeks in 1962:watching the prospect of global annihilation wax and wane in aprotracted game of telephone being played by two men and theirrelativelysmallstaffs.The moral responsibility of climate change is much murkier. Global

warmingisn’tsomethingthatmighthappen,shouldseveralpeoplemakesomeprofoundlyshortsightedcalculations;itissomethingthatisalreadyhappening, everywhere, and without anything like direct supervisors.Nuclear Armageddon, in theory, has a few dozen authors; climatecatastrophehasbillionsofthem,withresponsibilitydistendedovertimeandextendedacrossmuchoftheplanet.Thisisnottosayitisdistributedevenly: though climate changewill be given its ultimate dimensions bythe course of industrialization in the developing world, at present theworld’swealthy possess the lion’s share of guilt—the richest 10percentproducing half of all emissions. This distribution tracks closely with

globalincomeinequality,whichisonereasonthatmanyontheLeftpointto the all-encompassing system, saying that industrial capitalism is toblame.Itis.Butsayingsodoesnotnameanantagonist;itnamesatoxicinvestment vehicle with most of the world as stakeholders, many ofwhomeagerlyboughtin.Andwhoinfactquiteenjoytheirpresentwayoflife.Thatincludes,almostcertainly,youandmeandeveryoneelsebuyingescapism with our Netflix subscription. Meanwhile, it simply isn’t thecase that the socialist countries of the world are behaving moreresponsibly,withcarbon,northattheyhaveinthepast.Complicitydoesnotmakeforgooddrama.Modernmoralityplaysneed

antagonists, and the desire gets stronger when apportioning blamebecomesapoliticalnecessity,which it surelywill.This isaproblem forstoriesbothfictionalandnon-,eachkinddrawinglogicandenergyfromtheother.Thenaturalvillainsaretheoilcompanies—andinfactarecentsurvey ofmovies depicting climate apocalypse found the pluralitywereactually about corporate greed. But the impulse to assign them fullresponsibilityiscomplicatedbythefactthattransportationandindustrymake up less than 40 percent of global emissions. The companies’disinformation-and-denial campaigns are probably a stronger case forvillainy—amore grotesque performance of corporate evilness is hardlyimaginable,and,agenerationfromnow,oil-backeddenialwill likelybeseenasamongthemostheinousconspiraciesagainsthumanhealthandwell-beingashavebeenperpetratedinthemodernworld.Butevilnessisnot the sameas responsibility, and climatedenialismhas captured justonepoliticalpartyinonecountryintheworld—acountrywithonlytwooftheworld’s ten biggest oil companies. American inaction surely slowedglobal progress on climate in a time when the world had only onesuperpower. But there is simply nothing like climate denialism beyondtheU.S.border,whichenclosestheproductionofonly15percentof theworld’semissions.TobelievethefaultforglobalwarmingliesexclusivelywiththeRepublicanPartyoritsfossilfuelbackersisaformofAmericannarcissism.Thatnarcissism,Isuspect,willbebrokenbyclimatechange.Intherest

oftheworld,whereactiononcarbonisjustasslowandresistancetorealpolicy changes just as strong, denial is simply not a problem. Thecorporate influenceof fossil fuel ispresent,ofcourse,butsoare inertiaand the allure of near-term gains and the preferences of the world’s

workers and consumers, who fall somewhere on a long spectrum ofculpability stretching from knowing selfishness through true ignoranceandreflexive,ifnaive,complacency.Howdoyounarrativizethat?

—

Beyondthematterofvillainyisthestoryofnatureandourrelationshiptoit. That story seemed for a very long time to be contained within thesimple logic of parables and allegories. Climate change promises totransform everything we thought we knew about nature, including themoralinfrastructureofthosetales.Westilltellthematnearlyeveryage,fromtheanimatedmoviestoddlerswatchbeforetheylearnthealphabet,to fairy tales lifted from earlier eras, to disaster movies and magazinefeatures about the fate of endangered species, and segments on thenightlynewsaboutextremeweather,whichrarelymentionwarming.Parables are a teaching tool andwork like glass dioramas in natural

history museums: you pass by, you look, you believe that what iscontained in the taxidermyscenehas something to teachyou—butonlybythelogicofmetaphor,becauseyouarenotastuffedanimalanddonotlive in the scene but beyond it, outside it, observing rather thanparticipating.Thelogicistwistedbyglobalwarming,becauseitcollapsesthe perceived distance between humans and nature—between you andthediorama.Onemessageof climatechange is:youdonot liveoutsidethe scene but within it, subject to all the same horrors you can seeafflictingthelivesofanimals.Infact,warmingisalreadyhittinghumanssohardthatweshouldn’tneedtolookelsewhere,toendangeredspeciesand imperiled ecosystems, in order to trace the progress of climate’shorrible offensive. But we do, saddened by stranded polar bears andstories of struggling coral reefs.When it comes to climate parables,wetendtolikebesttheonesstarringanimals,whoaremutewhenwedonotprojectourvoicesontothem,andwhoaredying,atourownhands—halfof them extinct, E. O. Wilson estimates, by 2100. Even as we facecrippling impacts from climate on human life, we still look to thoseanimals, in part because what John Ruskin memorably called the“patheticfallacy”stillholds:itcanbecuriouslyeasiertoempathizewiththem, perhaps because we would rather not reckon with our ownresponsibility, but instead simply feel their pain, at least briefly. In the

faceofastormkickedupbyhumans,andwhichwecontinuetokickupeach day, we seem most comfortable adopting a learned posture ofpowerlessness.

—

Plastic panic is another exemplary climate parable, in that it is also aclimateredherring.Thepanicarisesfromtheadmirabledesiretoleaveasmallerimprintontheplanet,andanaturalhorrorthattheenvironmentissopollutedbydetrituspassingthroughourair,ourfood,ourflesh—inthisway,itdrawsonaverymodernobsessionwithhygieneandlightnessasaformofconsumergrace(anobsessionfamiliarfromrecycling).Butwhile plastics have a carbon footprint, plastic pollution is simply not aglobalwarmingproblem—andyetithasslidintothecenterofourvision,atleastbriefly,thebanonplasticstrawsoccluding,ifonlyforamoment,themuchbiggerandmuchbroaderclimatethreat.Anothersuchparableisbeedeath.Beginningin2006,curiousreaders

were introduced to a new environmental fable, as American honeybeecoloniesbegantosufferanalmostannualmassdie-off:36percentdeadone year; 29 the next; 46 the next; 34 the next. As anyone with acalculatormighthave figured, thenumbersdidn’t addup: if thatmanybeecoloniescollapsedeachyear,thetotalnumberwouldbeveryrapidlyapproachingzero,notsteadilyincreasing,whichitwas.Thiswasbecausebeekeepers,whoweremostlynotadorableamateursbutindustrial-scalelivestockmanagers trucking theirbeesacross the country inanendlessloopofpollinationforhire,weresimplyrebreedingtheirbeeseachyear,offsettingthedie-offswithnewhivesthatweremorethanpaidforbytheindustrial-scaleprofitstheywerepullingin.It’s natural, so to speak, to anthropomorphize animals—our whole

animation industry is built on it, for starters. But there is somethingstrange, even fatalistic, about such vain beings as ourselves identifyingthisstronglywithcreatureswhooperatesoentirelywithoutfreewillandindividual autonomy thatmanyexperts in the field aren’t surewhetherwe should think of the bee or the colony as the organism. Inmy ownreporting about colony collapse, bee lovers kept telling me it was anappreciation for the great spectacle of bee civilization that was behindthis outpouring of concern for their well-being. But I couldn’t help

wondering if it wasn’t almost the opposite quality that gave colonycollapse the force of fable: the complete powerlessness of individualsfacingdowninevitable,civilization-scalesuicide.It’snotjustbeerapture,after all: we see visions of our own world being wiped out in themysterious deaths brought about by Ebola, bird flu, and otherpandemics; inanxietyaboutarobotapocalypse; inISIS,China,andtheJade Helm exercise in Texas; in runaway inflation that never actuallyhappenedinthewakeofquantitativeeasing,orthegoldrushsuchfearsspawned, which did. One does not open the Wikipedia page for“Honeybee” expecting an encounterwithmillenarianism. But themoreyoureadaboutcolonycollapse,themoreyouarefilledwithakindofawefor justhowmuch the internet isadivining rodbywhichwechoose tointuitanendofdays.As it turns out, there was no mystery, either, about the bee deaths

themselves, which could be explained quite fully by the bees’ workingconditions: mostly that they were rubbing up against a new breed ofinsecticide, neonicotinoids, which, as the name suggests, effectivelyturned all the bees into cigarette fiends. Flying insects might bedisappearing because of warming, in other words—that recent studysuggested that, already, 75 percent of themmay have died, drawing uscloser to a world without pollinators, which the researchers called an“ecological Armageddon”—but colony collapse disorder has basicallynothingtodowiththat.Andyetstill,asrecentlyas2018,magazinesweredevotingwhole feature articles to thebee fable.Presumably, this isnotbecausepeopleenjoyedbeingwrongaboutbees,butbecausetreatinganyapparent crisis as an allegory was somehow comforting—as though itsequesteredtheprobleminastorywhosemeaningwecontrolled.

—

When Bill McKibben declared “The End of Nature,” in 1989, he wasposingahyperbolic kindof epistemological riddle:Whatdo you call it,whatever it is, when forces of wilderness and weather, of animalkingdoms and plant life, have been so transformed by human activitytheyarenolongertruly“natural”?The answer came a few decades later with the term “the

Anthropocene,” which was coined in the spirit of environmental alarm

and suggested a much messier and more unstable state than “end.”Environmentalists, outdoorspeople, nature lovers, and romantics ofvariousstripes—therearemanywhowouldmourntheendofnature.Butthere are literally billions who will shortly be terrified by the forcesunleashedbytheAnthropocene.Inmuchoftheworld,theyalreadyare,in the formof lethalclose-to-annualheatwaves in theMiddleEastandSouth Asia, and in the ever-present threat of flood, like those that hitKeralain2018andkilledhundreds.ThefloodshardlymadeamarkintheUnitedStatesandEurope,whereconsumersofnewshavebeen trainedover decades to see disasters like these as tragic, yes, but also as aninevitable feature of underdevelopment—and therefore both “natural”anddistant.ThearrivalofthisscaleofclimatesufferinginthemodernWestwillbe

oneofthegreatandterriblestoriesofthecomingdecades.There,atleast,we’ve long thought thatmodernity had paved over nature, completely,factory by factory and strip mall by strip mall. Proponents of solargeoengineering want to take on the sky next, not just to stabilize theplanet’stemperaturebutpossiblytocreate“designerclimates,”localizedto very particular needs—saving this reef ecosystem, preserving thatbreadbasket. Conceivably those climates could get considerably moremicro,downtoparticularfarmsorsoccerstadiumsorbeachresorts.These interventions, should they ever become feasible, are decades

away,atleast.Butevenrapidandquotidian-seemingprojectswillleaveaprofoundlydifferentimprintontheshapeoftheworld.Inthenineteenthcentury, thebuiltenvironmentof themostadvancedcountriesreflectedthe prerogatives of industry—think of railroad tracks laid across wholecontinents to move coal. In the twentieth century, those sameenvironmentsweremade to reflect theneedsof capital—thinkofglobalurbanizationagglomerating labor supply for anew service economy. Inthe twenty-first century, they will reflect the demands of the climatecrisis:seawalls,carbon-captureplantations,state-sizedsolararrays.Theclaims of eminent domain made on behalf of climate change will nolonger play like government overreach, though they will still surelyinspire NIMBY backlash—even in a time of climate crisis, progressiveswillfindwaystolookoutfornumberone.We are already livingwithin a deformed environment—indeed, quite

deformed. In its swaggering twentieth century, the United States built

two states of paradise: Florida, out of dismal swamp, and SouthernCalifornia, out of desert. By 2100, neither will endure as Edenicpostcards.Thatwereengineeredthenaturalworldsosufficientlytoclosethebook

onanentiregeologicalera—thatisthemajorlessonoftheAnthropocene.Thescaleofthattransformationremainsastonishing,eventothoseofuswhowereraisedamidstitandtookallofitsimperiousvaluesforgranted.Twenty-twopercentof theearth’s landmasswasalteredbyhumansjustbetween1992and2015.Ninety-sixpercentof theworld’smammals,byweight, arenowhumansand their livestock; just fourpercent arewild.Wehave simply crowded—orbullied, orbrutalized—everyother speciesintoretreat,near-extinction,orworse.E.O.WilsonthinkstheeramightbebettercalledtheEremocine—theageofloneliness.But globalwarming carries amessagemore concerning still: thatwe

didn’t defeat the environment at all. There was no final conquest, nodominion established. In fact, the opposite:Whatever itmeans for theother animals on the planet, with global warming we have unwittinglyclaimedownershipofa systembeyondourability tocontrolor tame inanyday-to-dayway.Butmorethanthat:withourcontinuedactivity,wehaverenderedthatsystemonlymoreoutofcontrol.Natureisbothover,asin“past,”andallaroundus,indeedoverwhelmingusandpunishingus—this is themajor lessonof climate change,which it teachesusalmostdaily.Andifglobalwarmingcontinuesonanythinglikeitspresenttrack,itwillcometoshapeeverythingwedoontheplanet,fromagriculturetohumanmigration to business andmental health, transforming not justour relationship to nature but to politics and to history, and proving aknowledgesystemastotalas“modernity.”

—

Scientistshaveknownthisforawhile.Buttheyhavenotoftentalkedlikeit.Fordecadesnow, therehavebeenfewthingswithaworsereputation

than“alarmism”amongthosestudyingclimatechange.Foraconcernedclass, this was somewhat strange; you don’t typically hear from publichealthexpertsabouttheneedforcircumspectionindescribingtherisksof carcinogens, for instance. James Hansen, who first testified before

Congress about global warming in 1988, has named the phenomenon“scientific reticence,” and in 2007 chastised his colleagues for editingtheir own observations so conscientiously that they failed tocommunicate how dire the threat really was. That tendency hasmetastasized over time, ironically as the news from research grewbleaker,sothatforalongtimeeachmajorpublicationwouldbeattendedbyacloudofcommentarydebatingitsprecisecalibrationofperspectiveand tone—with many of those articles seen to lack an even balancebetween bad news and optimism, and labeled “fatalistic.” Some werederidedas“climateporn.”Thetermsareslippery,likeanygoodinsult,butservedtocircumscribe

thescopeof“reasonable”perspectivesonclimate.Whichiswhyscientificreticenceisanotherreasonwedon’tseethethreatsoclearly—theexpertssignaling strongly that it is irresponsible to communicate openly aboutthe more worrisome possibilities for global warming, as though theydidn’t trust the world with the information they themselves had, or atleast didn’t trust the public to interpret it and respond properly.Whatever thatmeans: it hasnowbeen thirty years sinceHansen’s firsttestimony and the establishment of the IPCC, and climate concern hastraversedsmallpeaksandsmall valleysbutnevermeaningfully jumpedupward. In termsof public response, the results are evenmoredismal.WithintheUnitedStates,climatedenialtookoveroneofthetwomajorparties and essentially vetoedmajor legislative action.Abroad,wehavehad a series of high-profile conferences, treaties, and accords, but theyincreasinglylooklikesomanyactsofclimatekabuki;emissionsarestillgrowing,unabated.Butscientificreticenceisalsoperfectlyreasonable,initsway,ariverof

rhetorical caution with many tributaries. The first is temperamental:climate scientists are scientists first, self-selected and then trained forperspicacity. The second is experiential:many of them have now donebattle,intheUnitedStatesparticularlyandsometimesfordecades,withthe forces of climate denial, who capitalize on any overstatement orerroneous prediction as proof of illegitimacy or bad faith; this makesclimatescientistsmorecautious,andunderstandablyso.Unfortunately,worryingsomuchabouterringonthesideofexcessivealarmhasmeanttheyhaveerred, soroutinely itbecameakindofprofessionalprinciple,on the side of excessive caution—which is, effectively, the side of

complacency.There was also a kind of personal wisdom in scientific reticence, as

politicallybackwardas itmay seem tokeep the scariest implicationsofnewresearchfromthepublic.Aspart-timeadvocates,scientistshavealsowatched their colleagues and collaborators pass through many darknightsof thesoul,andtypicallydespairedthemselvesaswell,about thecomingstormofclimatechangeandjusthowlittletheworldisdoingtocombat it.As a result, theywere especiallyworried aboutburnout, andthe possibility that honest storytelling about climate could tip somanypeopleintodespondencythattheefforttoavertacrisiswouldburnitselfout.Andingeneralizingfromthatexperience,theypointedtoaselectionof social science suggesting that “hope” can be more motivating than“fear”—without acknowledging that alarm is not the same as fatalism,thathopedoesnotdemandsilenceaboutscarierchallenges,andthatfearcanmotivate,too.Thatwasthefindingofa2017Naturepapersurveyingthe full breadth of the academic literature: that despite a strongconsensus among climate scientists about “hope” and “fear” and whatqualifiesasresponsiblestorytelling,thereisnosinglewaytobesttellthestoryofclimatechange,nosinglerhetoricalapproachlikelytoworkonagivenaudience,andnonetoodangeroustotry.Anystorythatsticksisagoodone.In 2018, scientists began embracing fear, when the IPCC released a

dramatic, alarmist report illustrating just how much worse climatechange would be at 2 degrees of warming compared with 1.5: tens ofmillions more exposed to deadly heat waves, water shortages, andflooding. The research summarized in the report was not new, andtemperaturesbeyond2degreeswerenotevencovered.Butthoughitdidnot address any of the scarier possibilities for warming, the report didofferanewformofpermission,ofsanction,totheworld’sscientists.Thethingthatwasnewwasthemessage:Itisokay,finally,tofreakout.Itisalmosthard to imagine, in its aftermath, anythingbut anew torrentofpanic,issuingforthfromscientistsfinallyemboldenedtoscreamastheywishto.But that prior caution was understandable. Scientists spent decades

presenting theunambiguousdata,demonstrating to anyonewhowouldlistenjustwhatkindofcrisiswillcomefortheplanetifnothingisdone,andthenwatched,yearafteryear,asnothingwasdone.Itshouldnotbe

altogether surprising that they returned again and again to thecommunications greenroom, scratching their heads about rhetoricalstrategyand“messaging.” Ifonly theywere incharge, theywouldknowexactlywhattodo,andtherewouldbenoneedtopanic.Sowhywouldn’tanyonelistentothem?Ithadtobetherhetoric.Whatotherexplanationcouldtherebe?

T

CrisisCapitalism

he scroll of cognitive biases identified by behavioral psychologistsandfellowtravelersoverthelasthalfcenturyis, likeasocialmedia

feed,apparently infinite,andevery singleonedistortsanddistendsourperceptionofachangingclimate—athreatasimminentandimmediateastheapproachofapredator,butviewedalwaysthroughabelljar.Thereis,tostartwith,anchoring,whichexplainshowwebuildmental

models around as few as one or two initial examples, no matter howunrepresentative—in the case of global warming, the world we knowtoday,whichisreassuringlytemperate.Thereisalsotheambiguityeffect,which suggests that most people are so uncomfortable contemplatinguncertainty,theywillacceptlesseroutcomesinabargaintoavoiddealingwith it. In theory,with climate, uncertainty should be an argument foraction—muchof theambiguityarises fromtherangeofpossiblehumaninputs,aquiteconcretepromptwechoosetoprocessinsteadasariddle,whichdiscouragesus.There isanthropocentricthinking,bywhichwebuildourviewof the

universe outward from our own experience, a reflexive tendency thatsome especially ruthless environmentalists have derided as “humansupremacy” and that surely shapes our ability to apprehend genuinelyexistentialthreatstothespecies—ashortcomingmanyclimatescientistshavemocked: “Theplanetwill survive,” they say; “it’s thehumans thatmaynot.”Thereisautomationbias,whichdescribesapreferenceforalgorithmic

andotherkindsofnonhumandecisionmaking, andalso applies toourgenerations-long deference to market forces as something like aninfallible,oratleastanunbeatable,overseer.Inthecaseofclimate,this

hasmeant trusting that economic systemsunencumberedby regulationorrestrictionwouldsolvetheproblemofglobalwarmingasnaturally,assurely as they had solved the problems of pollution, inequality, justice,andconflict.ThesebiasesaredrawnonlyfromtheAvolumeofthe literature—and

are just a sampling of that volume.Among themost destructive effectsthat appear later in the behavioral economics library are these: thebystander effect, or our tendency to wait for others to act rather thanactingourselves;confirmationbias,bywhichweseekevidenceforwhatwe already understand to be true, such as the promise that human lifewill endure, rather than endure the cognitive pain of reconceptualizingourworld; thedefault effect, or tendency to choose the present optionoveralternatives,whichisrelatedtothestatusquobias,orpreferenceforthingsastheyare,howeverbadthatis,andtotheendowmenteffect,orinstincttodemandmoretogiveupsomethingwehavethanweactuallyvalue it (or had paid to acquire or establish it).We have an illusion ofcontrol, the behavioral economists tell us, and also suffer fromoverconfidence and anoptimismbias.We also have apessimismbias,not that it compensates—instead it pushes us to see challenges aspredetermineddefeatsandtohearalarm,perhapsespeciallyonclimate,ascriesoffatalism.Theoppositeofacognitivebias,inotherwords,isnotclear thinking but another cognitive bias. We can’t see anything butthroughcataractsofself-deception.Many of these insights may feel as intuitive and familiar as folk

wisdom,whichinsomecasestheyare,dressedupinacademiclanguage.Behavioraleconomicsisunusualasacontrarianintellectualmovementinthatitoverturnsbeliefs—namely,intheperfectlyrationalhumanactor—thatperhapsonlyitsproponentsevertrulybelieved,andmaybeevenonlyas economics undergraduates. But altogether the field is not merely arevisiontoexistingeconomics.Itisathoroughgoingcontradictionofthecentralpropositionofitsparentdiscipline,indeedtothewholerationalistself-imageofthemodernWestasitemergedoutoftheuniversitiesof—inwhatcanonlybecoincidence—theearlyindustrialperiod.Thatis,amapof human reason as an awkward kluge, blindly self-regarding and self-defeating, curiously effective at some things and maddeninglyincompetentwhen itcomestoothers;compromisedandmisguidedandtattered.Howdidweeverputamanonthemoon?

Thatclimatechangedemandsexpertise,andfaithinit,atpreciselythemomentwhenpublicconfidence inexpertise iscollapsing, isanotherofitshistoricalironies.Thatclimatechangetoucheseachofthesebiasesisnotacuriosity,oracoincidence,orananomaly.Itisamarkofjusthowbig it is, and howmuch about human life it touches—which is to say,nearlyeverything.

—

YoumightbegintheBvolumewithbigness—thatthescopeoftheclimatethreatissolarge,anditsmenacesointense,wereflexivelyavertoureyes,aswewouldwiththesun.Bignessas anexcuse for complacencywill be familiar to anyonewho

haslistenedinonanundergraduatedebateaboutcapitalism.Thesizeofthe problem, its all-encompassing quality, the apparent lack ofreadymade alternatives, and the enticement of fugitive benefits—thesewerethebuildingblocksofadecades-longsubliminalargument,directedattheincreasinglydisgruntledprofessionalmiddleclassesofthewealthyWest, who on another planet might have formed the intellectualvanguard of a movement against endless financialization andunencumberedmarkets.“Itiseasiertoimaginetheendoftheworldthantoimaginetheendofcapitalism,”theliterarycriticFredricJamesonhaswritten, attributing the phrase, coyly, to “someone”who “once said it.”Thatsomeonemightsay,today,“Whychoose?”When it comes to authority and responsibility, scale and perspective

oftenbefuddleus—wemaybeunabletorecognizewhichmatryoshkadollnests inside theother, or onwhosedisplay shelf thewhole set sits.Bigthingsmakeusfeelsmall,andratherpowerless,evenifwearenominally“incharge.”Inthemodernage,atleast,thereisalsotherelatedtendencytoviewlargehumansystems,liketheinternetorindustrialeconomy,asmoreunassailable,evenmoreun-intervenable,thannaturalsystems,likeclimate,thatliterallyencloseus.Thisishowrenovatingcapitalismsothatit doesn’t reward fossil fuel extraction can seem unlikelier thansuspendingsulfurintheairtodyetheskyredandcooltheplanetoffbyadegree or two. To some, even ending trillions in fossil fuel subsidiessoundshardertopulloffthandeployingtechnologiestosuckcarbonoutoftheaireverywhereonEarth.

ThisisakindofFrankensteinproblem,andrelatestowidespreadfearsof artificial intelligence: we are more intimidated by the monsters wecreate than those we inherit. Sitting at computers in air-conditionedroomsreadingdispatchesinthesciencesectionofthenewspaper,wefeelillogically incontrolofnaturalecosystems;weexpectweshouldbeableto protect the dwindling population of an endangered species, andpreservetheirhabitat,shouldwechooseto,andthatweshouldbeabletomanageanabundantwatersupply,ratherthanseeitwastedonthewayto human mouths—again, should we choose to. We feel less that wayabouttheinternet,whichseemsbeyondourcontrolthoughwedesignedandbuiltit,andquiterecently;stilllessaboutglobalwarming,whichweextendeachday,eachminute,byouractions.Andtheperceptualsizeofmarketcapitalismhasbeenakindofobstacle to itscritics forat least ageneration,whenitcametoseemeventothoseattunedtoitsfailingstobeperhapstoobigtofail.Itdoesnotquiteseemthatwaynow,standinginthelongshadowofthe

financial crisis and watching global warming beginning to darken thehorizon. And yet, perhaps in part because we see the way thatperspectives on climate change map neatly onto existing and familiarperspectives on capitalism—from burn-it-all-down leftists to naivelyoptimistic and blinkered technocrats to rent-seeking, kleptocratic,growth-is-the-only-value conservatives—we tend to think of climate assomehowbeingcontainedwithin,orgovernedby,capitalism.Infact,theopposite:capitalismisendangeredbyclimate.

—

ThatWestern capitalismmay owe its dominance to the power of fossilfuels is not anything like consensus economicwisdom, but it also isn’tjust a pet theory of the socialist Left. Itwas the core claim ofKennethPomeranz’s The Great Divergence, probably the single mostconventionally esteemed account of just how it was that Europe, longeffectivelyaprovincialbackwatertotheempiresofChina,India,andtheMiddleEast,separateditselfsodramaticallyfromtherestoftheworldinthenineteenthcentury.Tothebigquestionof“WhyEurope?”TheGreatDivergence offers something almost as simple as a one-word answer:coal.

As an account of industrial history, the reductionist story implied by“fossil capitalism”—that what we conceive as the modern economy isreally a system powered by fossil fuels—is in ways persuasive but alsoincomplete;ofcoursethereismoretothenetworkthatgivesusawholeyogurtaisle inthesupermarketthanthesimpleburningofoil. (Thoughmaybeless“more”thanyou’dthink.)Butasapictureofjusthowdeeplyentangledthetwoforcesremain,andhowthefateofeachdefinesthefateoftheother,thetermpromisestobeaveryusefulshorthand.Andraisesthequestion,nowmerelyrhetoricalonpartsof theLeft:Cancapitalismsurviveclimatechange?The question is a prism, spitting out different answers to different

ranges of the political spectrum, and where you fall on that rangeprobablyreflectswhatyoumeanby“capitalism.”Globalwarmingcouldcultivate emergent forms of eco-socialism on one end of the spectrum,andcouldalsoconceivablyproduceacollapseoffaithinanythingbutthemarket, on the other. Tradewill surely endure, perhaps even thrive, asindeeditdidbeforecapitalism—individualsmakingtradesandexchangesoutsidea single totalizing system toorganize theactivity.Rent-seeking,too,willcontinue,withthosewhocanscramblingtoaccumulatewhateveradvantagestheycanbuy—the incentiveonly increasing inaworldmorebarrenof resources, andmoremournfulof recent apparent abundance,nowdisappeared.This last is more or less the model that Naomi Klein memorably

sketched out inThe ShockDoctrine, in which she documents just howmonolithically the forces of capital respond to crises of any kind—bydemandingmorespace,power,andautonomyforcapital.Thebookisnotprimarilyabouttheresponseoffinancialintereststoclimatedisasters—itfocuses more on political collapse and crises of the technocrats’ ownmaking.Butitdoesgiveaveryclearaccountofwhatkindofstrategytoexpectfromtheworld’smoneyeliteinatimeofrollingecologicalcrisis.More recently, Klein has offered the island of Puerto Rico, still reelingfromHurricaneMaria,asacasestudy,evenbeyonditsunfortunatespotin the path of climate-change-fueled hurricanes. Here is an islandendowedwith abundant green energynevertheless importing all its oil,and an agricultural paradise nevertheless importing all its food,importingbothfromaquasi-colonialmainlandpowerthatseesitmerelyas a market. That mainland power has effectively turned over the

governmentoftheisland,downtoitspowercompany,toaselectboardofbondholderswhoseinterestisintherepaymentofdebt.It ishardto imagineabetter illustrationof theempireofcapital ina

timeofclimatechange.Anditisnotmerelyrhetorical.In2017,justafterthestorm,SolomonHsiangandTrevorHousercalculatedthat,allonitsown,MariacouldcutPuertoRicanincomesby21percentoverthenextfifteen years, and that the economy of the island could take twenty-sixyearstoreturneventothelevelitenjoyedjustbeforethestorm—alevel,Klein reminds us, already strained. This did not prompt a dramaticexpansionof social spendingor theextensionofaMarshallPlanacrosstheCaribbean;instead,DonaldTrumptossedafewrollsofpapertowelstothecitizensofSanJuan,thenleftthemtopleadwiththeoutsiderswhonow controlled the public coffers for mercy, which did not come. Theecho of financial crisis is unmistakable, as Hsiang and Houser note,suggesting such crises may offer the best conceptual model for thepunishments of climate change. “For Puerto Rico,” they write, “Mariacouldbeaseconomicallycostlyas the1997AsianfinancialcrisiswastoIndonesia and Thailand andmore than twice as damaging as the 1994PesoCrisiswastoMexico.”

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How well will the shock doctrine be sustained through a new climaticregime, one that assaults the economies of the world with extremeweatherandnaturaldisasteratanentirelyunprecedentedrateand—justin the diminishing downtime between hurricanes and floods and heatwaves anddroughts—also threatens todevastate agricultural yields andcripple worker productivity? It is an open question, as are all thosehavingtodowithhumanresponsetoglobalwarminginthepresentandfuture.Buthere,too,evenrelativelyfractionaladjustmentstotheWest’sbasic orientation toward business and financial capitalism are likely toarrive like earthquakes, so much has that orientation produced theculture’scollectivesenseofwhatisthinkableandwhatisnot.One possibility is that the scramble for shrinking profits by the

powerful will only intensify, a further self-entrenchment of the rule ofcapital;thisistheoutcomeyoumightextrapolatefromaconsiderationofthe last several decades. But over those decades, capitalists could still

countasapublic-relationsallythepromiseofrising-tidegrowth.Infact,despite ourmany and divergent varieties ofmarkets, that promise hasservedassomethinglikethebasicideologicalinfrastructureoftheworldsinceat least1989—andit isnocoincidencethatcarbonemissionshaveexplodedsincetheendoftheColdWar.Climate change will accelerate two trends already undermining that

promiseofgrowth:first,byproducingaglobaleconomicstagnationthatwill play, in some areas, like a breathtaking and permanent recession;andsecond,bypunishingthepoormuchmoredramaticallythantherich,both globally andwithin particular polities, showcasing an increasinglystarkincomeinequality,unconscionablealreadytomoreandmore.Inaneconomicfuturedoublymangledbythoseforces,thenear-monopolyonsocialpowerpresentlyenjoyedbytheworld’sverywealthywilllikelyhavemuchmoretoanswerfor,tosaytheleast.And how might it answer? Beyond new Social Darwinist appeals to

unequal outcomes as “fair” ones, an already familiar one-percenterworldview,theforceofcapitalmayfinditselfwithverylittletosay.Themarkethasjustifiedinequalityforgenerationsbypointingtoopportunityand invoking the mantra of new prosperity, which it promised wouldbenefitall.Thiswasprobablyalwayslesscredibleasatruthclaimthanitwasaspropaganda,and,astheGreatRecessionandthedeeplyunequalrecoverythatfollowedshowedunmistakably,incomegainsintheworld’sadvanced capitalistic countries have gone, for several decades now,almostentirelytotheverywealthiest.Thatthisitselfrepresentsacrisisoftheentiresystemisclearnotjustfromtheragingpopulism,onbothleftandright,sweepingEuropeandtheUnitedStatesintheaftermathofthecrash,butbyskepticismandlaceratingself-doubtbeamingoutfromthehighestfree-marketcitadels.In2016,theIMFpublishedanarticletitled“Neoliberalism: Oversold?”—the IMF. And Paul Romer, later the chiefeconomist of the World Bank, proposed that macroeconomics, the“science”ofcapitalism,wassomething likea fantasyfield,equivalenttostring theory, thatno longerhadany legitimate claim todescribing theworkingsoftherealeconomyaccurately.In2018,RomerwontheNobelPrize.Heshared itwithWilliamNordhaus,whopioneered thestudyoftheeconomicimpactofclimatechange.Aneconomist,Nordhausfavorsacarbontax,butalowone—his“optimal”carbonpricestillallowsfor3.5degreesCelsiusofwarming.

Atpresent,theeconomicimpactsofclimatechangearerelativelylight:in theUnited States, in 2017, the estimated costwas$306 billion. Theheavier impactsawaitus.Andif, inthepast, thepromiseofgrowthhasbeen the justification for inequality, injustice, and exploitation, it willhave many more wounds to salve in the near climate future: disaster,drought, famine, war, global refugeeism and the political disarray itunleashes. And, as a salve, climate change promises almost no globalgrowth;inmuchoftheworldhithardest,infact,negativegrowth.Totheextentthatwetendtobelievetodayinhumanresiliencyagainst

such disasters, it is a legacy of several hundred years of industrialaffluenceproducedbyourexploitationoffossilfuels.Medievalkingsdidnotbelievetheycouldgrowtheirwayoutofplague,orfamine,andthosewholivedintheshadowofKrakatoaorVesuviusdidnotblithelyassumethey could endure volcanic eruption. But the downward revision ofexpectationsforthefuturemaybestillmoreimportantthandiminishedprosperity in the present. And if what youmean by “capitalism” is notjusttheoperationofmarketforcesbutthereligionoffreetradeasajustandevenperfectsocialsystem,youhavetoexpect,attheveryleast,thatamajor reformation is coming. The predictions of economic hardship,remember,areenormous—$551trillionindamagesatjust3.7degreesofwarming,23percentofpotentialglobal income lost,underbusiness-as-usualconditions,by2100.ThatisanimpactmuchmoreseverethantheGreatDepression;itwouldbetentimesasdeepasthemorerecentGreatRecession,whichstillsorattlesus.Anditwouldnotbetemporary.It ishard to imagine any system surviving that kind of decline intact, nomatterhow“big.”

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Ifcapitalismdoesendure,whowillpay?Already, in theUnitedStates, courts are awash in awave of lawsuits

aimedatextractingclimatedamages—aboldgambit,giventhatmostoftheimpactstheyenumeratehaveyettoarrive.Themosthigh-profilearethetortsbroughtagainstoilcompaniesbycrusadingattorneysgeneral—publichealthclaims,moreorless,putforwardbythepublicoratleastinits name, against companies known to have engaged in disinformationand political-influence campaigns. This is the first vector of climate

liability:againstthecorporationsthathaveprofited.Another kind of charge ismade inJuliana v. theUnited States, also

known as “Kids vs. Climate,” an ingenious equal-protection lawsuitallegingthatinfailingtotakeactionagainstglobalwarming,thefederalgovernment effectively shifted many decades’ worth of environmentalcostsontotoday’syoung—aninspiringclaim,initsway,madebyagroupofminorsonbehalfoftheirentiregenerationandthosethatwillfollow,againstthegovernmentstheirparentsandgrandparentsvotedintooffice.Thisisthesecondvectorofclimateliability:againstthegenerationsthathaveprofited.Butthere isalsoa thirdvector,yet tobe litigated inanymore formal

setting than the conference rooms in which the Paris accords werenegotiated: against the nations that have profited from burning fossilfuels, in some cases to the tune ofwhole empires. This is an especiallyelectric vector because it is the descendants of the subjects of thoseempires who will bear the bluntest climate trauma—which is what hasalready inspired the political outrage organized under the banner of“climatejustice.”Howwillthoseclaimsplayout?Arangeofscenariosispossible,having

todomostlywithwhathumanchoicesandcommitmentsaremadeoverthe next decades. Exploitative empires have collapsed before intorelatively peaceful rapprochements, retributive energiesmuffled by thecushionsofreparations,repatriation,truth,andreconciliation.Andthatcould emerge as the dominant approach to climate suffering—acooperativesupportnetworkerectedinthespiritofmeaculpa.ButtherehasbeenlittleacknowledgmentyetthatthewealthynationsoftheWestowe any climate debt to the poor nations who will suffer most fromwarming.Andthatsuffering,andtheexploitationitexpresses,mayalsoprove too gruesome a prompt for high-minded cooperation betweennations,manyofwhichcouldinsteadlookawayorretreatintodenial.Wedonotyetknow,ofcourse,justhowmuchsufferingglobalwarming

will inflict,butthescaleofdevastationcouldmakethatdebtenormous,byanymeasure—larger, conceivably, thananyhistoricaldebtowedonecountryoronepeoplebyanother,almostnoneofwhichareeverproperlyrepaid.Ifthatseemslikeexcessivehyperbole,considerthattheBritishEmpire

wasconjuredoutof the smokeof fossil fuelsand that, today, thanks tothat smoke, the marshland of Bangladesh is poised to drown and thecities of India to cook within just the span of a single lifetime. In thetwentieth century, the United States did not establish such explicitpolitical dominion, but the global empire it presided over neverthelesstransformed many of the nations of the Middle East into oil-pipelineclient states—nationsnow scorched every summerbyheat approachinguninhabitable levels in places, andwhere temperatures are expected tobecome so hot in the region’s holiestmecca that pilgrimages, once theannualriteofmillionsofMuslims,willbeaslethalasgenocide.Itwouldtake an exceedingly idealistic worldview to believe that the matter ofresponsibilityforthatsufferingwillnotfashionourgeopoliticsinatimeofclimatecrisis,andthecascadingflowofthatcrisis,shouldwenotdamitfirst,doesnotoffermuchfootholdforidealism.Ofcourse,presentpoliticalarrangements,not tomentionbankruptcy

law, will conspire to limit climate liability—for oil companies, forgovernments, for nations. These arrangements may buckle and fall—under force of political pressure and even insurrection—which wouldhave theperhapsunintendedeffectof clearing from the stageallof themostobviousvillainsandtheirguardians,leavingnoeasymarkstowhichwemight apportion blame and expect commensurate payback. At thatpoint, the matter of blame could become an especially potent andindiscriminatepoliticalmunition—residualclimaterage.

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If we do succeed, and pull up short of two or even three degrees, thebiggerbillwill comeduenot in thenameof liabilitybut in the formofadaptation and mitigation—that is, the cost of building and thenadministering whatever systems we improvise to undo the damage acentury of imperious industrial capitalism haswrought across the onlyplanetonwhichweallcanlive.The cost is large: a decarbonized economy, a perfectly renewable

energy system, a reimagined systemof agriculture, and perhaps even ameatless planet. In 2018, the IPCC compared the necessarytransformation to themobilization ofWorldWar II, but global. It tookNew York City forty-five years to build three new stops on a single

subwayline;thethreatofcatastrophicclimatechangemeansweneedtoentirelyrebuildtheworld’sinfrastructureinconsiderablylesstime.Thisisonereasonasingle-shotcure-alloffersanundeniableappeal—

whichbringsusbacktothatmagicphrase,“negativeemissions.”Neithernegative-emissions method—“natural” approaches involving revitalizedforests and new agricultural practices, technological ones that woulddeploy machines to remove carbon from the atmosphere—requireswholesale transformation of the global economy as it is presentlyconstituted.Whichisperhapswhynegativeemissions,oncealast-ditch,if-all-else-fails strategy, have recently been built into all conventionalclimate-actiongoals.Of400IPCCemissionsmodels that landusbelowtwo degrees Celsius, 344 feature negative emissions, most of themsignificantly. Unfortunately, negative emissions are also, at this point,almostentirelytheoretical.Neithermethodhasyetbeendemonstratedtoactually work at anything like the necessary scale, but the naturalapproach, though adored by environmentalists, faces much stifferobstacles: one researcher suggested that, to succeed, itwould require athirdoftheworld’sfarmableland;anothersuggestedthat,dependingonexactly how the system was designed and deployed, it might have theopposite of its intended effect, not subtracting carbon from theatmospherebutaddingit.The carbon capture path, which would blanket the planet in anti-

industrial plants out of a cyberpunk dream, seems, by contrast, moreinviting. To begin with, we already have the technology, though it isexpensive. Thedevices,Wallace SmithBroecker is fondof saying, haveaboutthesamemechanicalcomplexityasacar,andcostaboutasmuch—roughly $30,000 each. Tomerelymatch the amount of carbon we arepresently emitting into the atmosphere, Broecker calculates, wouldrequire100millionof them.Thiswouldmerelybuyussometime—atacost of $30 trillion, or about 40 percent of global GDP. To reduce thelevelofcarbonintheatmospherejustbyafewpartspermillion—whichwouldbuyusalittlemoretime,matchingnotjustourpresentemissionsbutourlikelylevelafewyearsdowntheroad—wouldtake500millionofthesedevices.Toreduce the levelofcarbonby20partspermillionperyear, he calculates, would require 1 billion of them. This wouldimmediately pull us back from the threshold, even buy us some moretime of carbon growth—which is an argument youhear against it from

some corners of the environmental Left. But it would cost, you mayalreadyhave calculated, $300 trillion—ornearly four times total globalGDP.These prices will likely fall, but only as emissions and atmospheric

carboncontinuetorise.In2018,apaperbyDavidKeithdemonstratedamethod for removing carbonat a cost perhaps as lowas$94per ton—which would make the cost of neutralizing our 32 gigatons of annualglobal emissions about $3 trillion. If that sounds intimidating, keep inmind,estimatesforthetotalglobalfossilfuelsubsidiespaidouteachyearrunashighas$5trillion.In2017,thesameyeartheUnitedStatespulledoutoftheParisAgreement,thecountryalsoapproveda$2.3trilliontaxcut—primarilyforthecountry’srichest,whodemandedrelief.

S

TheChurchofTechnology

houldanythingsaveus,itwillbetechnology.Butyouneedmorethantautologies to save the planet, and, especially within the futurist

fraternityofSiliconValley,technologistshavelittlemorethanfairytalesto offer. Over the last decade, consumer adoration has anointed thosefoundersandventurecapitalistssomethinglikeshamans,Ouija-boardingtheirwaytowardblueprintsfortheworld’sfuture.Butconspicuouslyfewof them seem meaningfully concerned about climate change. Instead,theymakeparsimonious investments in green energy (BillGates aside)and fewer stillphilanthropicpayouts (BillGatesagainaside), andoftenexpress the perspective, outlined by Eric Schmidt, that climate changehas already been solved, in the sense that a solution has been madeinevitable by the speed of technological change—or even by theintroduction of a particular self-advancing technology, namelymachineintelligence,orAI.Blind faith is one way of describing this worldview, thoughmany in

SiliconValleyregardmachineintelligencewithblindterror.Anotherwayof looking at it is that the world’s futurists have come to regardtechnologyasasuperstructurewithinwhichallotherproblems,andtheirsolutions, are contained. From that perspective, the only threat totechnologymustcomefromtechnology,whichisperhapswhysomanyinSilicon Valley seem less concerned with runaway climate change thanthey are with runaway artificial intelligence: the only fearsome powerthey are likely to take seriously is the one they themselves haveunleashed. It is a strange evolutionary stage for a worldviewmidwifedintobeing,inthepermanentcountercultureoftheBayArea,byStewartBrand’s nature-hacking bible,Whole Earth Catalog. And it may helpexplainwhy socialmedia executiveswere so slow to process the threat

thatreal-worldpoliticsposedtotheirplatforms;andperhapsalsowhy,asthesciencefictionwriterTedChianghassuggested,SiliconValley’sfearof future artificial-intelligence overlords sounds suspiciously like anunknowinglylaceratingself-portrait,panicaboutawayofdoingbusinessembodiedbythetechtitansthemselves:

Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus,oblivioustothepossibilityofnegativeconsequences?Whoadoptsascorched-earth approach to increasing market share? Thishypothetical strawberry-picking AI does what every tech startupwishes it could do—grows at an exponential rate and destroys itscompetitors until it’s achieved an absolute monopoly. The idea ofsuperintelligence is such a poorly defined notion that one couldenvision it taking almost any form with equal justification: abenevolent genie that solves all the world’s problems, or amathematicianthatspendsallitstimeprovingtheoremssoabstractthat humans can’t even understand them. Butwhen Silicon Valleytriestoimaginesuperintelligence,whatitcomesupwithisno-holds-barredcapitalism.

—

Sometimesitcanbehardtoholdmorethanoneextinction-levelthreatinyourheadatonce.NickBostrom, thepioneeringphilosopherofAI,hasmanaged it. In an influential 2002 paper taxonomizing what he called“existential risks,” he outlined twenty-three of them—risks “where anadverseoutcomewouldeitherannihilateEarth-originatingintelligentlifeorpermanentlyanddrasticallycurtailitspotential.”Bostrom is not a lone doomsday intellectual but one of the leading

thinkers currently strategizing ways of corralling, or at any rateconceptualizing,whattheyconsiderthespecies-sizedthreatfromanout-of-controlAI.Buthedoesincludeclimatechangeonhisbig-picturerisklist. He puts it in the subcategory “Bangs,” which he defines as thepossibilitythat“earth-originatingintelligentlifegoesextinctinrelativelysudden disaster resulting from either an accident or a deliberate act ofdestruction.”“Bangs”isthelongestofhissub-lists;climatechangeshares

the categorywith, among others,Badly programmed superintelligenceandWe’relivinginasimulationanditgetsshutdown.Inhispaper,Bostromalsoconsiderstheclimate-change-adjacentrisk

of“resourcedepletionorecologicaldestruction.”Heplacesthatthreatinhis next category, “Crunches,” which he describes as an episode afterwhich “the potential of humankind to develop into posthumanity ispermanentlythwartedalthoughhumanlifecontinuesinsomeform.”Hismost representative crunch risk is probablyTechnological arrest: “thesheertechnologicaldifficultiesinmakingthetransitiontotheposthumanworldmight turnout tobesogreat thatweneverget there.”Bostrom’sfinaltwocategoriesare“Shrieks,”whichhedefinesasthepossibilitythat“some form of posthumanity is attained but it is an extremely narrowbandofwhatispossibleanddesirable,”asinthecaseof“Take-overbyatranscendingupload”or“Flawedsuperintelligence”(asopposedto“Badlyprogrammedsuperintelligence”);and“Whimpers,”whichhedefinesas“aposthuman civilization arises but evolves in a direction that leadsgradually but irrevocably to either the complete disappearance of thethings we value or to a state where those things are realized to only aminusculedegreeofwhatcouldhavebeenachieved.”As you may have noticed, although his paper sets out to analyze

“human extinction scenarios,” none of his threat assessments beyond“Bangs”actuallymention“humanity.”Instead,theyarefocusedonwhatBostrom calls “posthumanity” and others often call “transhumanism”—the possibility that technologymay quickly carry us across a thresholdintoanewstateofbeing,sodivergentfromtheoneweknowtodaythatwewouldbeforcedtoconsideritatrueruptureintheevolutionaryline.For some, this is simply a vision of nanobots swimming through ourbloodstreams,filteringtoxinsandscreeningfortumors;forothers,itisavisionofhumanlifeextractedfromtangiblerealityanduploadedentirelytocomputers.YoumaynoticehereanechooftheAnthropocene.Inthisvision, though, humans aren’t burdened with environmental wreckageand the problem of navigating it; instead, we simply achieve atechnologicalescapevelocity.Itishardtoknowjusthowseriouslytotakethesevisions,thoughthey

areclosetouniversalamongtheBayArea’sfuturistvanguard,whohavesucceededtheNASAsandtheBellLabsofthelastcenturyasarchitectsofourimaginedfuture—andwhodifferamongthemselvesprimarilyintheir

assessmentsofjusthowlongitwilltakeforallthistocometopass.PeterThielmay complain about thepaceof technological change, butmaybehe’s doing so because he’s worried it won’t outpace ecological andpolitical devastation. He’s still investing in dubious eternal-youthprogramsandbuyinguplandinNewZealand(wherehemightrideoutsocial collapse on the civilization scale). Y Combinator’s Sam Altman,who has distinguished himself as a kind of tech philanthropist with asmalluniversal-basic-incomepilotprojectandrecentlyannouncedacallforgeoengineeringproposalshemight invest in,has reportedlymadeadownpayment on abrain-uploadprogram thatwould extracthismindfromthisworld.It’saprojectinwhichheisalsoaninvestor,naturally.For Bostrom, the very purpose of “humanity” is so transparently to

engineera“posthumanity”thathecanusethesecondtermasasynonymforthefirst.Thisisnotanoversightbutthekeytohisappeal inSiliconValley: the belief that the grandest task before technologists is not toengineer prosperity andwell-being for humanity but to build a kind ofportalthroughwhichwemightpassintoanother,possiblyeternalkindofexistence, a technological rapture in which conceivably many—thebillionslackingaccesstobroadband,tobeginwith—wouldbeleftbehind.Itwouldbeveryhard,afterall, touploadyourbrain to thecloudwhenyou’rebuyingpay-as-you-godatabytheSIMcard.The world that would be left behind is the one being presently

pummeled by climate change. And Bostrom isn’t alone, of course, inidentifying that risk as species-wide. There are the thousands, perhapshundredsof thousands,of scientistsnowseeming to screamdaily,witheachextreme-weathereventandnewresearchpaper,fortheattentionoflayreaders;andnomorehystericalafigurethanBarackObamawasfondofusingthephrase“existentialthreat.”Andyetitisperhapsasignofourculture’s heliotropism toward technology that aside perhaps fromproposals tocolonizeotherplanets,andvisionsof technology liberatinghumans frommost biological or environmental needs,we have not yetdevelopedanythingclosetoareligionofmeaningaroundclimatechangethat might comfort us, or give us purpose, in the face of possibleannihilation.

—

Ofcourse,thosearereligiousfantasies:toescapethebodyandtranscendtheworld.Thefirstisalmostacaricatureofprivilegedthinking,andthatitshould

haveenteredthedreamlivesofanewbillionairecastewasprobablyclosetoinevitable.Thesecondseemslikeastrategicresponsetoclimatepanic—securingabackupecosystemtohedgeagainstthepossibilityofcollapsehere—whichispreciselyasithasbeendescribedbyitsadvocates.Butthesolutionisnotarationalone.Climatechangedoesthreatenthe

verybasisoflifeonthisplanet,butadramaticallydegradedenvironmentherewillstillbemuch,muchclosertolivabilitythananythingwemightbeable tohackoutof thedry redsoilofMars.Even insummer,at theequator of that planet, nighttime temperatures are a hundred degreesFahrenheitbelowzero;thereisnowateronitssurface,andnoplantlife.Conceivably, given sufficient funding, a small enclosed colony could bebuiltthere,oronanotherplanet;butthecostswouldbesomuchhigherthan for an equivalent artificial ecosystem on Earth, and therefore thescale so much more limited, that anyone proposing space travel as asolution to global warming must be suffering from their own climatedelusion. To imagine such a colony could offer material prosperity asabundantastechplutocratsenjoyinAthertonistoliveevenmoredeeplyin thenarcissismof thatdelusion—asthough itwereonlyasdifficult tosmuggleluxurytoMarsastoBurningMan.Thefaithtakesadifferentformamongthelaity,unabletoaffordthat

ticket into space. But articles of faith are offered, considerately, atdifferentpricepoints: smartphones, streaming services, rideshares, andthe internet itself, more or less free. And each glimmers with somepromiseofescapefromthestrugglesandstrifeofadegradedworld.In“AnAccountofMyHut,”amemoirofBayAreahouse-huntingand

climate-apocalypse-watching in the 2017 California wildfire season—whichwasalso theseasonofHurricanesHarveyand IrmaandMaria—ChristinaNichol describes a conversationwith a young familymemberwhoworksintech,towhomshetriedtodescribetheunprecedentednessof the threat from climate change, unsuccessfully. “Why worry?” hereplies.

“Technologywilltakecareofeverything.IftheEarthgoes,we’lljustliveinspaceships.We’llhave3Dprinterstoprintourfood.We’llbe

eatinglabmeat.Onecowwillfeedusall.We’lljustrearrangeatomstocreatewateroroxygen.ElonMusk.”

Elon Musk—it’s not the name of a man but a species-scale survivalstrategy.Nicholanswers,“ButIdon’twanttoliveinaspaceship.”

He looked genuinely surprised. Inhis line ofwork, he’dnevermetanyonewhodidn’twanttoliveinaspaceship.

—

That technologymight liberate us, collectively, from the strain of laborandmaterialprivationisadreamatleastasoldasJohnMaynardKeynes,who predicted his grandchildren would work only fifteen-hour weeks,and yet never ultimately fulfilled. In 1987, the year he won the NobelPrize, economist Robert Solow famously commented, “You can see thecomputerageeverywherebutintheproductivitystatistics.”Thishasbeen,evenmoreso,theexperienceofmostofthoselivingin

the developed world in the decades since—rapid technological changetransformingnearlyeveryaspectofeverydaylife,andyetyieldinglittleornotangibleimprovementinanyconventionalmeasuresofeconomicwell-being. It is probably one explanation for contemporary politicaldiscontent—aperceptionthattheworldisbeingalmostentirelyremade,but inaway that leavesyou,asdelightedasyoumaybebyNetflixandAmazonandInstagramandGoogleMaps,moreorlessexactlywhereyouwerebefore.The same canbe said, believe it ornot, for themuch-heraldedgreen

energy “revolution,”whichhasyieldedproductivitygains inenergyandcost reductions far beyond the predictions of even the most doe-eyedoptimists, and yet has not even bent the curve of carbon emissionsdownward.Weare, inotherwords,billionsofdollarsand thousandsofdramatic breakthroughs later, precisely wherewe startedwhen hippieswere affixing solar panels to their geodesic domes. That is because themarkethasnot responded to thesedevelopmentsbyseamlessly retiringdirty energy sources and replacing them with clean ones. It hasrespondedbysimplyaddingthenewcapacitytothesamesystem.

Over the last twenty-fiveyears, the costperunitof renewableenergyhasfallensofarthatyoucanhardlymeasuretheprice,today,usingthesamescales(sincejust2009,forinstance,solarenergycostshavefallenmorethan80percent).Overthesametwenty-fiveyears,theproportionof global energy use derived from renewables has not grown an inch.Solarisn’teatingawayatfossilfueluse,inotherwords,evenslowly;it’sjustbuttressingit.Tothemarket,thisisgrowth;tohumancivilization,itisalmostsuicide.Wearenowburning80percentmorecoalthanwewerejustintheyear2000.Andenergyis,actually,theleastof it.AsthefuturistAlexSteffenhas

incisivelyputit,inaTwitterperformancethatfunctionsasa“PowersofTen” for the climate crisis, the transition fromdirty electricity to cleansources is not the whole challenge. It’s just the lowest-hanging fruit:“smaller than the challenge of electrifying almost everything that usespower,” Steffen says, by which he means anything that runs on muchdirtiergasengines.Thattask,hecontinues,issmallerthanthechallengeof reducing energy demand, which is smaller than the challenge ofreinventing how goods and services are provided—given that globalsupply chains are built with dirty infrastructure and labor marketseverywherearestillpoweredbydirtyenergy.Thereisalsotheneedtogetto zero emissions from all other sources—deforestation, agriculture,livestock, landfills.Andtheneedtoprotectallhumansystems fromthecomingonslaughtofnaturaldisastersandextremeweather.Andtheneedto erect a system of global government, or at least internationalcooperation, tocoordinatesuchaproject.Allofwhichisasmallertask,Steffen says, “than the monumental cultural undertaking of imaginingtogether a thriving, dynamic, sustainable future that feels not onlypossible,butworthfightingfor.”On this last point I see things differently—the imagination isn’t the

hard part, especially for those less informed about the challenges thanSteffen is. If we could wish a solution into place by imagination, we’dhavesolvedtheproblemalready.Infact,wehaveimaginedthesolutions;morethanthat,we’veevendevelopedthem,atleastintheformofgreenenergy.Wejusthaven’tyetdiscoveredthepoliticalwill,economicmight,and cultural flexibility to install and activate them, because doing sorequiressomethingalotbigger,andmoreconcrete,thanimagination—itmeans nothing short of a complete overhaul of the world’s energy

systems,transportation,infrastructureandindustryandagriculture.Nottomention, say, our diets or our taste for Bitcoin. The cryptocurrencynowproducesasmuchCO2eachyearasamilliontransatlanticflights.

—

Wethinkofclimatechangeasslow,butitisunnervinglyfast.Wethinkofthe technological change necessary to avert it as fast-arriving, butunfortunately it isdeceptively slow—especially judgedby justhowsoonweneedit.ThisiswhatBillMcKibbenmeanswhenhesaysthatwinningslowly is the same as losing: “If we don’t act quickly, and on a globalscale, then theproblemwill literallybecome insoluble,”hewrites. “Thedecisionswemakein2075won’tmatter.”Innovation, inmany cases, is the easy part. This iswhat thenovelist

WilliamGibsonmeantwhenhesaid, “The future isalreadyhere, it justisn’t evenly distributed.” Gadgets like the iPhone, talismanic fortechnologists,giveafalsepictureofthepaceofadaptation.ToawealthyAmericanorSwedeorJapanese,themarketpenetrationmayseemtotal,butmorethanadecadeafter its introduction, thedevice isusedby lessthan10percentoftheworld;forallsmartphones,eventhe“cheap”ones,the number is somewhere between a quarter and a third. Define thetechnology inevenmorebasic terms,as “cellphones”or “the internet,”andyougetatimelinetoglobalsaturationofat leastdecades—ofwhichwehavetwoorthree,inwhichtocompletelyeliminatecarbonemissions,planetwide.AccordingtotheIPCC,wehavejusttwelveyearstocuttheminhalf.Thelongerwewait,theharderitwillbe.Ifwehadstartedglobaldecarbonization in 2000, when Al Gore narrowly lost election to theAmericanpresidency,wewouldhavehadtocutemissionsbyonlyabout3percentperyeartostaysafelyundertwodegreesofwarming.Ifwestarttoday,when global emissions are still growing, thenecessary rate is 10percent.Ifwedelayanotherdecade,itwillrequireustocutemissionsby30 percent each year. This is why U.N. Secretary-General AntónioGuterresbelieveswehaveonlyoneyeartochangecourseandgetstarted.The scale of the technological transformation required dwarfs any

achievement thathasemerged fromSiliconValley—in factdwarfseverytechnological revolution ever engineered in human history, includingelectricityandtelecommunicationsandeventheinventionofagriculture

tenthousandyearsago.Itdwarfsthembydefinition,becauseitcontainsallofthem—everysingleoneneedstobereplacedattheroot,sinceeverysingleonebreathesoncarbon,likeaventilator.To remake each of these systems so that they don’t is less like

distributingsmartphonesor floatingwifiballoonsoverKenyaorPuertoRico, as Google intends to, than like building an interstate highwaysystem or constructing a subway network or a new kind of power gridconnected to a new array of energy producers and new kind of energyconsumer.Infact,itisnotlikethat;itisthat.Allofthatandmuch,muchmore:intensiveinfrastructureprojectsateverylevelandineverycornerofhumanactivity,fromnewplanefleetstonewlanduseandrightdowntoanewwayofmakingconcrete,productionofwhichrankstodayasthesecondmostcarbon-intensive industry intheworld—anindustrythat isbooming, by the way, thanks to China, which recently poured moreconcreteinthreeyearsthantheUnitedStatesusedintheentiretwentiethcentury. If the cement industrywere a country, itwouldbe theworld’sthird-largestemitter.Inotherwords,theseareinfrastructureprojectsofascalesofarfrom

ourexperience, in theU.S. at least, thatwehardly expect their existingcorollariestoeverevenberepairedanymore,insteadlearningtolivewithpotholes and service delays. On top of which, unlike the internet orsmartphones,therequisitetechnologiesarenotadditivebutsubstitutive,or should be, if we have the good sense to actually retire the dirty oldvarieties.Whichmeans that all of the new alternatives have to face offwiththeresistanceofentrenchedcorporateinterestsandthestatus-quobiasofconsumerswhoarerelativelyhappywiththelivestheyhavetoday.Thankfully,thegreenenergyrevolutionisalready,astheysay,“under

way.” In fact, of all the necessary components of this broader, zero-carbon revolution, clean energy is probably farthest along. How faralong? In 2003, Ken Caldeira, now of the Carnegie Institution forScience, found that the world would need to add clean power sourcesequivalenttothefullcapacityofanuclearplanteverysingledaybetween2000 and 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change. In 2018, MITTechnologyReviewsurveyedourprogress;withthreedecadeslefttogo,theworldwas on track to complete the necessary energy revolution infourhundredyears.

That gap yawns so wide it could swallow whole civilizations, andindeedthreatensto.Intoithascrawledthatdreamofcarboncapture:ifwecan’trebuildtheentireinfrastructureofthemodernworldintimetosaveitfromself-destruction,perhapswecanatleastbuyourselvessometime by sucking some of its toxic fumes out of the air. Given theindomitablescaleoftheconventionalapproach,andgivenjusthowlittletimeleftwehavetocompleteit,negativeemissionsmaybe,atpresent,aform of magical thinking for climate. They also seem like a last, besthope. And if they work, carbon capture plants will deliver industrialabsolution for industrial sin—and initiate, as a result, a whole newtheologicalromancewiththepowerofmachine.

—

Threadedthroughthereverieforcarboncaptureisafantasyofindustrialabsolution—that a technology could be almost dreamed into being thatcouldpurify the ecological legacy ofmodernity, evenperhaps eliminateitsfootprintentirely.Thesemi-subliminalsalespitch forwindandsolar isnotdissimilar—

cleanenergy,naturalenergy,renewableandthereforesustainableenergy,inexhaustible, even undiminishable energy, harnessed rather thanharvestedenergy,abundantenergy,freeenergy.Whichallsoundsquitealotlikenuclearpower,atleastasitwasoriginallypresentedandreceived.Ofcourse,thatwasbackinthe1950s,andithasbeendecadesnowsincenuclearwasseenasapathtoenergysalvationratherthan,asitinvariablyistoday,throughthespecterofmetaphysicalcontagion.Itwasnotalwaysthisway.Inhis1953“AtomsforPeace”speechbefore

theUnitedNations,DwightEisenhoweroutlinedthetermsofastanding-offerarmstradethatwasalsoamoralbargain:asarewardtoanynationdisavowingthepursuitofnuclearweapons,andasakindofpenanceforhaving developed the horrible technology in the first place, the UnitedStateswouldofferaidintheformofnuclearenergy,whichitwouldalsobecultivatingathome.Foraspeechdeliveredbyapresidentwhowasalsoamilitaryman,itis

aremarkablylyricallamentthatisalsoapeacetimecall-to-arms—infact,it evokes in a modern reader quite beautifully the threat from climatechange.Afterbrieflydescribingthedramaticexpansionofthecapacityof

the American nuclear fleet, which had in the eight years since thewargrown twenty-five times more powerful and plainly terrified him, andthenwhatitmeantfortheUnitedStatestohavegainedSovietRussiaasanuclearrival,Eisenhowercontinues:

To stop there would be to accept helplessly the probability ofcivilizationdestroyed, the annihilationof the irreplaceableheritageofmankindhandeddowntous fromgeneration togeneration,andthe condemnation of mankind to begin all over again the age-oldstruggle upward from savagery towards decency, and right, andjustice. Surely no sane member of the human race could discovervictoryinsuchdesolation.Couldanyonewishhisnametobecoupledby history with such human degradation and destruction?Occasional pages of history do record the faces of the “greatdestroyers,”butthewholebookofhistoryrevealsmankind’snever-endingquestforpeaceandmankind’sGod-givencapacitytobuild.

Ithasbeenat leastagenerationsinceAmericansmighthavecasuallyread “mankind’sGod-given capacity to build” as a reference to nuclearpower—a generation since the world stopped believing nuclear powerwas,inanenvironmentalsense,“free,”andstartedthinkingofitintermsofnuclearwar,meltdown,mutation,andcancer.Thatwerememberthenamesof power-plantdisasters is a signof justhow scarredwe feel bythem:ThreeMileIsland,Chernobyl,Fukushima.But the scars are almost phantom ones, given the casualty numbers.

ThedeathtolloftheincidentatThreeMileIslandisinsomedispute,asmany activists believe the true impact of radiation was suppressed—perhaps a reasonable belief, since the official account insists on noadversehealth impactsatall.But themostpedigreed researchsuggeststhemeltdownincreasedcancerrisk,withinaten-mileradius,bylessthanone-tenth of 1 percent. For Chernobyl, the official death count is 47,though some estimates run higher—even as high as 4,000. ForFukushima, according to a United Nations report, “no discernibleincreased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expectedamongexposedmembersof thepublicortheirdescendants.”Hadnoneof the 100,000 living in the evacuation zone ever left, perhaps a fewhundredmighthaveultimatelydiedofcancersrelatedtotheradiation.

Anynumberofdeadisatragedy,butmorethan10,000peopledieeachday, globally, from the small-particulate pollutionproducedbyburningcarbon. This is not even broaching the subject of warming and itsimpacts. A rule change to pollution standards for coal producers,proposed by Trump’s EPA in 2018, would kill an additional 1,400Americans annually, the agency itself acknowledged; globally, pollutionkillsasmanyasninemillioneachyear.We live with that pollution, and with those death tolls, and hardly

notice them; thecurvingconcrete towersofnuclearplants,bycontrast,standastridethehorizonlikeChekhov’sproverbialgun.Today,despiteavarietyofprojectsaimedatproducingcheapnuclearenergy,thepriceofnew plants remains high enough that it is hard to make a persuasiveargumentthatmore“green” investmentbedirectedtowardthemratherthan installations ofwind and solar. But the case for decommissioningand dismantling existing plants is considerably weaker, and yet that isexactly what is happening—from the United States, where both ThreeMileIslandandIndianPointarebeingcloseddown,toGermany,whereso much nuclear power has recently been retired that the country isgrowing its carbon emissions despite a state-of-the-world green energyprogram. For this, Angela Merkel has been called the “ClimateChancellor.”

—

The contaminationist view of nuclear power is a misguided climateparable, arising nevertheless from a perceptive environmentalistperspective—that the healthy, clean natural world ismade toxic by theintrusions and interventions of human industry. But the main lessonfromthechurchoftechnologyrunsintheotherdirection,instructingusinsubtleandnot-so-subtlewaystoregardtheworldbeyondourphonesas less real, less urgent, and less meaningful than the worlds madeavailable to us through those screens, which happen to be worldsprotected from climate devastation. As Andreas Malm has wondered,“How many will play augmented reality games on a planet that is sixdegrees warmer?” The poet and musician Kate Tempest puts it morebrinily:“Staringintothescreensowedon’thavetoseetheplanetdie.”Presumably, you can already feel this transformation underfoot, in

your own life—scrolling through photos of your babywhen your actualbaby is right in front of you, reading trivial Twitter threadswhile yourspouse is speaking. In Silicon Valley, even tech critics tend to see theproblem as a form of addiction; but, like all addictions, it expresses avaluejudgment,ifonethatmakestheunaddicteduncomfortable—inthiscase, thatwe find theworldofourscreensmorerewarding,orsafer, inways so hard to justify and explain that there isn’t really a word for itotherthan“preferable.”Thispreferenceismuchmorelikelytogrowthanshrink, whichmay seem like cultural devolution, perhaps especially totemperamentaldeclinists. It could conceivablyalsobeapsychologicallyuseful coping mechanism for living, still within the consumptivebourgeois tradition, in a dramatically degraded natural world. Ageneration from now, god help us, tech addiction may even look“adaptive.”

J

PoliticsofConsumption

ustbeforedawnonApril14,2018,aSaturday,asixty-year-oldmanwalked into Prospect Park in Brooklyn, gave himself a shower of

gasoline,andlithimselfonfire.Besidethebody,nearacircularpatchofgrass blackened by the flames, lay a note, handwritten: “I am DavidBuckel and I just killedmyself by fire as a protest suicide,” it read. “Iapologize to you for themess.” Itwasa smallmess;hehadarrangedaringofsoiltopreventthefirefromspreadingtoofar.In a longer letter, typed, which he had also sent to the city’s

newspapers,Buckelelaborated.“Mosthumansontheplanetnowbreatheairmadeunhealthybyfossilfuels,andmanydieearlydeathsasaresult—my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing toourselves….Pollution ravagesourplanet,”hewrote. “Ourpresent growsmoredesperate,ourfutureneedsmorethanwhatwe’vebeendoing.”

—

Americans know political suicide by self-immolation from the Vietnamera, when Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhistmonk repurposing a spiritualtraditionofself-purificationforcontemporaryprotest,burnedhimselftodeath in Saigon. A few years later, the thirty-one-year-old QuakerNormanMorrisonwasinspiredtodothesame,outsidethePentagon,hisone-year-olddaughterbesidehim.Oneweekafterthat,twenty-two-year-oldRoger Allen LaPorte, a former seminarian andCatholicWorker, lithimselfaflameoutsidetheUnitedNations.Wedon’t liketothinkaboutit,but thetraditioncontinues.IntheUnitedStates, therehavebeensixprotests by self-immolation since 2014; in China, the gesture is evenmore common, particularly by opponents of the country’s Tibet policy,

withtwelveinthelastthreemonthsof2011andtwentyinthefirstthreemonthsof 2012alone.Andof course the self-immolationof aTunisianfruitvendorignitedtheArabSpring.Buckelwas a later-life environmental activist.He’d spentmostofhis

career as a prominent gay-rights litigator, and his notes expressed twoclearconvictions:thatthenaturalworldhadbeenmadesickbyindustrialactivity,andthatmuchmorethantheaveragepassersbyinProspectParkcouldappreciatemustbedonetohalt,andideallyreverse,thedamage.Inthedaysafterhissuicide,itwasthefirstofthesewhichattractedthemostattention—hisdeathtreatedasanalarm,orabellwether,markingsomeamorphousshift,perhapsinthehealthoftheplanetbutcertainlyintheaverage Brooklynite’s perception of it. The second insight is morechallenging—that the climate crisis demands political commitmentwellbeyond the easy engagement of rhetorical sympathies, comfortablepartisantribalism,andethicalconsumption.It isacommonchargeagainst liberalenvironmentalists that they live

hypocritically—eatingmeat, flying,andvotingliberalwithoutyethavingpurchasedTeslas.ButamongthewokeLefttheinvertedchargeisjustasoftentrue:wenavigatebyaNorthStarofpoliticsthroughourdiets,ourfriendships, even our consumption of pop culture, but rarely makemeaningful political noise about those causes that run against our ownself-interestorsenseofselfasspecial—indeedenlightened.Andso,inthecoming years, divestment is likely to be just the first salvo in a moralarms race between universities, municipalities, and nations. Cities willcompete to be the first to ban cars, to paint every single roofwhite, toproducealltheagricultureeatenbyresidentsinverticalfarmsthatdon’trequirepost-harvesttransportationbyautomobile,railroad,orairplane.But liberal NIMBYism will still strut, too, as it did in 2018, whenAmericanvoters indeep-blueWashingtonstaterejectedacarbontaxattheballotbox,andtheworstFrenchprotestssincethequasi-revolutionof1968 raged against a proposed gasoline tax.Onperhaps no issuemorethanclimateisthatliberalpostureofwell-offenlightenmentadefensivegesture:almostregardlessofyourpoliticsoryourconsumptionchoices,thewealthieryouare,thelargeryourcarbonfootprint.Butwhen critics ofAlGore comparehis electricity use to that of the

averageUgandan, they arenot ultimatelyhighlighting conspicuous andhypocriticalpersonalconsumption,howevertheymeantodisparagehim.

Instead, they are calling attention to the structure of a political andeconomicorderthatnotonlypermitsthedisparitybutfeedsandprofitsfromit—thisiswhatThomasPikettycallsthe“apparatusofjustification.”Andit justifiesquitealot.Iftheworld’smostconspicuousemitters,thetop 10 percent, reduced their emissions to only the E.U. average, totalglobalemissionswouldfallby35percent.Wewon’tgettherethroughthedietary choices of individuals, but throughpolicy changes. In an age ofpersonal politics, hypocrisy can look like a cardinal sin; but it can alsoarticulateapublicaspiration.Eatingorganicisnice,inotherwords,butifyour goal is to save the climate your vote is much more important.Politics is a moral multiplier. And a perception of worldly sicknessuncomplementedbypoliticalcommitmentgivesusonly“wellness.”

—

It canbehard to takewellness seriouslyasamovement,at first,whichmaybewhyithasbeenthesubjectofsomuchderisionoverthepastfewyears—SoulCycle, Goop, Moon Juice. But however manipulated bymarketingconsultants,andhoweverdubiousitsclaimstohealthfulness,wellnessalsogivesaclearnameandshapetoagrowingperceptioneven,orespecially,amongthosewealthyenoughtobeinsulatedfromtheearlyassaultsofclimatechange:thatthecontemporaryworldistoxic,andthatto endure or thrive within it requires extraordinary measures of self-regulationandself-purification.Whathasbeencalledthe“newNewAge”arisesfromasimilarintuition

—that meditation, ayahuasca trips, crystals and Burning Man andmicrodosedLSDareallpathwaystoaworldbeckoningaspurer,cleaner,more sustaining, and perhaps above all else, more whole. This purityarenaislikelytoexpand,perhapsdramatically,astheclimatecontinuestocareentowardvisibledegradation—andconsumersrespondbytryingtoextract themselves fromthesludgeof theworldhowever theycan. Itshould not be a surprise to discover, in next year’s supermarket aisles,alongside labels for “organic” and “free range,” some food described as“carbon-free.”GMOsaren’tasignofasickplanetbutapossiblepartialsolution to thecomingcrisisofagriculture;nuclearpower thesame forenergy. But both have already become nearly as off-putting ascarcinogens to the purity-minded, who are growing in number and

channelingmoreandmoreecologicalanxietyalongtheway.That anxiety is coherent, even rational, at a time when it has been

revealed that many American brand-name foods made from oats,including Cheerios and Quaker Oats, contain the pesticide Roundup,which has been linked with cancer, and when the National WeatherService issueselaborate guidance aboutwhich commonly available facemasks can, and which cannot, protect you against the wildfire smokeengulfingnearlyallofNorthAmerica.Itisonlyintuitive,inotherwords,that impulses toward purity represent growth areas of our culture,destined to distend further inward from the cultural periphery asapocalypticecologicalanxietygrows,too.But conscious consumption and wellness are both cop-outs, arising

from that basic promise extended by neoliberalism: that consumerchoices can be a substitute for political action, advertising not justpolitical identitybutpoliticalvirtue;thatthemutualend-goalofmarketand political forces should be the effective retirement of contentiouspolitics at the hand of market consensus, which would displaceideologicaldispute;andthat, in themeantime, in thesupermarketaisleordepartmentstore,onecandogoodfortheworldsimplybybuyingwell.

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Theterm“neoliberalism”hasbeenaswearword,ontheLeft,onlysincethe Great Recession. Before then it was, most of the time, meredescription: of the growing power of markets, particularly financialmarkets,intheliberaldemocraciesoftheWestoverthesecondhalfofthetwentiethcentury;andofthehardeningcentristconsensuswithinthosecountries committed to spreading that power, in the form ofprivatization, deregulation, corporate-friendly tax policy, and thepromotionoffreetrade.Thisprogramwassold,forfiftyyears,onthepromiseofgrowth—and

not just growth for some. In this way, it was a sort of total politicalphilosophy, extending a single, simple ideological tarpaulin so far andwidethatitenclosedtheearthlikearubberyblanketofgreenhousegas.It was total in other ways as well, unable to adjust to meaningfully

discriminatebetweenexperiencesasdivergentaspost-crashEnglandand

post-Maria Puerto Rico, or to concede its own shortcomings andparadoxes and blind spots, proposing instead onlymore neoliberalism.This is how the forces that unleashed climate change—namely, “theuncheckedwisdom of themarket”—were nevertheless presented as theforces that would save the planet from its ravages. It is how“philanthrocapitalism,” which seeks profits alongside human benefits,hasreplacedtheloss-leadermodelofmoralphilanthropyamongtheveryrich; how the winners of our increasingly winner-take-all tournamenteconomy use philanthropy to buttress their own status; how “effectivealtruism,” which measures even not-for-profit charity by metrics ofreturnborrowedfromfinance,hastransformedthecultureofgivingwellbeyondthebillionaireclass;andhowthe“moraleconomy,”a rhetoricalwedge that once expressed a radical critique of capitalism, became thecallingcardofdo-goodercapitalistslikeBillGates.Itisalso,ontheotherend of the pecking order, how struggling citizens are asked to beentrepreneurs, indeed to demonstrate their value as citizens with thehardwork of entrepreneurship, in an exhausting social system definedaboveallelsebyrelentlesscompetition.That is the critique from the Left, at least—and it is, in its way,

inarguably true.Butby launderingall conflict and competition throughthemarket,neoliberalismalsoprofferedanewmodelofdoingbusiness,so to speak, on theworld stage—one that didn’t emerge from, or pointtoward,endlessnation-staterivalry.One should not confuse correlation with causation, especially since

therewassomuchtumultcomingoutofWorldWarIIthatitishardtoisolate the single cause of just about anything. But the internationalcooperative order that has since presided, establishing or at leastemerginginparallelwithrelativepeaceandabundantprosperity,isveryneatly historically coincident with the reign of globalization and theempireoffinancialcapitalwenowgrouptogetherasneoliberalism.Andifonewereinclinedtoconfusecorrelationwithcausation,thereisaquiteintuitive and plausible theory connecting them. Markets may beproblematic,shallwesay,buttheyalsovaluesecurityandstabilityand,allelsebeingequal,reliableeconomicgrowth.Intheformofthatgrowth,neoliberalism promised a reward for cooperation, effectivelytransforming, at least in theory, what had once been seen as zero-sumcompetitionsintopositive-sumcollaborations.

Neoliberalismnevermadegoodonthatbargain,asthefinancialcrisisfinally revealed. Which has left the rhetorical banner of an ever-expanding, ever-enriching society of affluence—andapolitical economyorientedtowardthesamegoal—considerably tattered.Thosecontinuingto hold it aloft aremuchwobblier at the knee than seemed credible toimagine just a decade or two ago, like athletes showing themselvessuddenly far past their prime. Global warming promises another blow,possiblya lethalone.IfBangladeshfloodsandRussiaprofits, theresultwillnotbegoodforthecauseofneoliberalism—andarguablyworsestillforthecauseofliberalinternationalism,whichhasalwaysbeenitsaide-de-camp.Whatkindsofpoliticsare likelytoevolveafterthepromiseofgrowth

recedes?Awholepantheonofpossibilitiesfloatsbeforeus,includingthatnewtradedealsarebuiltonthemoral infrastructureofclimatechange,withcommercecontingentonemissionscutsandsanctionsapunishmentforsquirrellycarbonbehavior;orthatanewgloballegalregimeemerges,supplementing or perhaps even supplanting the central principle ofhumanrightsthathaspresidedglobally,atleastintheory,sincetheendof World War II. But neoliberalism was sold on the proposition ofpositive-sum cooperation of all kinds, and the term itself suggests itsnaturalsuccessorregime:zero-sumpolitics.Today,wedon’tevenhavetogazeintothefuture,ortrustthatitwillbedeformedbyclimatechange,tosee what that would look like. In the form of tribalism at home andnationalismabroad and terrorism flaming out from the tinder of failedstates,thatfutureishere,at least inpreview,already.Nowwejustwaitforthestorms.

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If neoliberalism is the god that failed on climate change,what juvenilegodswillitspawn?ThisisthequestiontakenupbyGeoffMannandJoelWainwright inClimateLeviathan:APoliticalTheoryofOurPlanetaryFuture,inwhichtheyrepurposeThomasHobbestosketchoutwhattheyseeasthelikeliestpoliticalformtoevolvefromthecrisisofwarmingandthepummelingofitsimpacts.InhisLeviathan,Hobbesnarratedafalsehistoryofpoliticalconsentto

illustrate what he saw as the fundamental bargain of state power: the

peoplegivinguptheirlibertyfortheprotectionofferedbyaking.Globalwarming suggests the same bargain to would-be authoritarians: in anewly dangerous world, citizens will trade liberties for security andstability and some insurance against climate deprivation, ushering intobeing,MannandWainwrightsay,anewformofsovereigntytodobattleagainstthenewthreatfromthenaturalworld.Thisnewsovereigntywillbe not national but planetary—the only power that could plausiblyansweraplanetarythreat.MannandWainwrightare leftists,and theirbook is inpartacall-to-

arms,buttheplanetarysovereigntheworldislikeliesttoturnto,theysaywithregret,istheonethatsoldusclimatechangeinthefirstplace—thatis, neoliberalism. In fact, a neoliberalism beyond neoliberalism, a trueworld-state concerned close-to-exclusively with the flow of capital—apreoccupation that may poorly equip it to deal with the damages anddegradationsofclimatechange,butatnorealcosttoitsauthority.Thisisthe“ClimateLeviathan”ofthetitle,thoughtheauthorsdonotbelieveitssuccess is inevitable. In fact, they see three variations as also possible.Altogether, the fourcategoriesmakeupaclimate-futurematrix,plottedalongtheaxesofrelativefaithincapitalism(ontheonehand)anddegreeofsupportfornation-statesovereignty(ontheother).“ClimateLeviathan”isthequadrantdefinedbyapositiverelationship

to capitalism and a negative perspective on national sovereignty.Something like our current situation they call the “Climate Behemoth”outcome, defined bymutual support for capitalism and for the nation-state: capitalism overruns the world’s borders to address the planetarycrisiswhileprotectingitsowninterests.The next they call “Climate Mao,” a system defined by putatively

benevolentbutauthoritarianandanti-capitalist leaders,exercising theirauthoritywithinthebordersofnationsastheyexisttoday.The last quadrant: capitalistic nations conduct haphazard climate

diplomacy—an international system negatively disposed toward bothcapitalismandthesovereigntyofnation-states.Thissystemwoulddefineitself as a guarantor of stability and security—ensuring at least asubsistence-leveldistributionofresources,protectingagainsttheravagesof extreme climate events, and policing the inevitable outbreaks ofconflictoverthenow-more-preciouscommoditiesoffood,water,land.It

would also wipe out entirely the borders between nations, recognizingonlyitsownsovereigntyandpower.Theycallthispossibility“ClimateX,”andexpressgreathopeforit:aglobalallianceoperatinginthenameofacommonhumanity,ratherthanintheinterestsofcapitalornations.Butthere is a dark version as well—it is how you might get a planetarydictator in theshapeofamafiaboss,andglobalgovernancenoton thedo-goodermodelbutasastraight-upprotectionracket.Intheory,atleast.Already,it’sfairtosay,wehaveatleasttwoClimate

Maoleadersoutthere,andbothareimperfectavatarsofthearchetype:XiJinpingandVladimirPutin,neitherofwhomisanti-capitalistsomuchasstatecapitalist.Theyalsoholdverydifferentperspectivesontheclimatefuture and how to reckon with it, which suggests another variable,beyondformofgovernment:climateideology.ThisishowAngelaMerkeland Donald Trump, both operating within the “Climate Behemoth”system,canneverthelessseemsomanyworldsapart—thoughGermany’sslowwalkoncoal suggests theremaynotbe full solar systemsbetweenthem.WithChina andRussia, the ideological contrast is clearer. Putin, the

commandantofapetro-statethatalsohappenstobe,givenitsgeography,oneofthefewnationsonEarthlikelytobenefitfromcontinuedwarming,seesbasicallynobenefittoconstrainingcarbonemissionsorgreeningtheeconomy—Russia’s or the world’s. Xi, now the leader-for-life of theplanet’s rising superpower, seems to feel mutual obligations to thecountry’sgrowingprosperityandtothehealthandsecurityofitspeople—ofwhom,it’sworthremembering,ithassomany.InthewakeofTrump,Chinahasbecomeamuchmoreemphatic—orat

least louder—green energy leader.But the incentivesdonotnecessarilysuggestitwillmakegoodonthatrhetoric.In2018,anilluminatingstudywaspublishedcomparinghowmuchacountrywaslikelytobeburdenedbytheeconomicimpactsofclimatechangetoitsresponsibilityforglobalwarming,measuredbycarbonemissions.ThefateofIndiashowcasedthemorallogicofclimatechangeatitsmostgrotesque:expectedtobe,byfar,theworld’smosthard-hit country, shoulderingnearly twice asmuchoftheburdenas thenextnation, India’s shareofclimateburdenwas fourtimes as high as its share of climate guilt. China is in the oppositesituation,itsshareofguiltfourtimesashighasitsshareoftheburden.Which, unfortunately,means itmay be tempted to slow-walk its green

energyrevolution.TheUnitedStates,thestudyfound,presentedacaseofeerie karmic balance: its expected climate damages matching almostprecisely itsshareofglobalcarbonemissions.Not tosayeithershare issmall;infact,ofallthenationsintheworld,theU.S.waspredictedtobehitsecondhardest.Fordecades,theriseofChinahasbeenananxiousprophecyinvokedso

regularly, and so prematurely, that Westerners, Americans especially,couldbeforgivenforthinkingitwasacaseoftheempirewhocriedwolf—anexpressionofWesternself-doubt,moreapremonitionofcollapsethanawell-foundedpredictionofwhatnewpowermightarise,andwhen.Butonthematterofclimatechange,Chinadoesholdnearlyallthecards.Totheextenttheworldasawholeneedsastableclimatetoendureorthrive,its fatewillbedeterminedmuchmoreby the carbon trajectoriesof thedeveloping world than by the course of the United States and Europe,where emissions have already flattened out and will likely begin theirdecline soon—though how dramatic a decline, and how soon, is verymuch up in the air. And although what’s called “carbon outsourcing”meansthatalargesliceofChina’semissionsisproducedmanufacturinggoods to be consumed by Americans and Europeans. Whoseresponsibility are those gigatons of carbon? Itmaynotmuch longer bemerelyarhetoricalquestion,iftheParisaccordsyieldtoamorerigorousglobal carbongovernance structure, as theywere intended to, and add,alongtheway,aproperenforcementmechanism,militaryorotherwise.HowandhowfastChinamanagesitsowntransitionfromindustrialto

postindustrial economy, howandhow fast it “greens” the industry thatremains, how and how fast it remodels agricultural practices and diet,how and how fast it steers the consumer preferences of its boomingmiddleandupperclassesawayfromcarbonintensity—thesearenottheonly things that will determine the climate shape of the twenty-firstcentury.Thecourses takenby Indiaand the restofSouthAsia,Nigeriaandtherestofsub-SaharanAfrica,matterenormously.ButChina is,atpresent,thelargestofthosenations,andbyfarthewealthiestandmostpowerful.Through itsBelt andRoad Initiative, the countryhas alreadypositioneditselfasamajorprovider,insomecasesthemajorprovider,oftheinfrastructureofindustry,energy,andtransportationinmuchoftherestof thedevelopingworld.And it is relativelyeasy to imagine, at theendofaChinesecentury,an intuitiveglobalconsensussolidifying—that

thecountrywiththeworld’slargesteconomy(thereforemostresponsiblefortheenergyoutputoftheplanet)andthemostpeople(thereforemostresponsible for the public health and well-being of humanity) shouldhave something more than narrowly national powers over the climatepolicyoftherestofthe“communityofnations,”whowouldfallintolinebehindit.

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All of these scenarios, even the bleakest, presume some new politicalequilibrium.Thereisalso,ofcourse,thepossibilityofdisequilibrium—orwhat you would normally call “disorder” and “conflict.” This is theanalysisputforwardbyHaraldWelzer,inClimateWars,whichpredictsa“renaissance” of violent conflict in the decades to come. His evocativesubtitleisWhatPeopleWillBeKilledForinthe21stCentury.Already,inlocalspheres,politicalcollapseisaquitecommonoutcome

of climate crisis—we just call it “civil war.” And we tend to analyze itideologically—as we did in Darfur, in Syria, in Yemen. Those kinds ofcollapsesarelikelytoremaintechnically“local”ratherthantruly“global,”though in a time of climate crisis they would have an easier timemetastasizing beyond old borders than they have in the recent past. Inotherwords,acompletelyMadMaxworldisnotaroundthebend,sinceevencatastrophicclimatechangewon’tundermineallpoliticalpower—infact,itwillproducesomewinners,relativelyspeaking.Someofthemwithquitelargearmiesandrapidlyexpandingsurveillancestates—Chinanowpulls criminalsoutofpopconcertswith facial recognition softwareanddeploysdomestic-spydronesindistinguishablefrombirds.Thisisnotanaspiringempirelikelytotolerateno-man’s-landswithinitssphere.MadMax regionselsewhereareanothermatter. Incertainways they

arealreadyhere,where“here”ispartsofSomaliaorIraqorSouthSudanat various points in the last decade, including pointswhen the planet’sgeopoliticsseemed,ataglancefromLosAngelesorLondon,stable.Theideaofa“globalorder”hasalwaysbeensomethingofafiction,oratleastan aspiration, even as the joined forces of liberal internationalism,globalization,andAmericanhegemonyinchedustowarditoverthelastcentury.Veryprobably,overthenextcentury,climatechangewillreversethatcourse.

T

HistoryAfterProgress

hathistoryisastorythatmovesinonedirectionisamongthemostunshakablecreedsofthemodernWest—havingsurvived,oftenonly

slightly modified, the counterarguments made over centuries bygenocidesandgulags, faminesandepidemicsandglobalconflagrations,producingdeathtollsinthetensofmillions.Thegripofthisnarrativeissotightonpoliticalimaginationsthatgrotesqueinjusticesandinequities,racialandotherwise,areofteninvokednotasreasonstodoubtthearcofhistorybuttoberemindedofitsshape—perhapsweshouldn’tbequitesoagitatedaboutsuchproblems,inotherwords,sincehistoryis“movingintherightdirection”andthe forcesofprogressare, to indulge themixedmetaphor,“ontherightsideofhistory.”Onwhatsideisclimatechange?Itsownside—itsowntide.Thereisnogoodthingintheworldthatwill

bemademoreabundant,orspreadmorewidely,byglobalwarming.Thelistofthebadthingsthatwillproliferateisinnumerable.Andalready,inthisageofnascentecologicalcrisis,youcanreadawholenewliteratureofdeepskepticism—proposingnotonlythathistorycanmoveinreverse,butthattheentireprojectofhumansettlementandcivilization,whichweknowas “history” andwhichhas givenus climate change, has been, infact, a jet stream backward. As climate horrors accumulate, this anti-progressiveperspectiveissuretoblossom.Some Cassandras are already here. In Sapiens, his alien’s-eye-view

accountoftheriseofhumancivilization,thehistorianYuvalNoahHarariargues that this rise is best understood as a succession of myths,beginning with the one that the invention of farming, in what is oftencalled the Neolithic Revolution, amounted to progress (“We did notdomesticatewheat. Itdomesticatedus,”ashepithilyput it). InAgainsttheGrain, thepoliticalscientistandanthropologistofanarchyJamesC.

Scottgivesamorepointedcritiqueofthesameperiod:wheatcultivation,he argues, is responsible for the arrival ofwhatwe nowunderstand asstate power, and, with it, bureaucracy and oppression and inequality.ThesearenolongeroutlieraccountsofwhatyoumayhavelearnedaboutinmiddleschoolastheAgriculturalRevolution,whichyouprobablyweretaughtmarkedtherealbeginningofhistory.Modernhumanshavebeenaround for 200,000 years, but farming for only about 12,000—aninnovation that endedhuntingandgathering,bringingabout cities andpoliticalstructures,andwiththemwhatwenowthinkofas“civilization.”But even Jared Diamond—whose Guns, Germs, and Steel gave anecologicalandgeographicalaccountoftheriseoftheindustrialWest,andwhose Collapse is a kind of forerunner text for this recent wave ofreconsiderations—hascalledtheNeolithicRevolution“theworstmistakeinthehistoryofthehumanrace.”The argument does not even rely on anything that followed later:

industrialization,fossilfuels,orthedamagetheynowthreatentounleashon the planet and the fragile civilization briefly erected on its slipperysurface. Instead, the case against civilization, this new class of skepticssays, can be made much more directly as a case against farming: thesedentarylifeagricultureproducedeventuallyledtodensersettlements,but populations didn’t expand for millennia afterward, the potentialgrowthfromfarmingoffsetbynewlevelsofdiseaseandwarfare.Thiswasnotabrief,painful interlude, throughwhichhumanspassed intoanewtime of abundance, but a story of strife that continued for a very longtime,indeedtothisday.Wearestill,now,inmuchoftheworld,shorter,sicker,anddyingyoungerthanourhunter-gathererforebears,whowerealso, by theway,much better custodians of the planet onwhichwe alllive. And they watched over it for much longer—nearly all of those200,000 years. That epic era oncederided as “prehistory” accounts forabout95percentofhumanhistory.Fornearlyallof that time,humanstraversed the planet but left no meaningful mark. Which makes thehistory of mark-making—the entire history of civilization, the entirehistorywe know as history—look less like an inevitable crescendo thanlike an anomaly, or blip. And makes industrialization and economicgrowth, the two forces that really gave the modern world the hurtlingsensation ofmaterial progress, a blip inside a blip.A blip inside a blipthathasbroughtustothebrinkofanever-endingclimatecatastrophe.

JamesScottcomes to this subjectasa radicalanti-statist, toward theendofalongcareerproducinggenuinelyscintillatingworksofacademicdissidencewith titles likeTheArt ofNot BeingGoverned,DominationandtheArtsofResistance,andTwoCheersforAnarchism.Harari’sisastranger approach, but also more telling—a from-the-rootsreconsideration of our collective faith in human progress, put forwardandgobbledup in themidst of an ecological crisis of our ownmaking.Hararihasspokenmovinglyofthewayhisowncomingout,asagayman,has shapedhis skepticismabouthumanmetanarratives as pervasive asheterosexualityandprogress;and,thoughtrainedasamilitaryhistorian,hehasarrived in thespotlightofpopularacclaim,praisedbyBillGatesandBarackObamaandMarkZuckerberg,asasortofexpositorofmyth.The central exposition is this: society is and always has been boundtogether by collective fictions, no less now than in earlier eras, withvalueslikeprogressandrationalitytakingtheplaceonceheldbyreligionand superstition. Harari is a historian, but his worldview grafts thepretense of science onto the philosophical skepticism familiar fromcontrarians as diverse as David Hume and John Gray. You could alsoname thewhole line ofFrench theorists, fromLyotard toFoucault andbeyond.“Thestorythathasruledourworldinthepastfewdecadesiswhatwe

might call theLiberalStory,”Harariwrote in2016,amonthbefore theelection of Donald Trump, in an essay that both basically predictedTrump’s election and outlined what it would mean to the world’scollectivefaithintheestablishment.“Itwasasimpleandattractivetale,but it isnowcollapsing,andso farnonewstoryhasemergedto fill thevacuum.”

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Ifyoustripouttheperceptionofprogressfromhistory,whatisleft?Fromhere,itishard,ifnotimpossible,toseeclearlywhatwillemerge

from the clouds of uncertainty around globalwarming—what formsweallowclimatechangetotake,letalonewhatthoseformswilldotous.Butitwillnottakeaworst-casewarmingtodeliverravagesdramaticenoughto shake the casual sense that as timemarches forward, life improvesineluctably. Those ravages are likely to begin arriving quickly: new

coastlinesretreatedfromdrownedcities;destabilizedsocietiesdisgorgingmillions of refugees into neighboring ones already feeling the pinch ofresource depletion; the last several hundred years, which many in theWestsawasasimple lineofprogressandgrowingprosperity,renderedinsteadasapreludetomassclimatesuffering.Exactlyhowweregardtheshapeofhistoryinatimeofclimatechangewillbeshapedbyhowmuchwedo toavert that changeandhowmuchwe let it remodel everythingaboutourlives.Inthemeantime,possibilitiesfanoutasextravagantlyasthepaintchipsonacolorwheel.Westilldon’tknowallthatmuchabouthowhumansbeforethearrival

ofagriculture,statehood,and“civilization”regardedthecourseofhistory—though it was a favorite pastime of early modern philosophers toimagine the inner livesofprecivilizedpeople, from “nasty, brutish, andshort”toidyllic,carefree,unencumbered.Another perspective, which offers another model of history, is the

cyclicalone:familiarfromtheharvestcalendar,theStoicGreektheoryofekpyrosis and the Chinese “dynastic cycle,” and appropriated for themodernerabythinkersasseeminglyteleologicalasFriedrichNietzsche,who made the cycles of time a moral parable with his “eternalrecurrence”;AlbertEinstein,whoconsideredthepossibilityofa“cyclic”modeloftheuniverse;ArthurSchlesinger,whosawAmericanhistoryasalternatingperiodsof “publicpurpose” and “private interest”; andPaulMichael Kennedy, in his circumspect history lesson for the end of theColdWar,The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Perhaps Americanstodayseehistoryasprogressiveonlybecausewewereraisedinthetimeofitsempire,havingmoreorlessborrowedtheBritishperspectivefromthetimeoftheirs.Butclimatechangeisn’tlikelytodeliveraneatorcompletereturntoa

cyclicalviewofhistory,atleastinthepremodernsense—inpartbecausetherewillbenothingneat, at all, about theeraushered inbywarming.The likelier outcome is a much messier perspective, with teleologydemoted from itspositionas anorganizing,unifying theory, and, in itsplace, contradictory narratives running uncorralled, like animalsunleashed from a cage andmoving in all directions at once. But if theplanetreachesthreeorfourorfivedegreesofwarming,theworldwillbeconvulsed with human suffering at such a scale—so many millionrefugees,halfagainasmanywars,droughtsandfamines,andeconomic

growthmade impossibleonsomuchof theplanet—that itscitizenswillhavedifficultyregardingtherecentpastasacourseofprogressorevenaphaseinacycle,orinfactanythingbutatrueandsubstantialreversal.The possibility that our grandchildren could be living forever among

the ruins of a much wealthier and more peaceful world seems almostinconceivable from the vantage of the present day, somuchdowe stilllive within the propaganda of human progress and generationalimprovement.Butofcourseitwasarelativelycommonfeatureofhumanhistorybeforetheadventofindustrialization.ItwastheexperienceoftheEgyptians after the invasion of the Sea Peoples and the Incas afterPizarro,theMesopotamiansaftertheAkkadianEmpire,andtheChineseaftertheTangDynasty.Itwas—sofamouslythatitgrewintocaricature,which then spawned decades of rhetorical critique—the experience ofEuropeansafter the fall ofRome.But in this case, thedarkageswouldarrive within one generation of the light—close enough to touch, andsharestories,andblame.

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This iswhat ismeantwhenclimatechange isdescribedasa revengeoftime.“Man-madeweatherisnevermadeinthepresent,”AndreasMalmwrites inTheProgressofThisStorm, his powerful sketchof apoliticaltheoryforatimeofclimatechange.“Globalwarmingisaresultofactionsinthepast.”It’s a tidy formulation, and one that vividly illustrates both the scale

and the scope of the problem,which appears as the product of severallong centuries of carbon-burning that also produced most of what wethink of today as the comforting features of modern life. In that way,climate changedoesmakeusallprisonersof the IndustrialRevolution,and suggests a carceral model of history—progress arrested by theconsequences of past behavior. But while the climate crisis wasengineeredinthepast,itwasmostlyintherecentpast;andthedegreetowhichittransformstheworldofourgrandchildrenisbeingdecidednotinnineteenth-centuryManchesterbuttodayandinthedecadesahead.Disorientingly, climatechangewillalsosendushurtling forward into

anunchartedfuture—solongforward,ifitproceedsunchecked,andintosuchadistantfuture,thatwecanhardlyimaginethescale.Thisisnotthe

“techno-shock” first experienced by Victorians encountering anacceleratingpaceofprogressandfeelingoverwhelmedbyjusthowmuchwas changing within a single lifetime—though we are now acquaintingourselves with that kind of change, as well. It is more like theoverwhelming awe felt by those naturalists contemplating the ancient-beyond-ancienthistoricalgrandeuroftheearth,andcallingitdeeptime.Butclimatechangeinvertstheperspective—givingusnotadeeptime

ofpermanencebutadeeptimeofcascading,disorientingchange,sodeepthat it mocks any pretense of permanence on the planet. Pleasuredistricts likeMiamiBeach,built justdecadesago,willdisappear,aswillmanyofthemilitaryinstallationserectedaroundtheworldsinceWorldWarIItodefendandsecurethewealththatgaverisetothem.Mucholdercities, like Amsterdam, are also under threat from flooding, withextraordinary infrastructure needed already today to keep them abovewater, infrastructure unavailable to defend the temples and villages ofBangladesh. Farmlands that had produced the same strains of grain orgrapesforcenturiesormorewilladapt,iftheyarelucky,toentirelynewcrops;inSicily,thebreadbasketoftheancientworld,farmersarealreadyturningtotropicalfruits.Arcticicethatformedovermillionsofyearswillbe unleashed as water, literally changing the face of the planet andremodelingshippingroutesresponsiblefortheveryideaofglobalization.Andmassmigrationswillsevercommunitiesnumberinginthemillions—even tens of millions—from their ancestral homelands, which willdisappearforever.Just how long the ecosystems of Earth will be thrown into flux and

disarrayfromanthropogenicclimatechangealsodependsonhowmuchmoreof thatchangewechoosetoengineer—andperhapshowmuchwecanmanagetoundo.Butwarmingatthelevelnecessarytofullymelticesheetsandglaciersandelevatesealevelbyseveralhundredfeetpromisesto initiate rolling, radically transformative changes on a timescalemeasured not in decades or centuries or even millennia, but in themillions of years.Alongside that timeline, the entire lifespan of humancivilizationisrendered,effectively,anafterthought;andthemuchlongerspanofclimatechangebecomeseternity.

T

EthicsattheEndoftheWorld

hetwintownsofSanIgnacioandSantaElena,Belize,arefiftymilesfrom the coast and 250 feet above sea level, but the alarmist

climatologistGuyMcPhersondidnotmovethere—toafarminthejunglethatsurroundsthetowns—infearofwater.Otherthingswillgethimfirst,hesays;he’sgivenuphopeofsurvivingclimatechange,andbelievestherestofusshould,too.Humanswillbeextinctwithintenyears,hetellsmebySkype;whenIaskhispartner,Pauline,ifshefeelsthesameway,shelaughs.“I’dsaytenmonths.”Thiswastwoyearsago.McPherson began his career as a conservation biologist at the

UniversityofArizona,where,hementionsseveraltimes,hewastenuredat twenty-nine;andwhere,healsosaysseveral times,hewassurveilledbywhathecalls the“DeepState”beginning in1996;andalsowhere, in2009,hewasforcedoutofhisdepartmentbyanewchair.Hehadalreadybeen working on a homestead in NewMexico—a compromise locationwithhisformerwife—andmovedin2016totheCentralAmericanjungle,tolivewithPaulineandpracticepolyamoryonanotherhomesteadcalledStardustSanctuaryFarm.Over the last decade, mostly via YouTube, McPherson has acquired

what BillMcKibben calls, in his understated way, “a following.” Thesedays, McPherson travels a bit, giving lectures on “near-term humanextinction,”atermheisproudtohavecoinedandwhichheabbreviatesNTHE; but increasingly he has turned his attention to runningworkshops onwhatwe shoulddowith the knowledge that theworld isending.Theworkshopsarecalled “OnlyLoveRemains,”andofferwhatamountstoakindofpost-theologicalmillenarianism,familiarhand-me-down lessons fromtheoldNewAge.Themeta-lesson is thatweshoulddrawroughlythesamemeaningfromanunderstandingoftheimminent

deathofthespeciesastheDalaiLamabelievesweshoulddrawfromanunderstanding of our imminent personal death—namely, compassion,wonderment,andaboveall, love.Youcoulddoworse inchoosing threevaluesaroundwhichtobuildanethicalmodel,andwhenyousquintyoucan almost see a civics erected out of them. But for thosewho see theplanetasbeingontheprecipiceofcrisisandbiblicaltribulation,theyalsoexcusearetreatfrompolitics—indeedfromclimate,asfullyasthatmightconceivablybeachieved—inthenameofaslipperyhedonisticquietism.In other words, down to the mustache, McPherson seems like a

recognizableoff-the-gridfigure—akindit’seasytofindabitsuspicious.But why? We have for so long, over decades if not centuries, definedpredictions of the collapse of civilization or the end of the world assomethingclosetoproofofinsanity,andthecommunitiesthatspringuparoundthemas“cults,”thatwearenowleftunabletotakeanywarningsofdisasterallthatseriously—especiallywhenthoseraisingthealarmarealso,themselves,“givingup.”Thereisnothingthemodernworldabhorslike a quitter, but that prejudice will probably not withstand muchwarming. If the climate crisis unfolds as it is scheduled to, our taboosagainst doomsaying will fall, as new cults emerge and cultish thinkingleechesintosectorsofestablishmentculture.Becausewhiletheworldwillnot likely end, and civilization is almost surely more resilient thanMcPherson believes, the unmistakable degradation of the planet willinvariablyinspiremanymoreprophetslikehim,whosecallsofimminentenvironmental apocalypse will start to seem reasonable to many morereasonablepeople.That is, inpart, because they arenot sounreasonable, even today. If

youwerelookingforaprimeronthebadnewsaboutclimate,youcouldfindaworseplacetobeginthanthesummarypageMcPhersonkeepsonhiswebsite,“NatureBatsLast”(currentlytaggedwiththisnote:“Updatedmostrecently,likelyforthefinaltime,2August2016”).Itrunssixty-eightprinted pages of link-dense paragraphs. Throughout, there aremisleadingcharacterizationsofseriousresearch,and links tohysterical,uncredentialedblogpostspresentedasreferencestosolidscience.Thereare simple misunderstandings of things like climate feedback loops,whichcanworryinglyaddupbutarenot“multiplicative,”asMcPhersonsays they are; attacks onmerelymoderate climate groups as politicallycompromised; and, in the spirit of a kitchen-sink data dump,

endorsementsofafewobservationsthathavebeenproventobebunk(heisveryworried,forinstance,aboutthosemethane“burpsofdeath”goingoff all at once, a possibility specialists turned against about five yearsago).But, evenon this fearmongering reading list, there is enough realsciencetogiverisetorealalarm:agoodsummaryofthealbedoeffect,aconvenientassemblageofrigorousreadingsoftheArcticicesheets,thosetealeavesofclimatedisaster.Throughout,theintellectualstyleisparanoid—theimpressivemassof

datasometimesstandinginfor,andsometimesobscuring,theskeletonofcausal logicthatshouldgivethemassameaningfulanalyticshape.Thiskindofreasoninglivesabundantlyontheinternet,feedingourgoldenageofconspiracytheory, that insatiablebeast,whichhasonly justbeguntofeastonclimate.Youmightknowalready theshape that thinking takesontheclimate-denialendofthepoliticalspectrum.Butithasalsomadeitsmarkontheenvironmentalistfringe,asitdidinthepersonofJohnB.McLemore, the charismatic, closeted environmental declinist and self-hatingSouthernerwhosedescent intosuicide,besetbyplanetarypanic,was documented on the podcast “S-Town.” “I sometimes call it toxicknowledge,” Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute, whereMcLemore was a commenter, has said. “Once you know aboutoverpopulation,overshoot,depletion,climatechange,and thedynamicsof societal collapse, you can’t unknow it, and your every subsequentthoughtistinted.”

—

McPherson isn’t entirely clear himself on exactly how all of theseproblemswill bring about extinction—he guesses that something like afood crisis or financialmeltdownwill bring down civilization first, andeventually human life with it. It takes an apocalyptic imagination topicturethathappeningjustadecadefromnow,tobesure.But,giventhebasic trend lines, it also raises thequestionofwhy the restofusaren’timaginingthingsmoreapocalypticallyourselves.Wesurelywill,andsoon.Alreadyyoucanseetheseedlingsofagreat

flourishingofclimateesotericainfigureslikeMcLemoreandMcPherson—onemightbettersay“men,”astheynearlyallare—and,beyondthem,awholeharvestofwritersandthinkerswhoseem,intheiranticipationof

comingdisasters,almosttobecheeringfortheforcesofapocalypse.In some cases, they are rooting them on quite literally. A few, like

McLemore,areTravisBicklesofclimatecrisis,hopingtoseeahardrainfallandwashawayalltheworld’sscum.ButtherearealsoPollyannaishconnoisseurs of global warming, like ecologist Chris D. Thomas, whoarguesthat,infact,inthereal-timevacuumofthesixthmassextinction,“nature is thriving”—inventing new species, carving new ecologicalniches. Some technologists and their fans go further, suggesting weshoulddiscardourbiasforthepresent—evenintheattenuatedgeologicalsense of the term “present”—and adopt instead a quasi-Taoist climatesanguinity,layeredoverwithafuturistcast.AsSwedishjournalistTorillKornfeldt asks inTheRe-Originof Species, her book about the race to“de-extinct” creatures like dinosaurs and woolly mammoths: “Whyshouldnatureasitisnowbeofanygreatervaluethanthenaturalworldof 10,000 years ago, or the species that will exist 10,000 years fromnow?”

—

Butformostwhoperceiveanalreadyunfoldingclimatecrisisandintuitamorecompletemetamorphosisoftheworldtocome,thevisionisableakone, often pieced together from perennial eschatological imageryinheritedfromexistingapocalyptictextsliketheBookofRevelation,theinescapablesourcebookforWesternanxietyabouttheendof theworld.In fact, those ravings,whichYeatsmoreor less translated fora secularaudience in “The Second Coming,” have so predominated theWesterndreamscape—becoming something like the Gnostic wallpaper of ourbourgeoisinnerlives—thatweoftenforgettheywereoriginallywrittenasreal-time prophecies, visions of what was to come, and what wouldbecomeoftheworld,withinasinglegeneration.Probably the most prominent of these new climate Gnostics is the

British writer Paul Kingsnorth, the cofounder, public face, and poetlaureateof theDarkMountainProject,a looserenunciationcommunityofdisaffected environmentalists that takes itsname from theAmericanwriter Robinson Jeffers, in particular his 1935 poem “Rearmament,”whichends:

IwouldburnmyrighthandinaslowfireTochangethefuture…Ishoulddofoolishly.ThebeautyofmodernManisnotinthepersonsbutintheDisastrousrhythm,theheavyandmobilemasses,thedanceoftheDream-ledmassesdownthedarkmountain.

Jeffers was, for a time, a literary celebrity in America—a love affairchronicled in theLosAngeles Times, a granite home on the Californiacoast calledTorHouse andHawkTower,whichhe famously builtwithhis own hands. But he is known today primarily as a prophet ofcivilizational disavowal, and for the philosophy he bluntly called“inhumanism”: the belief, in short, that people were far too concernedwith people-ness, and the place of people in theworld, rather than thenaturalmajestyofthenonhumancosmosinwhichtheyhappenedtofindthemselves. The modern world, he believed, made the problemconsiderablyworse.EdwardAbbeyadoredJeffers’swork,andCharlesBukowskicalledhim

his favorite poet. The great Americanwilderness photographers—AnselAdams,EdwardWeston—wereinfluencedbyhim,too;andinASecularAge, the philosopher Charles Taylor identified Jeffers, alongsideNietzscheandCormacMcCarthy,asasignificantfigureofwhathecalled“immanent anti-humanism.” In his most infamous work, “The DoubleAxe,”Jeffersputthatworldviewinthemouthofasinglecharacter,“TheInhumanist,” who described “a shifting of emphasis and significancefrommantonot-man;therejectionofhumansolipsismandrecognitionofthetranshumanmagnificence.”Thiswouldbeagenuinerevolutioninperspective,hewrote,which“offersareasonabledetachmentasaruleofconduct,insteadoflove,hate,andenvy.”Thatdetachment forms the coreprincipleofDarkMountain—though

onemightbettersay“impulse.”Itwilllikelyanimatemanymoregroupsof environmental retreatists over the next decades, if global warmingmakes the broad spectacle of life on Earth increasingly unbearable forsometoobserve,eventhroughmedia.“Thosewhowitnessextremesocialcollapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about thetruthsofhumanexistence,”thegroup’smanifestobegins.“Whattheydomention,ifasked,istheirsurpriseathoweasyitistodie.Thepatternof

ordinarylife,inwhichsomuchstaysthesamefromonedaytothenext,disguisesthefragilityofitsfabric.”In thatmanifesto,writtenbyKingsnorth andDougaldHine and first

published in 2009, the group identifies as its intellectual godfatherJoseph Conrad, particularly for the way he skewered the self-servingillusions of European civilization at its industrial-colonial peak. TheyquoteBertrandRussellrecappingConrad,sayingthattheauthorofHeartof Darkness and Lord Jim “thought of civilized and morally tolerablehuman life as a dangerous walk on a thin crust of barely cooled lavawhich at any moment might break and let the unwary sink into fierydepths.”Itwouldbeavividimagetobrandishinanyera,butespeciallyina timeof approaching ecological collapse. “Webelieve that the roots ofthesecriseslieinthestorieswehavebeentellingourselves,”Kingsnorthand Hine write—namely, “the myth of progress, the myth of humancentrality,andthemythofourseparation from ‘nature.’ ”All, theyadd,“aremoredangerousforthefactthatwehaveforgottentheyaremyths.”Infact,itisalmosthardtothinkofanythingthatwon’tbechangedby

just the perception of onrushing change, from the way couplescontemplatethepossibilityofchildrenallthewayuptopoliticalincentivestructure.Andyoudon’thave togetall theway tohumanextinctionorthecollapseofcivilizationfortruenihilismanddoomsdayismtoflourish—youonlyhavetogetfarenoughfromthefamiliarforacriticalmassofcharismatic prophets to see a coming collapse. It can be comforting tothink that the critical mass is quite large, and that societies won’t beupended by nihilism unless nihilism becomes the conventional view ofthemediancitizen.Butdoomworksatthemargin,too,eatingawayattheinfrastructureofthingsliketermitesorcarpenterbees.

—

In2012,Kingsnorthpublishedanewmanifesto,orpseudo-manifesto,inOrion, called “DarkEcology.” In themeantime,hehadgrowneven lesshopeful.“DarkEcology”openswithepigraphsfromLeonardCohenandD.H.Lawrence—“Take theonly tree that’s left / Stuff it up thehole inyour culture” and “Retreat to the desert, and fight,” respectively—andreallykicksintogearwithitssecondsection,whichopens:“I’verecentlybeen reading the collectedwritingsofTheodoreKaczynski. I’mworried

thatitmaychangemylife.”Alltold,theessay,whichinspiredanenormousresponseamongOrion

readers, is a kind of argument on behalf of Kaczynski the pamphleteeragainst Kaczynski the bomber—whom Kingsnorth describes not as anihilistorevenapessimistbutan incisiveobserverwhoseproblemwasanexcessofoptimism,amantoocommittedtotheideathatsocietycouldbe changed. Kingsnorth is more of a true Stoic. “And so I askmyself:what,atthismomentinhistory,wouldnotbeawasteofmytime?”Heoffersfivetentativeanswers.Numbers2through4arevariationson

newtranscendentalistthemes:“preservingnonhumanlife,”“gettingyourhands dirty,” and “insisting that nature has value beyond utility.”Numbers 1 and 5 are the more radical ones, and form a pair:“withdrawing” and “building refuges.” The latter is the more positiveimperative, in the sense of being constructive, or what passes forconstructiveinatimeofcollapse:“Canyouthink,oract,likethelibrarianofamonasterythroughtheDarkAges,guardingtheoldbooksasempiresriseandfalloutside?”“Withdrawing”isthedarkerhalfofthesameadmonition:

Ifyoudothis,alotofpeoplewillcallyoua“defeatist”ora“doomer,”or claim you are “burnt out.” They will tell you that you have anobligation towork for climate justice orworld peace or the end ofbad things everywhere, and that “fighting” is always better than“quitting.”Ignorethem,andtakepartinaveryancientpracticalandspiritual tradition: withdrawing from the fray. Withdraw not withcynicism,butwithaquestingmind.Withdrawsothatyoucanallowyourselftositbackquietlyandfeel,intuit,workoutwhatisrightforyou and what nature might need from you. Withdraw becauserefusingtohelpthemachineadvance—refusingtotightentheratchetfurther—isadeeplymoralposition.Withdrawbecauseactionisnotalways more effective than inaction. Withdraw to examine yourworldview: the cosmology, the paradigm, the assumptions, thedirectionoftravel.Allrealchangestartswithwithdrawal.

It’sanethos,atleast.Andonewithapedigree.Whatmightreadatfirstlikearadicalresponsetoanewmomentofcrisisisinfactarepurposingofthelongandmany-armedascetictradition,stretchingfromtheyoung

Buddhathroughthepillarsaintsandbeyond.Butunliketheconventionalversion, in which the ascetic impulse carries the seeker away from thepleasures of the world toward spiritual meaning in something likeworldly pain, Kingsnorth’s withdrawal, like McPherson’s, is a retreatfrom a world convulsed by spiritual pain toward small, earthlyconsolations.Inthatway,itisaperformanceatgrandscaleofthemoregeneralprophylacticreflexweshare,almostallofus,towardsuffering—whichistosay,simply,anaversion.Andtowhatend?Itcan’tpossiblybethatI feel theanguishofothers,andtheurgencyofaction, throughthe“myth”ofcivilizationalone—canit?

—

DarkMountain is fringe.GuyMcPherson is fringe. JohnB.McLemore,too. But one threat of climate catastrophe is that their strains ofecologicalnihilismmightfindahomeinthehostofconsensuswisdom—andthattheirpremonitionsmayseemfamiliartoyouisasignthatsomeof that anxiety and despair is already leeching into the way so manyothersthinkaboutthefutureoftheworld.Online,theclimatecrisishasgiven rise to what is called “eco-fascism”—a “by anymeans necessary”movement that also traffics in white supremacy and prioritizes theclimate needs of a particular set. On the left, there is a growingadmirationfortheclimateauthoritarianismofXiJinping.In the United States, the go-it-alone impulse to environmentalist

separatismhasbeenpredominantlythedomainofright-wingextremists—ClivenBundyandhisfamily,forinstance,andalltheimperioussettlersthe country has uncomplicatedly mythologized in the centuries sincehomesteading and range wars. Perhaps in response, liberalenvironmentalism has grown mostly in a more practical direction,tendingtowardmoreengagementratherthantheopposite.Orperhapsitjust reflects the particular demands of this cause: form a renunciationcommunity and risk having those you’ve renounced do everything youfearedtheymight,unleashingchangestotheplanetyouarepowerlesstoescape.Butthispragmatismbringsitsowncuriosities—forinstance,thatmany

of even those who define themselves as practical technocrats of theenvironmental center-left believe that what is needed to avert

catastrophicclimatechangeisaglobalmobilizationatthescaleofWorldWarII.Theyareright—thatisanentirelysoberassessmentofthesizeoftheproblem,whichnomorealarmistagroupthantheIPCCendorsedin2018.Butitisalsoanundertakingofambitionssoinconsistentwiththepresenttenseofpoliticsinnearlyeverycorneroftheworld,thatitishardnottoworrywhatwillhappenwhenthatmobilizationdoesnothappen—to the planet, yes, but also to the political commitments of thosemostengagedwiththeproblem.Thosecalling formassmobilization,startingtoday and no later, remember—they can be counted as environmentaltechnocrats.Totheirleftarethosewhoseenosolutionshortofpoliticalrevolution.And even those activists are being crowded for space, thesedays,bytextsofclimatealarmism,ofwhichyoumayevenfeelthebookinyourhandsisone.Thatwouldbefairenough,becauseIamalarmed.I am not alone. And how widespread alarm will shape our ethical

impulses toward one another, and the politics that emerge from thoseimpulses, is among the more profound questions being posed by theclimate to theplanetofpeople it envelops. It is oneway tounderstandwhyactivists inCaliforniawere so frustratedwith their governor, JerryBrown, even though he established a climate program of surpassingambitionjustasheleftoffice—becausehedidn’tactaggressivelyenoughtoretireexistingfossilfuelcapacity.Italsohelpsexplainfrustrationwithotherleaders,fromJustinTrudeau,whohasseizedtherhetoricalmantleof climate action but also approved several new Canadian pipelines, toAngelaMerkel,whohasoverseenanexhilaratingexpansionofGermany’sgreenenergycapacity,butalsoretired itsnuclearpowersoquickly thatsome of the slack has been taken up by existing dirty plants. To theaverage citizen of each of these countries, the criticism may seemextreme,butitarisesfromaveryclearheadedcalculus:theworldhas,atmost, about three decades to completely decarbonize before trulydevastating climate horrors begin. You can’t halfway your way to asolutiontoacrisisthislarge.In themeantime, environmental panic is growing, and so is despair.

Over the last several years, as unprecedented weather and unrelentingresearchhaverecruitedmorevoicestothearmyofenvironmentalpanic,adourterminologicalcompetitionhassprungupamongclimatewriters,aiming to coin new clarifying language—in the mode of RichardHeinberg’s “toxic knowledge” or Kris Bartkus’s “Malthusian tragic”—to

giveepistemologicalshapetothedemoralizing,ordemoralized,responseof the rest of theworld. To the environmental indifference expected ofmodern consumers, the philosopher and activistWendyLynneLee hasgiventhename“eco-nihilism.”StuartParker’s“climatenihilism”iseasieron the tongue. Bruno Latour, an instinctive insubordinate, calls themenaceofaragingenvironmentfueledbyindifferentpoliticsa“climaticregime.”We have also “climate fatalism” and “ecocide” and what SamKrissandEllieMaeO’Hagan,makingapsychoanalyticargumentagainstthe relentless public-facing optimism of environmental advocacy, havecalled“humanfutilitarianism”:

Theproblem,itturnsout,isnotanoverabundanceofhumansbutadearth of humanity. Climate change and theAnthropocene are thetriumphofanundeadspecies,amindlessshuffletowardextinction,butthisisonlyalopsidedimitationofwhatwereallyare.Thisiswhypolitical depression is important: zombies don’t feel sad, and theycertainlydon’t feelhelpless; they justare.Politicaldepression is,atroot,theexperienceofacreaturethatisbeingpreventedfrombeingitself; for all its crushingness, for all its feebleness, it’s a cry ofprotest.Yes,politicaldepressivesfeelasiftheydon’tknowhowtobehuman; buried in the despair and self-doubt is an importantrealization.Ifhumanityisthecapacitytoactmeaningfullywithinoursurroundings,thenwearenotreally,ornotyet,human.

The novelist Richard Powers points his finger at a different kind ofdespair, “species loneliness,” which he identifies not as the impressionleftonusbyenvironmentaldegradationbutwhathasinspiredus,seeingthe imprint we are leaving, to nevertheless continue pressing onward:“the sensewe’re here by ourselves, and there can be no purposeful actexcept to gratify ourselves.” As though initiating a moreaccommodationist wing of Dark Mountain, he suggests a retreat fromanthropocentrism that is not quite a withdrawal from moderncivilization: “We have to un-blind ourselves to human exceptionalism.That’s therealchallenge.Unless forest-health isourhealth,we’renevergoing to get beyond appetite as amotivator in the world. The excitingchallenge,”hesays,istomakepeople“plant-conscious.”

—

In their aspirational grandeur, all these terms suggest the holisticprospectiveofanewphilosophy,andnewethics,usheredintobeingbyanewworld.Araftofpopularrecentbooksaimstodothesame,theirtitlessoplaintiveyoucouldcount their spines like rosarybeads.Perhaps thebaldestentryisRoyScranton’sLearningtoDieintheAnthropocene. Init, theauthor,aveteranof theIraqWar,writes,“Thegreatestchallengewe face is a philosophical one: understanding that this civilization isalready dead.” His subsequent book of essays isWe’re Doomed. NowWhat?Alltheseworksportendaturntowardtheapocalyptic,whetherliteral,

cultural, political, or ethical. But another turn is possible, too, evenprobable, and perhaps themore tragic for its conspicuous plausibility:thatthepreponderanceofourreflexesinthefaceofhumanstriferunintheoppositedirection,towardacclimatization.This is the yowling torque muffled by the bland-seeming phrase

“climate apathy,” which may otherwise feel merely descriptive: thatthrough appeals to nativism, or by the logic of budget realities, or inperverse contortions of “deservedness,” by drawing our circles ofempathy smaller and smaller, or by simply turning a blind eye whenconvenient,wewillfindwaystoengineernewindifference.Gazingoutatthe future from the promontory of the present, with the planet havingwarmed one degree, theworld of two degrees seems nightmarish—andtheworldsof threedegrees, and four, and five yetmoregrotesque.Butone way we might manage to navigate that path without crumblingcollectivelyindespairis,perversely,tonormalizeclimatesufferingatthesame pace we accelerate it, as we have so much human pain overcenturies,sothatwearealwayscomingtotermswithwhatisjustaheadofus,decryingwhatliesbeyondthat,andforgettingallthatwehadeversaid about the absolute moral unacceptability of the conditions of theworldwearepassingthroughinthepresenttense,andblithely.

IV

TheAnthropicPrinciple

What if we’re wrong? Perversely, decades of climate denial anddisinformation have made global warming not merely an

ecological crisis but an incredibly high-stakes wager on the legitimacyand validity of science and the scientific method itself. It is a bet thatsciencecanwinonlybylosing.Andinthistestoftheclimatewehaveasamplesizeofjustone.Noonewantstoseedisastercoming,butthosewholook,do.Climate

sciencehasarrivedatthisterrifyingconclusionnotcasually,andnotwithglee, but by systematically ruling out every alternative explanation forobservedwarming—even though thatobservedwarming ismoreor lessprecisely what would be expected given only the rudimentaryunderstanding of the greenhouse effect advanced by John Tyndall andEuniceFooteinthe1850s,whenAmericawasreachingitsfirstindustrialpeak. What we are left with is a set of predictions that can appearfalsifiable—aboutglobaltemperatures,sea-levelrise,andevenhurricanefrequency and wildfire volume. But, all told, the question of how badthingswill get isnotactuallya testof the science; it isabetonhumanactivity.Howmuchwillwedotostalldisaster,andhowquickly?Thosearetheonlyquestionsthatmatter.Thereare,itistrue,feedback

loops we don’t understand and dynamic warming processes scientistshaven’t yet pinpointed. Yet to the extentwe live today under clouds ofuncertainty about climate change, those clouds are projections not ofcollective ignorance about the natural world but blindness about thehumanone,andcanbedispersedbyhumanaction.Thisiswhatitmeansto live beyond the “end of nature”—that it is human action that willdeterminetheclimateofthefuture,notsystemsbeyondourcontrol.Andit’swhy,despitetheunmistakableclarityofthepredictivescience,allofthetentativesketchesofclimatescenariosthatappearinthisbookaresooppressively caveated with possiblys and perhapses and conceivablys.The emergent portrait of suffering is, I hope, horrifying. It is also,entirely,elective.Ifweallowglobalwarmingtoproceed,andtopunishuswithalltheferocitywehavefedit,itwillbebecausewehavechosenthat

punishment—collectivelywalkingdownapathofsuicide.Ifweavertit,itwillbebecausewehavechosentowalkadifferentpath,andendure.These are thedisconcerting, contradictory lessonsof globalwarming,

whichcounselsbothhumanhumilityandhumangrandiosity,eachdrawnfrom the sameperceptionofperil.The climate system that gave rise tothe human species, and to everything we know of as civilization, is sofragilethatithasbeenbroughttothebrinkoftotalinstabilitybyjustonegenerationofhumanactivity.Butthatinstabilityisalsoameasureofthehuman power that engineered it, almost by accident, and which nowmuststopthedamage,inonlyasmuchtime.Ifhumansareresponsiblefor the problem, they must be capable of undoing it. We have anidiomaticnameforthosewhoholdthefateoftheworldintheirhands,aswedo:gods.Butforthemoment,atleast,mostofusseemmoreinclinedtorunfromthatresponsibilitythanembraceit—orevenadmitweseeit,thoughitsitsinfrontofusasplainlyasasteeringwheel.Instead,weassignthetasktofuturegenerations,todreamsofmagical

technologies,toremotepoliticiansdoingakindofbattlewithprofiteeringdelay. This is why this book is also studded so oppressively with “we,”however imperious it may seem. The fact that climate change is all-envelopingmeans it targets all ofus, and thatwemust all share in theresponsibilitysowedonotallshareinthesuffering—atleastnotallshareinsosuffocatinglymuchofit.Wedonotknow theprecise shape such sufferingwould take, cannot

predict with certainty exactly howmany acres of forest will burn eachyearofthenextcentury,releasingintotheaircenturiesofstoredcarbon;or how many hurricanes will flatten each Caribbean island; or wheremegadroughtsare likelytoproducemassfaminesfirst;orwhichwillbethefirstgreatpandemictobeproducedbyglobalwarming.Butweknowenoughtosee,evennow,thatthenewworldwearesteppingintowillbesoalienfromourown,itmightaswellbeanotherplanetentirely.

—

In1950,walkingtolunchatLosAlamos,theItalian-bornphysicistEnricoFermi,oneofthearchitectsoftheatombomb,foundhimselfcaughtupina conversation about UFOs with Edward Teller, Emil Konopinski, andHerbertYork—socaughtupthathedriftedoffinthought,jumpingback

in longaftereveryoneelsehadmovedontoask,“Where iseverybody?”Thestoryhasnowpassedintoscientificlegend,theinterjectionknownasFermi’s paradox: If the universe is so big, then why haven’t weencounteredanyotherintelligentlifeinit?Theanswermaybeas simple as climate.Nowhere else in theknown

universeisasingleplanetassuitedasthisonetoproducelifeofthekindwe know, as Fermi’s only children. Global warming makes thepropositionseemevenmoreprecarious.Fortheentirehistoricalwindowin which human life evolved, almost all of the planet has been,climatologically speaking, quite comfortable for us; that is how wemanagedtogethere.Butitwasn’talwaysthecaseevenonEarth,whereitis no longer comfortable, and only getting less so. No human has everlivedonaplanetashotasthisone;itwillgethotter.Intalkingaboutthatnear future, several climate scientists I spoke with proposed globalwarming as aFermi solution.Thenatural lifespanof a civilizationmayonly be several thousand years long, and the lifespan of an industrialcivilizationconceivablyonlyseveralhundred.Inauniversethatismanybillionsofyearsold,withstarsystemsseparatedasmuchbytimeasbyspace,civilizationsmightemergeanddevelopandthenburnthemselvesupsimplytoofasttoeverfindoneanother.TheFermiparadoxhasalsobeencalled“theGreatSilence”—webellow

out into the universe and hear no echo, and no reply. The iconoclasticeconomist Robin Hanson calls it “the great filter.” Being filtered, thetheorygoes,arewholecivilizations,enclosedbyglobalwarminglikebugsinanet.“Civilizationsrise,butthere’sanenvironmentalfilterthatcausesthem to die off again and disappear fairly quickly,” as the charismaticpaleontologistPeterWard—amongthoseresponsiblefordiscoveringthatthe planet’smass extinctionswere caused by greenhouse gas—toldme.“Thefilteringwe’vehadinthepasthasbeeninthesemassextinctions.”Themass extinctionwe arenow living throughhas only just begun; somuchmoredyingiscoming.The search for alien life has always been powered by the desire for

humanimportanceinavast,forgetfulcosmos:wewanttobeseensothatweknowweexist.What’sunusualisthat,unlikereligionornationalismorconspiracytheory,thealienfantasydoesn’tplacehumansatthecenterof a grand story. In fact, it displaces us—in that way it is a sort ofCopernican dream. When Copernicus announces the earth revolves

around thesun,hebriefly feelshimself in thespotlightof theuniverse,butbymaking thediscoveryheconsignsallofhumanity to the relativeperiphery. This is what my father-in-law, describing what happens tomenwith thebirthof childrenand thengrandchildren, calls “theouterring theory,” and it more or less encapsulates the meaning of anyimaginedalienencounter:suddenlyhumansaremajorplayersinadramaofalmostinconceivablescale,thelastinglessonofwhich,unfortunately,is thatwe’retotalnobodies—or,atbest,a lot lessuniqueandimportantthan we thought we were. When the astronauts aboard Apollo 8 firstcaughtaglimpseofEarthfromthetincancarryingthemthroughspace—first saw the half-shadowed planet past the surface of the moon—theylooked at one another and jokingly asked, about the world that hadlaunchedthemintoorbit,“Isitinhabited?”In recent years, their telescopes gazing farther, astronomers have

discovered legions of planets like our own, many more than wereexpectedagenerationago.ThishasledtoaflurryofactivityrevisingthetermsofexpectationestablishedbyFrankDrakeinwhatisnowknownasthe Drake equation—which builds a prediction about the possibility ofextraterrestrial life off assumptions about things like the fraction ofplanetsconceivablyabletosupport lifethatactuallydosupport life, thefractionof thoseplanets thatdevelop intelligent life,andthe fractionofthose planets that would emit detectable signs of that intelligence intospace.Andtherehavebeenmanytheories,beyondtheGreatFilter,aboutwhy

we haven’t heard from anybody. There is the “zoo hypothesis,” whichsuggeststhataliensare justwatchingoverusandlettingusbefornow,presumably until we reach their level of sophistication; and somethinglike its inverse—that we haven’t heard from aliens because they’re theones sleeping, in a civilization-scale systemof extended-sleep pods likethe ones we know from science fiction spaceships, waiting while theuniverse evolves a shape more suitable to their needs. As far back as1960, thepolymathphysicistFreemanDysonproposed thatwemaybeunabletofindalien life inourtelescopesbecauseadvancedcivilizationsmayhaveliterallyclosedthemselvesofffromtherestofspace—encasingwholesolarsystemsinmegastructuresdesignedtocapturetheenergyofacentralstar,asystemsoefficientthatfromelsewhereintheuniverseitwould not appear to glow. Climate change suggests another kind of

sphere,manufacturednotoutoftechnologicalmasterybutfirstthroughignorance, then indolence, then indifference—a civilization enclosingitselfinagaseoussuicide,arunningcarinasealedgarage.The astrophysicist Adam Frank calls this kind of thinking “the

astrobiology of the Anthropocene” in his Light of the Stars, whichconsidersclimatechange,thefutureoftheplanet,andourstewardshipofitfromtheperspectiveoftheuniverse—“thinking likeaplanet,”hecallsit. “We are not alone.We are not the first,” Frankwrites in the book’sopening pages. “This—meaning everything you see around you in ourprojectofcivilization—hasquite likelyhappenedthousands,millions,oreventrillionsoftimesbefore.”WhatsoundslikeaparablefromNietzscheisreallyjustanexplication

ofthemeaningof“infinity,”andhowsmallandinsignificanttheconceptmakeshumansandeverythingwedointhespaceofsuchauniverse.InanunconventionalrecentpaperwithclimatologistGavinSchmidt,Frankwent even further, suggesting that theremay evenhave been advancedindustrialcivilizationsofsomeforminthedeephistoryofthisplanet,sodeep in the past their remnantswould have long been reduced to dustbelowourfeet,makingthempermanentlyinvisibletous.Thepaperwasmeant as a thought experiment, pointing out how little we can reallyknowfromarchaeologyandgeology,notaseriousclaimaboutthehistoryoftheplanet.It was also meant to be uplifting. Frank wanted to offer what he

believesistheempoweringperspectivethatour“projectofcivilization”isprofoundly fragile, and that we must take extraordinary measures toprotectit.Botharetrue,butneverthelessitcanbeabithardtoseethingshisway. If therehavereallybeen trillionsofothercivilizations like thisone, somewhere out there in the universe and including possibly a fewscatteredinthedustoftheearth,then—whateverlessonsofstewardshipwecandrawfromthem—itdoesnotbodewellforoursthatwedon’tyetseethetraceofasingleonethat’ssurvived.That isa lotofdespair tohangon“trillions”—infacta lot tohangon

some very speculativemath.Which goes evenmore so for thework ofanyonetryingto“solve”theDrakeequation,asmanyhave.Thatproject,which looks tome less like sorting out the nature of the universe on achalkboard than likeplaying gameswithnumbers,working fromclose-

to-arbitrary postulates so confidently that when you see the universedeparting fromyourpredictions you choose tobelieve it ishiding fromyousomeveryimportantinformation—namely,aboutallthecivilizationsthatmayhavediedanddisappeared—ratherthanthatyoursuppositionsmay have beenmade in error. The fact of dramatic near-term climatechange should inspire both humility and grandiosity, but this Drakeanapproach seems to me somehow to get the lesson both right andbackward: supposing that the termsof your thoughtexperiment shouldgovernthemeaningof theuniverse,yetunable to imaginethathumansmightmakeforthemselvesanexceptionalfatewithinit.Fatalismhasastrongpullinatimeofecologicalcrisis,butevensoitis

acuriousquirkoftheAnthropocenethatthetransformationoftheplanetby anthropogenic climate change has produced such fervor for Fermi’sparadox and so little for its philosophical counterpoint, the anthropicprinciple. That principle takes the human anomaly not as a puzzle toexplainawaybutas thecenterpieceofagrandlynarcissisticviewof thecosmos. It’s the closest thing string-theory physics can bring us toempowering self-centeredness: that however unlikely it may seem thatintelligent civilization arose in an infinity of lifeless gas, and howeverlonelyweappeartobeintheuniverse,infactsomethingliketheworldweliveonandtheonewe’vebuiltareasortoflogicalinevitability,giventhatweareaskingthesequestionsatall—becauseonlyauniversecompatiblewith our sort of conscious life would produce anything capable ofcontemplatingitlikethis.ThisisaMöbiusstripofaparable,asortofgimmickytautologyrather

thana truthclaimbasedstrictly inobserveddata.Andyet, I think, it ismuchmorehelpfulthanFermiorDrakeinthinkingaboutclimatechangeandtheexistentialchallengeofsolving it in just the fewdecadesahead.Thereisonecivilizationweknowof,anditisstillaround,andkicking—fornow,at least.Whyshouldwebesuspiciousofourexceptionality,orchoosetounderstanditonlybyassuminganimminentdemise?Whynotchoosetofeelempoweredbyit?

—

Asenseofcosmicspecialnessisnoguaranteeofgoodstewardship.Butitdoeshelpfullyfocusattentiononwhatwearedoingtothisspecialplanet.

You don’t need to invoke some imagined law of the universe—that allcivilizationsarekamikazeones—toexplainthewreckage.Youneedlookonlyatthechoiceswehavemade,collectively;and,collectively,weareatpresentchoosingtowreckit.Willwestop?“Thinkinglikeaplanet”issoalientotheperspectivesof

modern life—so far from thinking likeaneoliberal subject ina ruthlesscompetitive system—that the phrase sounds at first lifted fromkindergarten. But reasoning from first principles is reasonable when itcomes toclimate; in fact, it isnecessary,asweonlyhavea first shot toengineerasolution.Thisgoesbeyondthinkinglikeaplanet,becausetheplanet will survive, however terribly we poison it; it is thinking like apeople,onepeople,whosefateissharedbyall.Thepathweareonasaplanetshouldterrifyanyonelivingonit,but,

thinking like one people, all the relevant inputs arewithin our control,and there isnomysticismrequired to interpretorcommandthe fateofthe earth. Only an acceptance of responsibility. When RobertOppenheimer, the actual head of Los Alamos, later reflected on themeaningofthebomb,hefamouslysaidhewasreminded,intheflashofthe first successful nuclear test, of a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita:“NowIambecomedeath,thedestroyerofworlds.”Buttheinterviewwasyears later, when Oppenheimer had become the pacifist conscience ofAmerica’snuclearage—forwhich,naturally,hehadhissecurityclearancerevoked. According to his brother, Frank, who was also there whenOppenheimer watched the detonation of the device nicknamed “thegadget,”hesaidonly,“Itworked.”

—

The threat fromclimatechange ismore total than fromthebomb. It isalsomore pervasive. In a 2018 paper, forty-two scientists from aroundtheworldwarnedthat,inabusiness-as-usualscenario,noecosystemonEarth was safe, with transformation “ubiquitous and dramatic,”exceeding in just one or two centuries the amount of change thatunfolded in themost dramatic periods of transformation in the earth’shistoryovertensofthousandsofyears.HalfoftheGreatBarrierReefhasalreadydied,methane is leaking fromArcticpermafrost thatmayneverfreezeagain,andthehigh-endestimatesforwhatwarmingwillmeanfor

cerealcropssuggestthatjustfourdegreesofwarmingcouldreduceyieldsby50percent.Ifthisstrikesyouastragic,whichitshould,considerthatwehaveall thetoolsweneed,today, tostopitall:acarbontaxandthepoliticalapparatustoaggressivelyphaseoutdirtyenergy;anewapproachtoagriculturalpracticesandashiftawayfrombeefanddairyintheglobaldiet;andpublicinvestmentingreenenergyandcarboncapture.That the solutions are obvious, and available, does not mean the

problemisanythingbutoverwhelming.Itisnotasubjectthatcansustainonlyonenarrative,oneperspective,onemetaphor,onemood.Thiswillbecomeonlymore so in the comingdecades, as the signature of globalwarming appears on more and more disasters, political horrors, andhumanitarian crises. There will be those, as there are now, who rageagainstfossilcapitalistsandtheirpoliticalenablers;andothers,asthereare now,who lament human shortsightedness and decry the consumerexcessesofcontemporarylife.Therewillbethose,astherearenow,whofight as unrelenting activists, with approaches as diverse as federallawsuits and aggressive legislation and small-scale protests of newpipelines;nonviolentresistance;andcivil-rightscrusades.Andtherewillbethose,astherearenow,whoseethecascadingsufferingandfallbackintoaninconsolabledespair.Therewillbethose,astherearenow,whoinsist that there is only oneway to respond to the unfolding ecologicalcatastrophe—oneproductiveway,oneresponsibleway.Presumably, itwon’tbeonlyoneway.Evenbefore theageof climate

change, the literature of conservation furnished many metaphors tochoose from. James Lovelock gave us the Gaia hypothesis, whichconjured an image of the world as a single, evolving quasi-biologicalentity.BuckminsterFullerpopularized“spaceshipearth,”whichpresentsthe planet as a kind of desperate life raft in what ArchibaldMacLeishcalled “the enormous, empty night”; today, the phrase suggests a vividpicture of a world spinning through the solar system barnacled withenough carbon capture plants to actually stall out warming, or evenreverseit,restoringasifbymagicthebreathabilityoftheairbetweenthemachines.TheVoyager1 spaceprobegaveus the “PaleBlueDot”—theinescapable smallness, and fragility, of the entire experiment we’reengaged in, together,whetherwe like it ornot. Personally, I think thatclimatechangeitselfoffersthemostinvigoratingpicture,inthatevenitscrueltyflattersoursenseofpower,andinsodoingcallstheworld,asone,

to action. At least I hope it does. But that is another meaning of theclimate kaleidoscope. You can choose yourmetaphor. You can’t choosetheplanet,whichistheonlyoneanyofuswillevercallhome.

Acknowledgments

Ifthisbookisworthanything,itisworththatbecauseoftheworkofthescientists who first theorized, then documented the warming of theplanet, and then began examining and explicating what that warmingmightmean for the rest of us living on it. That line of debt runs fromEunice Foote and John Tyndall in the nineteenth century to RogerRevelleandCharlesDavidKeelinginthetwentiethandontoallofthosehundredsofscientistswhose laborappears intheendnotesof thisbook(andofcoursemanyhundredsofunmentionedothersveryhardatwork).However much progress we manage against the assaults of climatechangeinthecomingdecades,itisthankstothem.I am personally indebted to those scientists, climate writers, and

activistswhowereespeciallygeneroustome,overthelastseveralyears,withtheirtimeandinsights—helpingmeunderstandtheirownresearchand pointing me to the findings of others, indulging my requests forramblinginterviewsordiscussingthestateoftheplanetwithmeinotherpublic settings, corresponding withme over time, and, in many cases,reviewingmywriting, includingportionsof thetextof thisbook,beforepublication. They are Richard Alley, David Archer, Craig Baker-Austin,DavidBattisti,PeterBrannen,WallaceSmithBroecker,MarshallBurke,Ethan D. Coffel, Aiguo Dai, Peter Gleick, Jeff Goodell, Al Gore, JamesHansen, Katherine Hayhoe, Geoffrey Heal, Solomon Hsiang, MatthewHuber,NancyKnowlton,RobertKopp,LeeKump,IrakliLoladze,CharlesMann,GeoffMann,MichaelMann,KateMarvel,BillMcKibben,MichaelOppenheimer, Naomi Oreskes, Andrew Revkin, Joseph Romm, LynnScarlett, Steven Sherwood, Joel Wainwright, Peter D. Ward, andElizabethWolkovich.When I firstwroteabout climate change in2017, I reliedalsoon the

criticalresearchhelpofJuliaMeadandTedHart.Iamgrateful,too,toallthe responses to that story that were published elsewhere—especiallythose by Genevieve Guenther, Eric Holthaus, Farhad Manjoo, SusanMathews, Jason Mark, Robinson Meyer, Chris Mooney, and DavidRoberts. That includes all the scientistswho reviewedmywork for thewebsite Climate Feedback, working through my story line by line. Inpreparing thismanuscript forpublication,ChelseaLeureviewed itevenmoreclosely,andincisively,andIcannotthankherenoughforthat.This book would not have come to be without the vision, guidance,

wisdom,andforbearanceofTinaBennett,towhomInowowealifetimeof thanks. And it would not have become an actual book without theacuity,brilliance,and faithofTimDuggan,and theenormouslyhelpfulworkofMollyStern,DyanaMessina,JuliaBradshaw,WilliamWolfslau,Aubrey Martinson, Julie Cepler, Rachel Aldrich, Craig Adams, PhilLeung,andAndreaLau,aswellasHelenConfordatPenguininLondon.IwouldnotbewritingthisbookwereitnotforCentralParkEast,and

especially Pam Cushing,my secondmother. I’m grateful to everyone Iwork with at New York magazine for all of their encouragement andsupport along theway. This goes especially formybosses JaredHohlt,AdamMoss, and PamWasserstein, and David Haskell, my editor andfriendandco-conspirator.Otherfriendsandco-conspiratorsalsohelpedrefineandreconceivewhatitwasIwastryingtodointhisbook,andtoallofthemIamsothankful,too:IsaacChotiner,KerryHowley,HuaHsu,Christian Lorentzen, NoreenMalone, Chris Parris-Lamb,Willa Paskin,MaxRead,andKevinRoose.Foramillionunenumerablethings,I’dalsolike to thank Jerry Saltz and Will Leitch, Lisa Miller and VanessaGrigoriadis, Mike Marino and Andy Roth and Ryan Langer, JamesDarnton and Andrew Smeall and Scarlet Kim and Ann Fabian, CaseySchwartz and Marie Brenner, Nick Zimmerman and Dan Weber andWhitney Schubert and Joey Frank, Justin Pattner and Daniel Brand,CaitlinRoper,AnnClarke andAlexis Swerdloff, StellaBugbee,MeghanO’Rourke,Robert Asahina, PhilipGourevitch, Lorin Stein, andMichaelGrunwald.Mybestreader,asalways,ismybrother,Ben;withouthisfootstepsto

follow, who knows where I’d be. I’ve been inspired, too, in countlessways,byHarryandRoseann,JennandMattandHeather,andaboveallbymymotherandfather,onlyoneofwhomisheretoreadthisbookbut

tobothofwhomIoweit,andeverythingelse.ThelastandbiggestthanksbelongtoRisa,mylove,andtoRocca,my

other love—for the last year, the last twenty, and the fifty or more tocome.Let’shopethey’recoolones.

Notes

All science is speculative to some degree, subject to some futurereconsiderationorrevision.Butjusthowspeculativevariesfromsciencetoscience,fromspecialtytospecialty,indeedfromstudytostudy.Withinclimatechangeresearch,boththefactofglobalwarming(about

1.1degreesCelsiussincehumansfirstbeganburningfossilfuels)anditsmechanism (the greenhouse gases produced by that burning trap heatradiating upward into the planet’s atmosphere) are, at this point,establishedbeyondanyshadowofadoubt.Exactlyhowthatwarmingwillplay out, over the next decades and then the next centuries, is lesscertain,bothbecausewedon’tknowhowquicklyhumanswilldroptheiraddiction to fossil fuels, and because we don’t know precisely how theclimate systemwill recalibrate in response to human perturbation. Butthenotesthatfolloware,Ihope,aroadmaptothestateofthatscience,inadditiontobeingabibliographyforthisbook.

I.Cascadesfivemassextinctions:Thosearetheend-Ordovician,theLateDevonian,theend-Permian,theend-Triassic,andtheend-Cretaceous.AverygoodrecentpopularaccountofeachcanbefoundinPeterBrannen,TheEndsoftheWorld(NewYork:HarperCollins,2017).

86percentofallspecies:Thesefiguresareallestimates,anddifferentstudiesoftencometodifferent conclusions. Some accounts of the end-Permian extinction, for instance, suggest theextinction level isas lowas90percent,whileothersareashighas97percent.Theseparticularfigures come from the Cosmos primer “The Five Big Mass Extinctions,”https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions.

allbuttheone:Brannen,EndsoftheWorld.

beganwhen carbonwarmed: There is some considerable debate about the precisemix ofenvironmentalfactors(volcaniceruptions,microbialactivity,Arcticmethane)thatbroughtabout

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/big-five-extinctions

the end-Permian extinction, but for a summaryof the theory that volcanic activitywarmed theplanetand thewarming releasedmethane thataccelerated thatwarming, seeUweBrandetal.,“Methane Hydrate: Killer Cause of Earth’s Greatest Mass Extinction,” Paleoworld 25, no. 4(December2016):pp.496–507,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2016.06.002.

atleasttentimesfaster:“MaximumratesofcarbonemissionsforboththePETMandtheend-Permianareaboutonebilliontonsofcarbon,andrightnowwe’reattenbilliontonsofcarbon,”thePennState geoscientist LeeKump, among theworld’s leading experts onmass extinctions,toldme.“Thedurationofbothofthoseeventswasmuchlongerthanfossil-fuelburningwillgoon,andsothetotalamountislower—butnotbyafactoroften.Byafactoroftwoorthree.”

Therateisonehundredtimesfaster:JessicaBlunden,DerekS.Arndt,andGailHartfield,eds., “State of theClimate in 2017,”Bulletin of theAmericanMeteorological Society 99,no.8(August2018),Si–S310,https://doi.org/10.1175/2018BAMSStateoftheClimate.1.

atanypointinthelast800,000years:RobMoore,“CarbonDioxideintheAtmosphereHitsRecordHighMonthlyAverage,”ScrippsInstitutionofOceanography,May2,2018.AsMooreputsit: “Prior to theonsetof theIndustrialRevolution,CO2 levelshad fluctuatedover themillenniabut had never exceeded 300 ppm at any point in the last 800,000 years,”https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2018/05/02/carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-hits-record-high-monthly-average/.

aslongas15millionyears:See,forinstance,AradhnaK.Tripati,ChristopherD.Roberts,andRobertA.Eagle,“CouplingofCO2andIceSheetStabilityoverMajorClimateTransitionsof theLast 20Million Years,” Science 326, no. 5958 (December 2009): pp. 1394–97. “The last timecarbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today—and were sustained at thoselevels—globaltemperatureswere5to10degreesFahrenheithigherthantheyaretoday,”Tripatisaid in the UCLA press release for the study. “The sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feethigher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice onAntarcticaandGreenland.”

morethanahundredfeethigher:Ibid.

more than half of the carbon: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak RidgeNationalLaboratory,“Global,Regional,andNationalFossil-FuelCO2Emissions”(OakRidge,TN,2017), https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017. Accounts and estimates of historicalemissions vary, but according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we have emitted 1578gigatonsofCO2fromfossilfuelssince1751;since1989thetotalis820gigatons.

the figure isabout85percent:According toOakRidge, the total figure since 1946 is 1376gigatons,or87percentof1578.

Scientists had understood: R. Revelle and H. Suess, “Carbon Dioxide Exchange BetweenAtmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 During the PastDecades,”Tellus9(1957):pp.18–27.

passingthethresholdofcarbonconcentration:See,forinstance,NicolaJones,“HowtheWorldPassedaCarbonThresholdandWhyItMatters,”YaleEnvironment360,January26,2017,https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2016.06.002

https://doi.org/10.1175/2018BAMSStateoftheClimate.1

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2018/05/02/carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-hits-record-high-monthly-average/

https://doi.org/10.3334/CDIAC/00001_V2017

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters

amonthlyaverageof411: Scripps InstitutionofOceanography, “AnotherClimateMilestoneFallsatMaunaLoaObservatory,”June7,2018,https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/another-climate-milestone-falls-mauna-loa-observatory.

more than four degrees Celsius of warming: IPCC, Climate Change 2014: SynthesisReport,SummaryforPolicymakers(Geneva,2014),p.11,www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/.

wouldberendereduninhabitable:GaiaVince,“HowtoSurvivetheComingCentury,”NewScientist,February25,2009.Someofthisassessmentisabitextreme,butit is incontrovertiblytrue thatwarmingon thatscalewill render largepartsof thoseregionsbrutally inhospitablebyanystandardweapplytoday.

a group of Arctic scientists: Alec Luhn and Elle Hunt, “Besieged Russian Scientists DriveAwayPolarBears,”TheGuardian,September14,2016.

killedbyanthraxreleased:MichaeleenDoucleff,“AnthraxOutbreakinRussiaThoughttoBeResultofThawingPermafrost,”NPR,August3,2016.

onemillionSyrianrefugees:PhillipConnor,“MostDisplacedSyriansAreintheMiddleEast,and About a Million Are in Europe,” Pew Research, January 29, 2018,http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/29/where-displaced-syrians-have-resettled.

likely floodingofBangladesh: “By 2050, it is estimated that one in every seven people inBangladeshislikelytobedisplacedbyclimatechange,”RobertWatkinsoftheUnitedNationssaidina2015statement:seeMubasharHasan,“Bangladesh’sClimateChangeMigrants,”ReliefWeb,November13,2015.

140millionby2050:World Bank,Groundswell: Preparing for Internal ClimateMigration(Washington,D.C.,2018),p.xix,https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461.

morethanahundredtimesEurope’sSyrian“crisis”:Connor,“MostDisplacedSyrians.”“Nearly 13million Syrians are displaced after seven years of conflict in their country,” Connorreported.

TheU.N.projectionsarebleaker:BaherKamal,“ClimateMigrantsMightReachOneBillionby 2050,” ReliefWeb, August 21, 2017, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-migrants-might-reach-one-billion-2050.

Twohundredmillionwas theentire:U.S.CensusBureau, “HistoricalEstimates ofWorldPopulation,” www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.

“a billion or more vulnerable”: United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification,“Sustainability.Stability.Security,”www.unccd.int/sustainability-stability-security.

Fifteenpercentofallhumanexperience:Eukaryote, “TheFunnelofHumanExperience,”LessWrong, October 9, 2018, www.lesswrong.com/posts/SwBEJapZNzWFifLN6/the-funnel-of-human-experience.

anothername for that levelofwarming: “MarshallsLikensClimateChangeMigration toCultural Genocide,” Radio New Zealand, October 6, 2015,www.radionz.co.nz/news/pacific/286139/marshalls-likens-climate-change-migration-to-cultural-

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/another-climate-milestone-falls-mauna-loa-observatory

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/29/where-displaced-syrians-have-resettled

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-migrants-might-reach-one-billion-2050

http://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html

http://www.unccd.int/sustainability-stability-security

http://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SwBEJapZNzWFifLN6/the-funnel-of-human-experience

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/pacific/286139/marshalls-likens-climate-change-migration-to-cultural-genocide

genocide.

bell curve of more horrific possibilities: Technically, this is not a bell curve but adistribution curve, because it has a long tail of negative outcomes, rather than a balanceddistributionofoptimisticandpessimisticscenarios(thatis,therearemanymoreworst-case-likeoutcomesthatarepossiblethanbest-case-likeoutcomes).

about3.2degreesofwarming: Perhaps the best reference for all of the various predictivemodels is the Climate Action Tracker, which calculates that all of the world’s existing pledgeswouldlikelyyieldglobalwarmingof3.16degreesCelsiusby2100.

planet’s ice sheets: Alexander Nauels et al., “Linking Sea Level Rise and SocioeconomicIndicatorsUndertheSharedSocioeconomicPathways,”EnvironmentalResearchLetters12,no.11 (October 2017), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa92b6. In 2017, Nauels and hiscolleaguessuggestedthatwarmingofmerely1.9degreesCelsiuscouldpushtheicesheetspastatippingpointofcollapse.

Thatwould eventually flood: The total collapse of the ice sheets would raise sea levels bymorethantwohundredfeet,itisestimated,butamuchsmallerrisewouldbenecessarytofloodthese cities.Miami sits six feet above sea level,Dhaka thirty-three feet. Shanghai is at thirteenfeet, and parts ofHongKong are as low as zero feet—which is why, in 2015, theSouth ChinaMorningPostreportedthatfourdegreesofwarmingcoulddisplace45millionpeopleinthosetwocities:LiChing,“RisingSeaLevelsSettoDisplace45MillionPeopleinHongKong,ShanghaiandTianjinIfEarthWarms4DegreesfromClimateChange,”SouthChinaMorningPost,November9,2015.

severalrecentstudies:ThorstenMauritsenandRobertPincus,“CommittedWarmingInferredfromObservations,”NatureClimateChange, July31,2017;AdrianE.Rafteryetal., “Less than2°CWarmingby2100Unlikely,”NatureClimateChange,July31,2017;HubertusFischeretal.,“Paleoclimate Constraints on the Impact of 2°CAnthropogenicWarming andBeyond,”NatureGeoscience,June25,2018.

“centuryofhell”:BradyDennis andChrisMooney, “ScientistsNearlyDoubleSeaLevelRiseProjectionsfor2100,BecauseofAntarctica,”TheWashingtonPost,March30,2016.

underestimating the amount ofwarming: Alvin Stone, “Global Warming May Be TwiceWhat Climate Models Predict,” UNSW Sydney, July 5, 2018,https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/global-warming-may-be-twice-what-climate-models-predict.

fire-dominatedsavanna:Fischer,“PaleoclimateConstraintsontheImpact.”

“HothouseEarth”:WillSteffenetal.,“TrajectoriesoftheEarthSystemintheAnthropocene,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences(August14,2018).

At two degrees, the ice sheets: Nauels, “Linking Sea Level Rise and SocioeconomicIndicators,”https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa92b6.

400millionmorepeople: RobertMcSweeney, “The Impacts of ClimateChange at 1.5C, 2CandBeyond,”CarbonBrief,October4,2018,https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees.

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa92b6

https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/global-warming-may-be-twice-what-climate-models-predict

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa92b6

https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees

thirty-twotimesasmany:Ibid.

9percentmoreheat-relateddeaths:AnaMariaVicedo-Cabreraetal.,“Temperature-RelatedMortality Impacts Under and Beyond Paris Agreement Climate Change Scenario,” ClimaticChange150,no.3–4(October2018):pp.391–402,https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2274-3.

eightmillionmorecasesofdengue:FelipeJ.Colon-Gonzalezetal.,“LimitingGlobal-MeanTemperature Increase to 1.5–2 °C Could Reduce the Incidence and Spatial Spread of DengueFever in Latin America,”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 24 (June2018):pp.6243–48,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718945115.

Thelasttimethatwasthecase:Aswithallworkinpaleoclimate,estimatesonthispointvary,butthissummarycomesfromHowardLee,“WhatHappenedtheLastTimeItWasasWarmasIt’sGoingtoGetattheEndofThisCentury,”ArsTechnica,June18,2018.

“hyperobject”:TimothyMorton,Hyperobjects:PhilosophyandEcologyAfter theEndof theWorld(Minneapolis:UniversityofMinnesotaPress,2013).

due for about 4.5 degrees: IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, p. 11,www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/.

AsNaomiOreskeshasnoted:Forinstance,in“TheScientificConsensusonClimateChange:HowDoWeKnowWe’reNotWrong?”inClimateChange:WhatItMeansforUs,OurChildren,andOurGrandchildren(Cambridge,MA:MITPress,2014).

Just running thosemodels: GernotWagner andMartin L.Weitzman,Climate Shock: TheEconomicConsequencesofaHotterPlanet(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2015),pp.53–55.

theNobellaureateWilliamNordhaus:“Ifproductivitygrowthishigh,globaltemperaturein2100 is5.3 °C.”WilliamNordhaus, “ProjectionsandUncertaintiesAboutClimateChange inanAreaofMinimalClimatePolicies”(workingpaper,NationalBureauofEconomicResearch,2016).

humansattheequator:StevenC.SherwoodandMatthewHuber, “AnAdaptabilityLimit toClimateChangeDuetoHeatStress,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences107,no.21(May2010):pp.9552–55,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913352107.

oceanswouldeventuallyswell:JasonTreatetal.,“WhattheWorldWouldLookLikeIfAlltheIceMelted,”NationalGeographic,September2013.

two-thirdsoftheworld’smajorcities:This isacommonshorthandclimatescientistsuse,expressedbyKatharineHayhoeinJonahEngelBromwich,“WhereCanYouEscapetheHarshestEffectsofClimateChange?”TheNewYorkTimes,October20,2016.“Two-thirdsof theworld’sbiggestcitiesarewithinafewfeetofsealevel,”Hayhoesays.

hardly any land on the planet: If, as David Battisti and RosamondNaylor theorize, everydegreeofwarmingcosts10 to15percentofgrainyields—withhigher temperaturescutting intoproductivitymorethanlowerones—eightdegreesofglobalwarmingwillalmostentirelyeliminatethecapacityoftheworld’sexistinggrainregionstoproducefood.

tropical disease would reach northward: As Peter Brannen documents in Ends of theWorld,thelasttimetheworldwasevenfivedegreeswarmer,whatwenowknowastheArcticwas,

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2274-3

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718945115



inplaces,tropical.

climateisactuallylesssensitive:PeterM.Coxetal., “EmergentConstraintonEquilibriumClimateSensitivity fromGlobalTemperatureVariability,”Nature553(January2018):pp.319–22.

permanentfooddeficit:MarkLynas,SixDegrees:OurFutureonaHotterPlanet(NewYork:HarperCollins,2007).Thisbookisavaluableroadmaptothefutureofwarming.

“Half-Earth”: EdwardO.Wilson,Half-Earth:Our Planet’s Fight for Life (New York:W.W.Norton,2016).

threemajorhurricanes:ThosewereIrma,Katia,andJose.

“500,000-yearevent”: TiaGhose, “HurricaneHarveyCaused500,000-YearFloods inSomeAreas,”LiveScience,September11,2017,www.livescience.com/60378-hurricane-harvey-once-in-500000-year-flood.html.

thirdsuchflood:ChristopherIngraham,“HoustonIsExperiencingItsThird ‘500-Year’FloodinThreeYears.HowIsThatPossible?”TheWashingtonPost,August29,2017.

anAtlantichurricanehitIreland:HurricaneOphelia,thatis.

45millionwereflooded:UNICEF,“16MillionChildrenAffectedbyMassiveFloodinginSouthAsia,withMillionsMoreatRisk,”September2,2017,www.unicef.org/press-releases/16-million-children-affected-massive-flooding-south-asia-millions-more-risk.

“thousand-year flood”: Tom Di Liberto, “Torrential Rains Bring Epic Flash Floods inMaryland in Late May 2018,” NOAA Climate.gov, May 31, 2018, www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/torrential-rains-bring-epic-flash-floods-maryland-late-may-2018.

recordheatwaves:JasonSamenow,“Red-HotPlanet:All-TimeHeatRecordsHaveBeenSetAllovertheWorldDuringthePastWeek,”TheWashingtonPost,July5,2018.

fifty-four died from the heat: Rachel Lau, “Death Toll Rises to 54 as Quebec Heat WaveEnds,”Global News, July 6, 2018, https://globalnews.ca/news/4316878/50-people-now-dead-due-to-sweltering-quebec-heat-wave.

onehundredmajorwildfires:JonHerskovitz,“Morethan100LargeWildfiresinU.S.asNewBlazes Erupt,” Reuters, August 11, 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wildfires/more-than-100-large-wildfires-in-u-s-as-new-blazes-erupt-idUSKBN1KX00B.

4,000 acres in one day: “Holy Fire Burns 4,000 Acres, Forcing Evacuations in OrangeCounty,”Fox5SanDiego,August6,2018,https://fox5sandiego.com/2018/08/06/fast-moving-wildfire-forces-evacuations-in-orange-county/.

300-foot eruption of flames: Kirk Mitchell, “Spring Creek Fire ‘Tsunami’ Sweeps overSubdivision,RaisingHomeTollto251,”DenverPost,July5,2018.

1.2million were evacuated: Elaine Lies, “Hundreds of Thousands Evacuated in Japan as‘Historic Rain’ Falls; Two Dead,” Reuters, July 6, 2018,https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N1U21AH.

http://www.livescience.com/60378-hurricane-harvey-once-in-500000-year-flood.html

http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/16-million-children-affected-massive-flooding-south-asia-millions-more-risk

http://Climate.gov

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/torrential-rains-bring-epic-flash-floods-maryland-late-may-2018

https://globalnews.ca/news/4316878/50-people-now-dead-due-to-sweltering-quebec-heat-wave

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wildfires/more-than-100-large-wildfires-in-u-s-as-new-blazes-erupt-idUSKBN1KX00B

https://fox5sandiego.com/2018/08/06/fast-moving-wildfire-forces-evacuations-in-orange-county/

https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N1U21AH

the evacuation of 2.45 million: “Two Killed, 2.45 Million Evacuated as Super TyphoonMangkhut Hits Mainland China,” The Times of India, September 16, 2018,https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/super-typhoon-mangkhut-hits-china-over-2-45-million-people-evacuated/articleshow/65830611.cms.

turningtheportcityofWilmington:PatriciaSullivanandKatieZezima,“FlorenceHasMadeWilmington, N.C., an Island Cut Off from the Rest of the World,” The Washington Post,September16,2018.

hogmanureandcoalash:UmairIrfan,“HogManureIsSpillingOutofLagoonsBecauseofHurricaneFlorence’sFloods,”Vox,September21,2018.

thewindsofFlorence:JoelBurgess,“TornadoesintheWakeofFlorenceTwistThroughNorthCarolina,”AshevilleCitizen-Times,September17,2018.

Keralawashit:HydrologyDirectorate,GovernmentofIndia,StudyReport:KeralaFloodsofAugust 2018 (September 2018), http://cwc.gov.in/main/downloads/KeralaFloodReport/Rev-0.pdf.

Hawaii’s East Island: Josh Hafner, “Remote Hawaiian Island Vanishes Underwater AfterHurricane,”USAToday,October24,2018.

deadliest fire in its history: Paige St. John et al., “California Fire:What Started as a TinyBrushFireBecametheState’sDeadliestWildfire.Here’sHow,”LosAngelesTimes,November18,2018.

Jerry Brown described: Ruben Vives, Melissa Etehad, and Jaclyn Cosgrove, “SouthernCaliforniaFireDevastationIs‘theNewNormal,’Gov.BrownSays,”LosAngelesTimes,December10,2017.

“angrybeast”: “Wallace Broecker: How to Calm an Angry Beast,” CBC News, November 19,2008,www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wallace-broecker-how-to-calm-an-angry-beast-1.714719.

the fourth evacuation order: County of Santa Barbara, California, evacuation orders from2018.

temporary shacks: Michael Schwirtz, “Besieged Rohingya Face ‘Crisis Within the Crisis’:DeadlyFloods,”TheNewYorkTimes,February13,2018.

Morethanadozendied:PhilHelsel,“BodyofMotherFoundAfterCaliforniaMudslide;DeathTollRisesto21,”NBCNews,January20,2018,www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-mother-found-after-california-mudslide-death-toll-rises-21-n839546.

1.8trilliontonsofcarbon:NASAScience,“IsArcticPermafrostthe‘SleepingGiant’ofClimateChange?” NASA, June 24, 2013, https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/24jun_permafrost.

thirty-four times as powerful: Environmental Protection Agency, “Greenhouse GasEmissions: Understanding Global Warming Potentials,”www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials.

climatescientistscall“feedbacks”: Fora goodoverview, seeLeeR.KumpandMichaelE.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/super-typhoon-mangkhut-hits-china-over-2-45-million-people-evacuated/articleshow/65830611.cms

http://cwc.gov.in/main/downloads/KeralaFloodReport/Rev-0.pdf

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/wallace-broecker-how-to-calm-an-angry-beast-1.714719

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-mother-found-after-california-mudslide-death-toll-rises-21-n839546

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/24jun_permafrost

http://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials

Mann,DirePredictions:TheVisualGuidetotheFindingsoftheIPCC,2nded.(NewYork:DK,2015).

human-triggeredavalanches:MelanieJ.FroudeandDavidN.Petley,“GlobalFatalLandslideOccurrence from2004 to 2016,”NaturalHazards and Earth Systems Sciences 18 (2018): pp.2161–81,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2161-2018.

awholenewkind:BobBerwyn,“DestructiveFloodRiskinU.S.WestCouldTripleIfClimateChange Left Unchecked,” Inside Climate News (August 6, 2018),https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists.

500,000poorLatinos:EllenWulfhorst,“OverlookedU.S.BorderShantytownsFaceThreatofGathering Storms,” Reuters, June 11, 2018,https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2N1SO2FZ.

countries with lower GDPs: Andrew D. King and Luke J. Harrington, “The Inequality ofClimateChangefrom1.5°Cto2°CofGlobalWarming,”GeophysicalResearchLetters45,no.10(May2018):pp.5030–33,https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078430.

trees may simply turn brown: Andrea Thompson, “Drought and Climate Change CouldThrowFallColorsOffSchedule,”ScientificAmerican,November1,2016.

coffeeplantsofLatinAmerica: Pablo Imbach et al., “Coupling of Pollination Services andCoffeeSuitabilityUnderClimateChange,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences114,no. 39 (September 2017): pp. 10438–42, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617940114. The paperwassummarizedbyYale’sE360thisway:“LatinAmericacouldloseupto90percentofitscoffee-growinglandby2050.”

halfoftheworld’svertebrateanimals:WWF,“LivingPlanetReport2018,”AimingHigher(Gland, Switz.: 2018), p. 18,https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018.

theflyinginsectpopulationdeclined:CasparHallmanetal.,“MoreThan75PercentDeclineover27YearsinTotalFlyingInsectBiomassinProtectedAreas,”PLOSOne12,no.10(October2017),https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809.

delicatedanceof flowersand theirpollinators:DamianCarrington, “ClimateChange IsDisruptingFlowerPollination,ResearchShows,”TheGuardian,November6,2014.

migrationpatternsofcod:BobBerwyn,“FishSpeciesForecasttoMigrateHundredsofMilesNorthward as U.S. Waters Warm,” Inside Climate News, May 16, 2018,https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16052018/fish-species-climate-change-migration-pacific-northwest-alaska-atlantic-gulf-maine-cod-pollock.

hibernationpatternsofblackbears:KendraPierre-Louis, “AsWinterWarms,BearsCan’tSleep,andThey’reGettingintoTrouble,”TheNewYorkTimes,May4,2018.

wholenew class of hybrid species:Moises Velaquez-Manoff, “Should You Fear the PizzlyBear?”TheNewYorkTimesMagazine,August14,2014.

desertification of the entireMediterranean: Joel Guiot andWolfgang Cramer, “Climate

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-2161-2018

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06082018/global-warming-climate-change-floods-california-oroville-dam-scientists

https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2N1SO2FZ

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078430


https://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/all_publications/living_planet_report_2018

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16052018/fish-species-climate-change-migration-pacific-northwest-alaska-atlantic-gulf-maine-cod-pollock

Change: The 2015 Paris Agreement Thresholds andMediterranean Basin Ecosystems,”Science354,no.6311(October2016):pp.463–68,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5015.AccordingtoGuiotandCramer’scalculations,evenstayingbelowtwodegreesofwarmingwouldmeanmuchoftheregionwouldbecome,technicallyatleast,desert.

dustfromtheSahara:“SaharaDesertDustCloudBlanketsGreeceinOrangeHaze,”SkyNews,March 26, 2018, https://news.sky.com/story/sahara-desert-dust-cloud-blankets-greece-in-orange-haze-11305011.

fortheNiletobedramaticallydrained: “HowClimateChangeMightAffect theNile,”TheEconomist,August3,2017.

theRioSand: TomYulsman, “DroughtTurns theRioGrande into the ‘RioSand,’ ”Discover,July15,2013.

Eighthundredmillion in SouthAsia:MuthukumaraMani et al., “South Asia’s Hotspots:Impacts of Temperature and Precipitation Changes on Living Standards,” World Bank(Washington, D.C., June 2018), p. xi,https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/28723/9781464811555.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y.

fossil capitalism:AndreasMalm,Fossil Capital: TheRise of SteamPower and theRoots ofGlobalWarming(London:Verso,2016).

aboutonepercentagepointofGDP:SolomonHsiangetal.,“EstimatingEconomicDamagefrom Climate Change in the United States,” Science 356, no. 6345 (June 2017): pp. 1362–69,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369.

$20 trillionricher:Marshall Burke et al., “Large PotentialReduction inEconomicDamagesUnder UN Mitigation Targets,” Nature 557 (May 2018): pp. 549–53,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0071-9.

$551trillionindamages:R.Warrenetal., “RisksAssociatedwithGlobalWarmingof1.5or2C,” Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, May 2018,www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/briefing_note_risks_warren_r1-1.pdf.

totalworldwidewealth is today:According to Credit Suisse’sGlobalWealthReport 2017,totalglobalwealththatyearwas$280trillion.

hasnot topped 5 percent globally: According to theWorld Bank, the last time was 1976,when global growth was at 5.355 percent. World Bank, “GDP Growth (Annual %),”https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG.

“steady-state economics”: The term was popularized by Herbert Daly, whose anthologyTowardaSteady-StateEconomy(SanFrancisco:W.H.Freeman,1973)establishedacontrarianperspective on the history of economic growth that is especially incisive in an age of climatechange.(“Theeconomyisawhollyownedsubsidiaryoftheenvironment,notthereverse.”)

150 million more people: Drew Shindell et al., “Quantified, Localized Health Benefits ofAcceleratedCarbonDioxideEmissionsReductions,”NatureClimateChange8(March2018):pp.291–95,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0108-y.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah5015

https://news.sky.com/story/sahara-desert-dust-cloud-blankets-greece-in-orange-haze-11305011

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/28723/9781464811555.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0071-9

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/briefing_note_risks_warren_r1-1.pdf

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0108-y

IPCC raised the stakes: IPCC,Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report on theImpactsofGlobalWarmingof1.5°CAbovePre-IndustrialLevelsandRelatedGlobalGreenhouseGasEmissionPathways, in theContextofStrengthening theGlobalResponse to theThreatofClimateChange, SustainableDevelopment, andEfforts to Eradicate Poverty (Incheon, Korea,2018),www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15.

sevenmilliondeaths:ThisisfromtheWorldHealthOrganization’s2014assessment,inwhichair pollution was named as the single biggest health risk in the world:WHO, “Public Health,Environmental and Social Determinants of Health (PHE),”www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/en.

whetherit’sresponsibletohavechildren:ForausefulsummaryofthissuddenlypervasivequeryamongWesternliberalsandafairlythoroughcounterargument,seeConnorKilpatrick,“It’sOkaytoHaveChildren,”Jacobin,August22,2018.

PaulHawkenhas perhaps illustrated: You can find his comprehensive survey of climatesolutions (plant-based diets, green roofs, the education of women) in Drawdown: The MostComprehensivePlanEverProposedtoReverseGlobalWarming(NewYork:Penguin,2017).

FullyhalfofBritishemissions:Thisisprobablyanoverestimate,butitcomesfrom“LessIn,MoreOut,”publishedbytheU.K.’sGreenAlliancein2018.

two-thirdsofAmericanenergy:AnneStark,“AmericansUsedMoreCleanEnergyin2016,”Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, April 10, 2017, www.llnl.gov/news/americans-used-more-clean-energy-2016.

$5trillioneachyear:DavidCoadyetal.,“HowLargeAreGlobalFossilFuelSubsidies?”WorldDevelopment91(March2017):pp.11–27,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.10.004.

cost the world $26 trillion: The New Climate Economy, “Unlocking the Inclusive GrowthStory of the 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times” (Washington, D.C.:Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, September 2018), p. 8,https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018.

Americanswasteaquarteroftheirfood:ZachConradetal., “RelationshipBetweenFoodWaste, Diet Quality, and Environmental Sustainability,” PLOS One 13, no. 4 (April 2018),https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195405.

miningitconsumesmoreelectricity:EricHolthaus,“Bitcoin’sEnergyUseGotStudied,andYou Libertarian Nerds Look Even Worse than Usual,” Grist, May 17, 2018,https://grist.org/article/bitcoins-energy-use-got-studied-and-you-libertarian-nerds-look-even-worse-than-usual.SeealsoAlexdeVries,“Bitcoin’sGrowingEnergyProblem,”Cell2,no.5(May2018):pp.801–5,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.04.016.

Seventypercentoftheenergy:NicolaJones,“WasteHeat:InnovatorsTurntoanOverlookedRenewableResource,”YaleEnvironment360,May29,2018.“Today,intheUnitedStates,mostfossil fuel–burningpowerplantsareabout33percentefficient,”Joneswrites, “while combinedheatandpower(CHP)plantsaretypically60to80percentefficient.”

U.S.carbonemissions:TheWorldBankestimatedthe2014U.S.carbonemissionspercapitaat16.49metric tonsperyear; theaveragecitizenof theE.U., thatyear,wasresponsible for just

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15

http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/en

http://www.llnl.gov/news/americans-used-more-clean-energy-2016

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.10.004

https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018


https://grist.org/article/bitcoins-energy-use-got-studied-and-you-libertarian-nerds-look-even-worse-than-usual

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.04.016

6.379 (so thesavingswouldactuallybeconsiderablymore than50percent).WorldBank, “CO2Emissions(MetricTonsperCapita),”https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC.

globalemissionswouldfallbyathird:Therichest10percentoftheworldareresponsiblefor about half of all emissions, Oxfam calculated in its “Extreme Carbon Inequality” report ofDecember 2015, available at www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf.Theaveragecarbonfootprintforsomeoneintheglobal1percent,thestudyfound,was175timesthatofsomeoneintheworld’spoorest10percent.

Wehavealreadyleftbehind:Perhapsthemostvividillustrationofthisisthexkcdwebcomic“ATimelineofEarth’sAverageTemperature,”September12,2016,www.xkcd.com/1732.

II.ElementsofChaosHeatDeathAt seven degrees ofwarming: Steven C. Sherwood andMatthewHuber, “An AdaptabilityLimittoClimateChangeDuetoHeatStress,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences107,no.21(May2010):pp.9552–55,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0913352107.

afterafewhours:Ibid.AccordingtoSherwoodandHuber,“Periodsofnetheatstoragecanbeendured,thoughonlyforafewhours,andwithampletimeneededforrecovery.”

elevenortwelvedegreesCelsius:Ibid.“With11–12°Cwarming,suchregionswouldspreadto encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed,” Sherwood andHuberwrite.“Eventualwarmingsof12°Carepossiblefromfossilfuelburning.”

at just fivedegrees:MarkLynas,SixDegrees:OurFutureonaHotterPlanet (Washington,D.C.:NationalGeographicSociety,2008),p.196.

summerlaborofanykind:JohnP.Dunneetal.,“ReductionsinLabourCapacityfromHeatStress Under Climate Warming,” Nature Climate Change 3 (February 2013): pp. 563–66,https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1827.

NewYorkCitywouldbehotter:JosephRomm,ClimateChange:WhatEveryoneNeeds toKnow(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016),p.138.

medianprojectionof over fourdegrees: IPCC,Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report,SummaryforPolicymakers(Geneva,2014),p.11,www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/.

fiftyfoldincrease:Romm,ClimateChange,p.41.

fivewarmestsummersinEurope:WorldBank,TurnDowntheHeat:Whya4°CWarmerWorld Must Be Avoided (Washington, D.C., November 2012), p. 13,http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865571468149107611/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf.

simplyworkingoutdoors:IPCC,ClimateChange2014,p. 15,www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/.“By2100forRCP8.5,thecombinationofhightemperatureandhumidityinsomeareasforpartsof the year is expected to compromise common human activities, including growing food andworkingoutdoors.”

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf

http://www.xkcd.com/1732


https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1827


http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865571468149107611/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf


cities likeKarachi andKolkata: Tom K. R.Matthews, et al., “Communicating the DeadlyConsequencesofGlobalWarmingforHumanHeatStress,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences114,no.15(April2017):pp.3861–66,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617526114.Theauthorswrite,ofthe2015summer,“Theextraordinaryheathaddeadlyconsequences,withover3,400fatalitiesreportedacrossIndiaandPakistanalone.”

European heat wave of 2003: World Bank, Turn Down the Heat, p. 37,http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865571468149107611/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf.

worstweathereventsinContinentalhistory:WilliamLangewiesche,“HowExtremeHeatCouldLeaveSwathsofthePlanetUninhabitable,”VanityFair,August2017.

aresearchteamledbyEthanCoffel:EthanCoffeletal.,“TemperatureandHumidityBasedon Projections of a Rapid Rise in Global Heat Stress Exposure During the 21st Century,”Environmental Research Letters 13 (December 2017), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa00e.

the World Bank has estimated: World Bank, Turn Down the Heat, p. 38,http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/865571468149107611/pdf/NonAsciiFileName0.pdf.

Indiansummerkilled2,500: IFRC,“India:HeatWave—InformationBulletinNo.01,”June11,1998,www.ifrc.org/docs/appeals/rpts98/in002.pdf.

In2010, 55,000died: InMoscow, there were 10,000 ambulance calls each day, andmanydoctorsbelievedthattheofficialdeathcountsunderstatedthetruetoll.

according toTheWall Street Journal: Craig Nelson and Ghassan Adan, “Iraqis Boil asPower-GridFailingsExacerbateHeatWave,”TheWallStreetJournal,August11,2016.

700,000barrelsofoil:AyhanDemirbasetal.,“TheCostAnalysisofElectricPowerGenerationin Saudi Arabia,” Energy Sources, Part B 12, no. 6 (March 2017): pp. 591–96,https://doi.org/10.1080/15567249.2016.1248874.

10 percent of global electricity: International Energy Agency, The Future of Cooling:Opportunities for Energy-Efficient Air Conditioning (Paris, 2018), p. 24,www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/The_Future_of_Cooling.pdf.

triple,orperhapsquadruple:Ibid.,p.3.

700millionACunits:NiharShahetal.,“BenefitsofLeapfroggingtoSuperefficiencyandLowGlobalWarmingPotentialRefrigerants inRoomAirConditioning,”LawrenceBerkeleyNationalLaboratory (October 2015), p. 18, http://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-1003671.pdf.

more than nine billion cooling appliances: University of Birmingham, A Cool World:Defining the Energy Conundrum of Cooling for All (Birmingham, 2018), p. 3,www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-eps/energy/Publications/2018-clean-cold-report.pdf.

hajj will become physically impossible: Jeremy S. Pal and Elfatih A. B. Eltahir, “FutureTemperatureinSouthwestAsiaProjectedtoExceedaThresholdforHumanAdaptability,”NatureClimateChange6(2016),pp.197–200,www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2833.



https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa00e


http://www.ifrc.org/docs/appeals/rpts98/in002.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1080/15567249.2016.1248874

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/The_Future_of_Cooling.pdf

http://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-1003671.pdf

http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-eps/energy/Publications/2018-clean-cold-report.pdf

http://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2833

sugarcane region of El Salvador: Oriana Ramirez-Rubio et al., “An Epidemic of ChronicKidney Disease in Central America: An Overview,” Journal of Epidemiology and CommunityHealth67,no.1(September2012):pp.1–3,http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2012-201141.

grewby1.4percent:InternationalEnergyAgency,GlobalEnergyandCO2StatusReport,2017(Paris,March2018),p.1,www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf.

“inrange”:SeetheClimateActionTracker.

emissions grew by 4 percent: Zach Boren and Harri Lammi, “Dramatic Surge in ChinaCarbon Emissions Signals Climate Danger,” Unearthed, May 30, 2018,https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018.

coalpowerhasnearlydoubled:SimonEvansandRosamundPearce,“Mapped:TheWorld’sCoal Power Plants,” Carbon Brief, June 5, 2018, www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants. Evans and Pearce estimate 1.061 million megawatts of coal power in 2000 and1.996millionin2017.

theChineseexample:YannRobiouduPontandMalteMeinshausen,“WarmingAssessmentoftheBottom-UpParisAgreementEmissionsPledges,”NatureCommunications,November2018.

“limited realistic potential”: European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, NegativeEmissionTechnologies:WhatRoleinMeetingParisAgreementTargets?(Halle,Ger.,February2018), p. 1,https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Negative_Carbon/EASAC_Report_on_Negative_Emission_Technologies.pdf

“magicalthinking”:“WhyCurrentNegative-EmissionsStrategiesRemain‘MagicalThinking,’ ”Nature,February21,2018,www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02184-x.

full-scalecarboncaptureplants:AndySkuce,“ ‘We’dHavetoFinishOneNewFacilityEveryWorkingDayfortheNext70Years’—WhyCarbonCaptureIsNoPanacea,”BulletinoftheAtomicScientists,October4,2016,https://thebulletin.org/2016/10/wed-have-to-finish-one-new-facility-every-working-day-for-the-next-70-years-why-carbon-capture-is-no-panacea.

eighteen of them: Global CCS Institute, “Large-Scale CCS Facilities,”www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/large-scale-ccs-projects.

Asphaltandconcrete:LindaPoon,“StreetGridsMayMakeCitiesHotter,”CityLab,April27,2018,www.citylab.com/environment/2018/04/street-grids-may-make-cities-hotter/558845.

22 degrees Fahrenheit: Environmental Protection Agency, “Heat Island Effect,”www.epa.gov/heat-islands.

Chicagoheatwave of 1995: Eric Klinenberg,HeatWave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster inChicago(Chicago:UniversityofChicagoPress,2002).

two-thirdsoftheglobalpopulation:“Around2.5BillionMorePeopleWillBeLivinginCitiesby2050,ProjectsNewU.N.Report,”UnitedNationsDepartmentofEconomicandSocialAffairs,May 16, 2018, www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-world-urbanization-prospects.html.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2012-201141

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf

https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018

http://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Negative_Carbon/EASAC_Report_on_Negative_Emission_Technologies.pdf

http://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02184-x

https://thebulletin.org/2016/10/wed-have-to-finish-one-new-facility-every-working-day-for-the-next-70-years-why-carbon-capture-is-no-panacea

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/large-scale-ccs-projects

http://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/04/street-grids-may-make-cities-hotter/558845

http://www.epa.gov/heat-islands

http://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-world-urbanization-prospects.html

thatlistcouldgrowto970:UrbanClimateChangeResearchNetwork,TheFutureWeDon’tWant: How Climate Change Could Impact the World’s Greatest Cities (New York, February2018), p. 6, https://c40-production-images.s3.amazonaws.com/other_uploads/images/1789_Future_We_Don't_Want_Report_1.4_hi-res_120618.original.pdf.

70,000 workers: Public Citizen, “Extreme Heat and Unprotected Workers: Public CitizenPetitions OSHA to Protect the Millions of Workers Who Labor in Dangerous Temperatures”(Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2018), p. 25,www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/extreme_heat_and_unprotected_workers.pdf.

255,000 are expected: World Health Organization, “Quantitative Risk Assessment of theEffectsofClimateChangeonSelectedCausesofDeath,2030sand2050s”(Geneva,2014),p.21,http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/134014/9789241507691_eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

athirdoftheworld’spopulation:CamiloMoraetal.,“GlobalRiskofDeadlyHeat,”NatureClimateChange7(June2017):pp.501–6,https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322.

heatdeathisamong:Langewiesche,“HowExtremeHeatCouldLeaveSwaths.”

Hungerthebasicruleofthumb:DavidS.BattistiandRosamondL.Naylor, “HistoricalWarningsofFuture Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat,” Science 323, no. 5911 (January2009):pp.240–44.

Someestimatesrunhigher: “The temperature-croprelationship isnonlinear,”Battisti says.“YieldsdropofffasterforeachonedegreeCelsiustemperatureincrease—soyes,allelsebeingthesame,yieldswoulddropoffmuchmorethan50percent.”

eight pounds of grain to produce: Lloyd Alter, “Energy Required to Produce a Pound ofFood,”Treehugger,2010.AsBattistiputitinaninterview,“Usuallythisisquotedas‘ittakes8to10kgofgraintoproduce1kgofbeef.’ ”

Globally,grainaccounts: Ed Yong, “The VeryHot, VeryHungry Caterpillar,”The Atlantic,August30,2018.

two-thirdsofallhumancalories:ChuangZhaoetal.,“TemperatureIncreaseReducesGlobalYieldsofMajorCropsinFourIndependentEstimates,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences114,no.35(August2017):pp.9326–31,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1701762114.

theUnitedNationsestimates:FoodandAgricultureOrganization,“HowtoFeedtheWorldin2050” (Rome, October 2009), p. 2,www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/expert_paper/How_to_Feed_the_World_in_2050.pdf

thetropicsarealreadytoohot:“Inthetropics,thetemperaturealreadyexceedstheoptimatetemperature for major grains,” Battisti told me. “Any additional increase in temperature willfurtherreduceyield,evenunderotherwiseoptimalconditions.”

at least a fifth of its productivity: Michelle Tigchelaar et al., “FutureWarming Increases

https://c40-production-images.s3.amazonaws.com/other_uploads/images/1789_Future_We_Don't_Want_Report_1.4_hi-res_120618.original.pdf

http://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/extreme_heat_and_unprotected_workers.pdf

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/134014/9789241507691_eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322


http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/expert_paper/How_to_Feed_the_World_in_2050.pdf

Probability of Globally Synchronized Maize Production Shocks,” Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences 115, no. 26 (June 2018): pp. 6644–49,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718031115.

thickerleavesareworse:MarliesKovenockandAbigailL.S.Swann,“LeafTraitAcclimationAmplifies Simulated Climate Warming in Response to Elevated Carbon Dioxide,” GlobalBiogeochemicalCycles32(October2018),https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GB005883.

75billion tonsof soil: Stacey Noel et al., “Report for Policy andDecisionMakers: ReapingEconomicandEnvironmentalBenefitsfromSustainableLandManagement,”EconomicsofLandDevelopment Initiative (Bonn, Ger., September 2015), p. 10, www.eld-initiative.org/fileadmin/pdf/ELD-pm-report_05_web_300dpi.pdf.

the rate of erosion is ten times: Susan S. Lang, “ ‘Slow, Insidious’ Soil Erosion ThreatensHuman Health and Welfare as Well as the Environment, Cornell Study Asserts,” CornellChronicle, March 20, 2006, http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/03/slow-insidious-soil-erosion-threatens-human-health-and-welfare.

thirtytofortytimesasfast:Ibid.

lacking credit to make the necessary: Richard Hornbeck, “The Enduring Impact of theAmerican Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe,”American Economic Review 102, no. 4 (June 2012): pp. 1477–507,http://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1477.

JohnWesley Powell: Richard Seager et al., “Whither the 100th Meridian? The Once andFuture Physical andHumanGeography of America’s Arid-HumidDivide. Part 1: The Story SoFar,”EarthInteractions22,no.5(March2018),https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1.YoucanreadfurtherbyfindingPowell’sowntext,“ReportontheLandsoftheAridRegionoftheUnitedStates, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah. With Maps” (Washington, D.C.:GovernmentPrintingOffice,1879),https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf.

less farmable land: Seager, “Whither the 100thMeridian?” https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1.

separating the Sahara desert: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, “The 100th Meridian,WheretheGreatPlainsBegins,MayBeShifting,”April11,2018,www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/100th-meridian-where-great-plains-begin-may-be-shifting.

Thatdeserthasexpanded:NatalieThomasandSumantNigam,“Twentieth-CenturyClimateChange overAfrica: SeasonalHydroclimateTrends andSahara,”Journal ofClimate 31, no. 22(2018).

droppedfrommorethan30percent:FoodandAgricultureOrganization,“TheStateofFoodInsecurity in theWorld: Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises” (Rome, 2010), p. 9,www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf.

Born to Iowa family farmers: Charles C. Mann, The Wizard and the Prophet: TwoRemarkableScientistsandTheirDuelingVisionstoShapeTomorrow’sWorld(NewYork:Knopf,2018).

increaseglobalgreenhouse-gasemissions:ZhaohaiBaietal.,“GlobalEnvironmentalCosts


https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GB005883

http://www.eld-initiative.org/fileadmin/pdf/ELD-pm-report_05_web_300dpi.pdf

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/03/slow-insidious-soil-erosion-threatens-human-health-and-welfare

http://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1477

https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1

https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/100th-meridian-where-great-plains-begin-may-be-shifting

http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf

of China’s Thirst for Milk,” Global Change Biology 24, no. 5 (May 2018): pp. 2198–211,https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14047.

food production accounts for about a third: Natasha Gilbert, “One-Third of OurGreenhouse Gas Emissions Come from Agriculture,” Nature, October 31, 2012,www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708.

Greenpeacehasestimated:GreenpeaceInternational,“GreenpeaceCallsforDecreaseinMeatandDairyProduction andConsumption for aHealthierPlanet” (press release),March5, 2018,www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/15111/greenpeace-calls-for-decrease-in-meat-and-dairy-production-and-consumption-for-a-healthier-planet.

“the Malthusian tragic:” Kris Bartkus, “W. G. Sebald and the Malthusian Tragic,” TheMillions,March28,2018.

At 2 degrees of warming: Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet(Washington,D.C.:NationalGeographicSociety,2008),p.84.

“twoglobe-girdlingbeltsofperennialdrought”:Ibid.

By2080,withoutdramaticreductions:BenjaminI.Cooketal.,“GlobalWarmingand21stCentury Drying,” Climate Dynamics 43, no. 9–10 (March 2014): pp. 2607–27,https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2075-y.

ThesamewillbetrueinIraqandSyria:JosephRomm,ClimateChange:WhatEveryoneNeedstoKnow(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016),p.101.

alltheriverseastoftheSierraNevada:Ibid.,p.102.

100 million hungry: Food and Agriculture Organization, “The State of Food Security andNutrition in the World: Building Climate Resilience for Food Security and Nutrition” (Rome,2018),p.57,www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf.

Thespringof2017brought:“FightingFamineinNigeria,Somalia,SouthSudanandYemen,”ReliefWeb, 2017,https://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ep/wfp292787.pdf.

trulycustomizedfarmingstrategies:ZhenlingCuietal,“PursuingSustainableProductivitywithMillionsofSmallholderFarmers,”Nature,March7,2018.

“soil-free startup”: Madeleine Cuff, “Green Growth: British Soil-Free Farming StartupPreparesforFirstHarvest,”BusinessGreen,May1,2018.

“Wearewitnessingthegreatestinjection”:HelenaBottemillerEvich,“TheGreatNutrientCollapse,”Politico,September13,2017.

has declined by asmuch as one-third: Donald R. Davis et al., “Changes in USDA FoodComposition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999,” Journal of the American College ofNutrition23,no.6(2004):pp.669–82.

the protein content of bee pollen: Lewis H. Ziska et al., “Rising Atmospheric CO2 Is

https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14047

http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/15111/greenpeace-calls-for-decrease-in-meat-and-dairy-production-and-consumption-for-a-healthier-planet

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2075-y

http://www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf

https://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ep/wfp292787.pdf

ReducingtheProteinConcentrationofaFloralPollenSourceEssentialforNorthAmericanBees,”Proceedings of the Royal Society B 283, no. 1828 (April 2016),http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0414.

by 2050 as many as 150million: Danielle E. Medek et al., “Estimated Effects of FutureAtmosphericCO2ConcentrationsonProteinIntakeandtheRiskofProteinDeficiencybyCountryand Region,” Environmental Health Perspectives 125, no. 8 (August 2017),https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP41.

138 million could suffer: Samuel S. Myers et al., “Effect of Increased Concentrations ofAtmosphericCarbonDioxideon theGlobalThreat ofZincDeficiency:AModellingStudy,”TheLancet3,no.10(October2015):PE639–E645,https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00093-5.

1.4 billion could face a dramatic decline: M. R. Smith et al., “Potential Rise in IronDeficiencyDuetoFutureAnthropogenicCarbonDioxideEmissions,”GeoHealth1(August2017):pp.248–57,https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GH000018.

eighteen different strains of rice: Chunwu Zhu et al., “CarbonDioxide (CO2) Levels ThisCenturyWillAltertheProtein,Micronutrients,andVitaminContentofRiceGrainswithPotentialHealthConsequencesforthePoorestRice-DependentCountries,”ScienceAdvances4,no.5(May2018),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq1012.

Drowningfour feet of sea-level rise: Brady Dennis and ChrisMooney, “Scientists Nearly Double SeaLevelRiseProjectionsfor2100,BecauseofAntarctica,”TheWashingtonPost,March30,2016.

bytheendofthecentury:BenjaminStraussandScottKulp,“ExtremeSeaLevelRiseandtheStakesforAmerica,”ClimateCentral,April26,2017,www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-sea-level-rise-stakes-for-america-21387.

Aradicalreduction:Seethegraphic“SurgingSeas:2°CWarmingandSeaLevelRise”ontheClimateCentralwebsite.

JeffGoodellrunsthrough:JeffGoodell,TheWaterWillCome:RisingSeas,SinkingCities,andtheRemakingoftheCivilizedWorld(NewYork:Little,Brown,2017),p.13.

Atlantis:Thehistoricalbasis,ifany,forthislegendremainsasubjectofdebateanddispute,butfor an overview (and the suggestion that the society was submerged by a volcano eruption ontoday’sSantorini),seeWillieDrye,“Atlantis,”NationalGeographic,2018.

asmuch as 5 percent: Jochen Hinkel et al., “Coastal Flood Damage and Adaptation CostsUnder21stCenturySea-LevelRise,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences(February2014),https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222469111.

Jakarta isone:MayuriMei Lin and RafkiHidayat, “Jakarta, the Fastest-Sinking City in theWorld,”BBCNews,August13,2018,www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44636934.

Chinaisevacuating:AndrewGalbraith,“ChinaEvacuates127,000PeopleasHeavyRainsLashGuangdong—Xinhua,” Reuters, September 1, 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-china-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0414

https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP41

https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00093-5

https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GH000018

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq1012

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-sea-level-rise-stakes-for-america-21387


http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44636934

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-floods/china-evacuates-127000-people-as-heavy-rains-lash-guangdong-xinhua-idUSKCN1LH3BV

floods/china-evacuates-127000-people-as-heavy-rains-lash-guangdong-xinhua-idUSKCN1LH3BV.

Much of the infrastructure: Ramakrishnan Durairajan et al., “Lights Out: Climate ChangeRisk to Internet Infrastructure,” Proceedings of the Applied Networking Research Workshop(July16,2018):pp.9–15,https://doi.org/10.1145/3232755.3232775.

nearly 311,000 homes: Union of Concerned Scientists, “Underwater: Rising Seas, ChronicFloods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate” (Cambridge, MA, 2018), p. 5,www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications.

$100 trillionperyearby2100:University of Southampton, “ClimateChangeThreatens toCauseTrillions inDamagetoWorld’sCoastalRegionsIfTheyDoNotAdapttoSea-LevelRise,”February 4, 2014, www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/02/04-climate-change-threatens-damage-to-coastal-regions.page#.UvonXXewI2l.

$14trillionayear: SvetlanaJevrejeva et al., “FloodDamageCostsUnder theSeaLevelRisewith Warming of 1.5 °C and 2 °C,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 7 (July 2018),https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacc76.

continue formillennia:AndreaDutton et al., “Sea-Level Rise Due to Polar Ice-SheetMassLoss During Past Warm Periods,” Science 349, no. 6244 (July 2015),https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa4019.

two-degreescenario:“SurgingSeas,”ClimateCentral.

about444,000squaremiles:BenjaminStrauss,“CoastalNations,MegacitiesFace20FeetofSeaRise,”ClimateCentral, July9,2015,www.climatecentral.org/news/nations-megacities-face-20-feet-of-sea-level-rise-19217.

thetwentycitiesmostaffected:Ibid.

floodinghasquadrupledsince1980:EuropeanAcademies’ScienceAdvisoryCouncil,“NewData Confirm Increased Frequency of Extreme Weather Events, European National ScienceAcademies Urge Further Action on Climate Change Adaptation,” March 21, 2018,https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies.

by2100high-tideflooding:NationalOceanicandAtmosphericAdministration,“PatternsandProjectionsofHighTideFloodingAlong theUSCoastlineUsingaCommonImpactThreshold”(Silver Spring, MD, February 2018), p. ix,https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf.

affected2.3billionandkilled157,000:UnitedNationsOffice forDisasterRiskReduction,“The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters 1995–2015” (Geneva, 2015), p. 13,www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf.

increaseglobalrainfall tosuchadegree: SvenN.Willner et al., “AdaptationRequired toPreserveFutureHigh-EndRiverFloodRiskatPresentLevels,”ScienceAdvances4,no.1(January2018),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao1914.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3232755.3232775

http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/02/04-climate-change-threatens-damage-to-coastal-regions.page#.UvonXXewI2l

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacc76

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa4019

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/nations-megacities-face-20-feet-of-sea-level-rise-19217

https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf

http://www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao1914

atriskofcatastrophicinundation:OliverE.J.Wingetal.,“EstimatesofPresentandFutureFlood Risk in the Conterminous United States,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 3(February2018),https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaac65.

floodsinSouthAsiakilled1,200:OxfamInternational,“43MillionHitbySouthAsiaFloods:Oxfam IsResponding,” August 31, 2017,www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-08-31/43-million-hit-south-asia-floods-oxfam-responding.

António Guterres, the secretary-general: United Nations Secretary-General, “Secretary-General’s Press Encounter on Climate Change [with Q&A],” March 29, 2018,www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2018-03-29/secretary-generals-press-encounter-climate-change-qa.

eight times the entire global population: U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Estimates ofWorld Population,” www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.

Noah’sArkstory:Thereareanumberoftheoriesabouthistorical floodeventsthatmayhaveinspired the biblical story, but this popular one was presented at length inWilliam Ryan andWalter Pitman,Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That ChangedHistory(NewYork:Simon&Schuster,2000).

700,000Rohingyarefugees:Michael Schwirtz, “BesiegedRohingya Face ‘CrisisWithin theCrisis’:DeadlyFloods,”TheNewYorkTimes,February13,2018.

When the Paris Agreement was drafted: Meehan Crist, “Besides, I’ll Be Dead,” LondonReviewofBooks,February22,2018,www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n04/meehan-crist/besides-ill-be-dead.

“sunnydayflooding”:JimMorrison,“FloodingHotSpots:WhySeasAreRisingFasterontheUSEastCoast,”YaleEnvironment360,April24,2018,https://e360.yale.edu/features/flooding-hot-spots-why-seas-are-rising-faster-on-the-u.s.-east-coast.

things accelerating faster: Andrew Shepherd, Helen Amanda Fricker, and Sinead LouiseFarrell,“TrendsandConnectionsAcrosstheAntarcticCryosphere,”Nature558(2018):pp.223–32.

meltrateoftheAntarctic:UniversityofLeeds,“AntarcticaRampsUpSeaLevelRise,”June13,2018,www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4250/antarctica_ramps_up_sea_level_rise.

49billiontonsoficeeachyear:ChrisMooney,“AntarcticIceLossHasTripledinaDecade.IfThatContinues,WeAreinSeriousTrouble,”TheWashingtonPost,June13,2018.

several meters over fifty years: James Hansen et al., “Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise, andSuperstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern ObservationsThat2°CGlobalWarmingCouldBeDangerous,”AtmosphericChemistryandPhysics16(2016):pp.3761–812,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016.

13,000 square miles: University of Maryland, “Decades of Satellite Monitoring RevealAntarcticIceLoss,”June13,2018,https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/4156.

determinedbywhathumanaction:HayleyDunning,“HowtoSaveAntarctica(andtheRestofEarthToo),”ImperialCollegeLondon,June13,2018,www.imperial.ac.uk/news/186668/how-

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaac65

http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-08-31/43-million-hit-south-asia-floods-oxfam-responding

http://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2018-03-29/secretary-generals-press-encounter-climate-change-qa


http://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n04/meehan-crist/besides-ill-be-dead

https://e360.yale.edu/features/flooding-hot-spots-why-seas-are-rising-faster-on-the-u.s.-east-coast

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4250/antarctica_ramps_up_sea_level_rise

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-3761-2016

https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/4156

http://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/186668/how-save-antarctica-rest-earth

save-antarctica-rest-earth.

never before observed in human history: Richard Zeebe et al., “Anthropogenic CarbonRelease Rate Unprecedented During the Past 66 Million Years,”Nature Geoscience 9 (March2016):pp.325–29,https://doi.org//10.1038/ngeo2681.

“damagemechanics”:C.P.Borstadetal.,“ADamageMechanicsAssessmentoftheLarsenBIce Shelf Prior to Collapse: Toward a Physically-Based Calving Law,” Geophysical ResearchLetters39(September2012),https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL053317.

around ten times faster: SarahGriffiths, “GlobalWarming IsHappening ‘TenTimesFasterthanatAnyTimeintheEarth’sHistory,’ClimateExpertsClaim,”TheDailyMail,August2,2013.See also Melissa Davey, “Humans Causing Climate to Change 170 Times Faster than NaturalForces,”TheGuardian, February 12, 2017; this estimate for a rate ofwarming 170 times fastercame from Owen Gaffney and Will Steffen, “The Anthropocene Equation,” The AnthropoceneReview,February10,2017,https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616688022.

theaverageAmericanemits:DirkNotzandJulienneStroeve,“ObservedArcticSea-IceLossDirectlyFollowsAnthropogenicCO2Emission,”Science, November 3, 2016. See alsoRobinsonMeyer, “The Average AmericanMelts 645 Square Feet of Arctic Ice Every Year,”TheAtlantic,November3,2016.AndseealsoKenCaldeira,“HowMuchIceIsMeltedbyEachCarbonDioxideEmission?” March 24, 2018, https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/how-much-ice-is-melted-by-each-carbon-dioxide-emission.

1.2degreesofglobalwarming:SebastianH.Mernild,“Is‘TippingPoint’fortheGreenlandIceSheet Approaching?” Aktuel Naturvidenskab, 2009,http://mernild.com/onewebmedia/2009.AN%20Mernild4.pdf.

raisesealevelssixmeters:NationalSnowandIceDataCenter,“QuickFactsonIceSheets,”https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html.

WestAntarcticandGreenlandicesheets:PatrickLynch,“The‘Unstable’WestAntarcticIceSheet:APrimer,”NASA,May12,2014,www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512.

a billion tons of ice: UMassAmherst College of Engineering, “Gleason Participates inGroundbreakingGreenlandResearchThatMakesFrontPageofNewYorkTimes,”January2017,https://engineering.umass.edu/news/gleason-participates-groundbreaking-greenland-research-that-makes-front-page-new-york-times.

raise global sea levels ten to twenty feet: Jonathan L. Bamber, “Reassessment of thePotentialSea-LevelRisefromaCollapseoftheWestAntarcticIceSheet,”Science324,no.5929(May2009):pp.901–3,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1169335.

eighteenbilliontonsofice:AlejandraBorunda,“WeKnowWestAntarcticaIsMelting.IstheEastinDanger,Too?”NationalGeographic,August10,2018.

permafrost containsup to 1.8 trillion: NASA Science, “Is Arctic Permafrost the ‘SleepingGiant’ of Climate Change?” June 24, 2013, https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/24jun_permafrost.

one Nature paper found that: Katey Walter Anthony et al., “21st-Century Modeled

https://doi.org//10.1038/ngeo2681

https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL053317

https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616688022

https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/how-much-ice-is-melted-by-each-carbon-dioxide-emission

http://mernild.com/onewebmedia/2009.AN%20Mernild4.pdf

https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512

https://engineering.umass.edu/news/gleason-participates-groundbreaking-greenland-research-that-makes-front-page-new-york-times

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1169335

https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/24jun_permafrost

Permafrost Carbon Emissions Accelerated by Abrupt Thaw Beneath Lakes,” NatureCommunications 9, no. 3262 (August 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9. SeealsoEllenGray, “UnexpectedFutureBoostofMethanePossible fromArcticPermafrost,”NASAClimate, August 20, 2018, https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrost.

“abrupt thawing”: Anthony, “21st-Century Modeled Permafrost Carbon Emissions,”https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9.

Atmosphericmethanelevelshaverisen:“WhatIsBehindRisingLevelsofMethaneintheAtmosphere?” NASA Earth Observatory, January 11, 2018,https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91564/what-is-behind-rising-levels-of-methane-in-the-atmosphere.

Arctic lakes could possibly double: Anthony, “21st-Century Modeled Permafrost CarbonEmissions,”https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9.

between37and81percentby2100:IPCC,ClimateChange2013:ThePhysicalScienceBasis—SummaryforPolicymakers(Geneva,October2013),p.23,www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/.

asquicklyasthe2020s:KevinSchaefferetal.,“AmountandTimingofPermafrostReleaseinResponsetoClimateWarming,”TellusB,January24,2011.

ahundredbilliontons:Ibid.

a massive warming equivalent: Peter Wadhams, “The Global Impacts of RapidlyDisappearing Arctic Sea Ice,” Yale Environment 360, September 26, 2016,https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams

at least fiftymeters: DavidArcher,The Long Thaw:HowHumansAre Changing theNext100,000YearsofEarth’sClimate(Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2016).

TheU.S.GeologicalSurvey:JasonTreatetal.,“WhattheWorldWouldLookLikeIfAll theIceMelted,”NationalGeographic,September2013.

morethan97percentofFlorida:BenjaminStrauss,ScottKulp,andPeterClark,“CanYouGuessWhatAmericaWillLookLike in10,000Years?AQuiz,”TheNewYorkTimes,April 20,2018,www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/20/sunday-review/climate-flood-quiz.html.

Manaus,thecapital:Treat,“WhattheWorldWouldLookLike.”

Morethan600million:GordonMcGranahanetal.,“TheRisingTide:AssessingtheRisksofClimate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones,” Environment andUrbanization 19, no. 1 (April 2007): pp. 17–27,https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956247807076960.

WildfireThomas Fire, the worst: CalFire, “Incident Information: Thomas Fire,” March 28, 2018,http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=1922.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2785/unexpected-future-boost-of-methane-possible-from-arctic-permafrost

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91564/what-is-behind-rising-levels-of-methane-in-the-atmosphere

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05738-9


https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/20/sunday-review/climate-flood-quiz.html

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956247807076960

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=1922

“15% contained”: CalFire, “Thomas Fire Incident Update,” December 11, 2017,http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/pub/cdf/images/incidentfile1922_3183.pdf.

“Los Angeles Notebook”: Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (New York: Farrar,Straus&Giroux,1968).

Five of the twenty worst fires: CalFire, “Top 20 Most Destructive California Wildfires,”August 20, 2018,www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf.

1,240,000 acres: CalFire, “Incident Information: 2017,” January 24, 2018,http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_stats?year=2017.

172firesbrokeout:CaliforniaBoardofForestryandFireProtection,“October2017FireSiege,”January 2018,http://bofdata.fire.ca.gov/board_business/binder_materials/2018/january_2018_meeting/full/full_14_presentation_october_2017_fire_siege.pdf

Onecouplesurvived:RobinAbcarian,“TheySurvivedSixHoursinaPoolasaWildfireBurnedTheirNeighborhoodtotheGround,”LosAngelesTimes,October12,2017.

onlythehusbandwhoemerged:ErinAllday,“WineCountryWildfires:HuddledinPoolamidBlaze,WifeDiesinHusband’sArms,”SFGate,January25,2018.

morethantwothousandsquaremiles:CalFire,“IncidentInformation:2018,”January24,2018,http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_stats?year=2018.

smokeblanketedalmosthalfthecountry:MeganMolteni,“WildfireSmokeIsSmotheringtheUS—EvenWhereYouDon’tExpectIt,”Wired,August14,2018.

in British Columbia: Estefania Duran, “B.C. Year in Review 2017: Wildfires Devastate theProvince like Never Before,” Global News, December 25, 2017,https://globalnews.ca/news/3921710/b-c-year-in-review-2017-wildfires.

L.A. has always been: Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles(London:Verso,1990).

burnedthestate’swinecrop:TiffanyHsu,“InCaliforniaWineCountry,WildfiresTakeaTollonVintagesandTourism,”TheNewYorkTimes,October10,2017.

GettyMuseum:JessicaGelt, “GettyMuseumClosesBecauseofFire,but ‘TheSafestPlace fortheArtIsRightHere,’SpokesmanSays,”LosAngelesTimes,December6,2017.

wildfireseasoninthewesternUnitedStates:“ClimateChangeIndicators:U.S.Wildfires,”WXShift,http://wxshift.com/climate-change/climate-indicators/us-wildfires.

nearly20percent:W.MattJollyetal.,“Climate-InducedVariationsinGlobalWildfireDangerfrom 1979 to 2013,” Nature Communications 6, no. 7537 (July 2015),https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537.

By2050,destruction:JosephRomm,ClimateChange:WhatEveryoneNeedstoKnow(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016),p.47.

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/pub/cdf/images/incidentfile1922_3183.pdf

http://www.fire.ca.gov/communications/downloads/fact_sheets/Top20_Destruction.pdf

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_stats?year=2017

http://bofdata.fire.ca.gov/board_business/binder_materials/2018/january_2018_meeting/full/full_14_presentation_october_2017_fire_siege.pdf

http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_stats?year=2018

https://globalnews.ca/news/3921710/b-c-year-in-review-2017-wildfires

http://wxshift.com/climate-change/climate-indicators/us-wildfires

https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537

tenmillionacreswereburned:NationalInteragencyFireCenter,“TotalWildlandFiresandAcres(1926-2017),”www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html.

“Wedon’tevencallit”:MelissaPamerandElizabethEspinosa,“ ‘WeDon’tEvenCallItFireSeason Anymore…It’s Year Round’: Cal Fire,” KTLA 5, December 11, 2017,https://ktla.com/2017/12/11/we-dont-even-call-it-fire-season-anymore-its-year-round-cal-fire.

soot and ash they give off: William Finnegan, “California Burning,”New York Review ofBooks,August16,2018.

dozensofgueststriedtoescape:JasonHorowitz,“AsGreekWildfireClosedIn,aDesperateDashEndedinDeath,”TheNewYorkTimes,July24,2018.

GreatFloodof1862:DanielL.Swainetal.,“IncreasingPrecipitationVolatilityinTwenty-First-Century California,” Nature Climate Change 8 (April 2018): pp. 427–33,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0140-y.

globally, between 260,000 and 600,000: Fay H. Johnston et al., “Estimated GlobalMortalityAttributabletoSmokefromLandscapeFires,”EnvironmentalHealthPerspectives120,no.5(May2012),https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1104422.

Canadianfireshave:GeorgeE.Leetal.,“CanadianForestFiresandtheEffectsofLong-RangeTransboundary Air Pollution on Hospitalizations Among the Elderly,” ISPRS InternationalJournalofGeo-Information3(May2014):pp.713–31,https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi3020713.

42percent spike inhospital visits: C.Howard et al., “SOS: Summer of Smoke—AMixed-Methods, Community-Based Study Investigating the Health Effects of a Prolonged, SevereWildfireSeasononaSubarcticPopulation,”CanadianJournalofEmergencyMedicine19(May2017):p.S99,https://doi.org/10.1017/cem.2017.264.

“Oneofthestrongestemotions”:SharonJ.Riley,“ ‘TheLostSummer’:TheEmotionalandSpiritual Toll of the Smoke Apocalypse,” The Narwhal, August 21, 2018,https://thenarwhal.ca/the-lost-summer-the-emotional-and-spiritual-toll-of-the-smoke-apocalypse.

PeatlandfiresinIndonesia:SusanE.Pageetal.,“TheAmountofCarbonReleasedfromPeatand Forest Fires in Indonesia During 1997,” Nature 420 (November 2002): pp. 61–65,https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01131.Forapictureofhowpeatlandemissionswillchangegoingforward, see Angela V. Gallego-Sala et al., “Latitudinal Limits to the Predicted Increase of thePeatlandCarbonSinkwithWarming,”NatureClimateChange8(2018):pp.907–13.

InCalifornia,asinglewildfire:DavidR.Baker,“HugeWildfiresCanWipeOutCalifornia’sGreenhouseGasGains,”SanFranciscoChronicle,November22,2017.

its second “hundred-year drought”: Joe Romm, “Science: Second ‘100-Year’ AmazonDroughtinFiveYearsCausedHugeCO2Emissions.IfThisPatternContinues,theForestWouldBecomeaWarmingSource,”ThinkProgress,February8,2011,https://thinkprogress.org/science-second-100-year-amazon-drought-in-5-years-caused-huge-co2-emissions-if-this-pattern-7036a9074098.

thetreesoftheAmazon:RoelJ.W.Brienenetal.,“Long-TermDeclineoftheAmazonCarbon

http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html

https://ktla.com/2017/12/11/we-dont-even-call-it-fire-season-anymore-its-year-round-cal-fire

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0140-y

https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1104422

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi3020713

https://doi.org/10.1017/cem.2017.264

https://thenarwhal.ca/the-lost-summer-the-emotional-and-spiritual-toll-of-the-smoke-apocalypse

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01131

https://thinkprogress.org/science-second-100-year-amazon-drought-in-5-years-caused-huge-co2-emissions-if-this-pattern-7036a9074098

Sink,”Nature,March2015.

AgroupofBrazilianscientists:AlineC.Soterronietal.,“FateoftheAmazonIsontheBallotin Brazil’s Presidential Election,” Monga Bay, October 17, 2018,https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/fate-of-the-amazon-is-on-the-ballot-in-brazils-presidential-election-commentary/.

deforestation accounts for about 12 percent: G. R. van derWerf et al., “CO2 Emissionsfrom Forest Loss,” Nature Geoscience 2 (November 2009): pp. 737–38,https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo671.

asmuchas25percent: Bob Berwyn, “HowWildfires Can Affect Climate Change (and ViceVersa),” Inside Climate News, August 23, 2018,https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23082018/extreme-wildfires-climate-change-global-warming-air-pollution-fire-management-black-carbon-co2.

abilityofforestsoilstoabsorb:DaisyDunne,“MethaneUptakefromForestSoilsHas‘Fallenby77%inThreeDecades,’ ”CarbonBrief,August6,2018,www.carbonbrief.org/methane-uptake-from-forest-soils-has-fallen-77-per-cent-three-decades.

anadditional1.5degreesCelsius:NatalieM.Mahowaldetal.,“AretheImpactsofLandUseon Warming Underestimated in Climate Policy?” Environmental Research Letters 12, no. 9(September2017),https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa836d.

30percentofemissions:QuentinLejeuneetal., “HistoricalDeforestationLocally IncreasedtheIntensityofHotDaysinNorthernMid-Latitudes,”NatureClimateChange8(April2018):pp.386–90,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0131-z.

twenty-seven additional cases: Leonardo Suveges Moreira Chaves et al., “Abundance ofImpacted Forest Patches Less than 5 km2 Is a Key Driver of the Incidence of Malaria inAmazonianBrazil,”ScientificReports 8, no. 7077 (May2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25344-5.

DisastersNoLongerNaturaltornadoes will strike much more frequently: Francesco Fiondella, “Extreme TornadoOutbreaks Have Become More Common,” International Research Institute for Climate andSociety,ColumbiaUniversity,March2,2016,https://iri.columbia.edu/news/tornado-outbreaks.

their trails of destruction could grow: Joseph Romm, Climate Change: What EveryoneNeedstoKnow(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016),p.69.

threemajorhurricanes:CongressionalResearchService,TheNationalHurricaneCenterandForecastingHurricanes:2017Overviewand2018Outlook(Washington,D.C.,August23,2018),https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45264.pdf.

dropping on Houston: Javier Zarracina and Brian Resnick, “All the Rain That HurricaneHarveyDumpedonTexasandLouisiana,inOneMassiveWaterDrop,”Vox,September1,2017.

record-breaking summer of 2018: Jason Samenow, “Red Hot Planet: This Summer’s

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/10/fate-of-the-amazon-is-on-the-ballot-in-brazils-presidential-election-commentary/

https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo671

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23082018/extreme-wildfires-climate-change-global-warming-air-pollution-fire-management-black-carbon-co2

https://www.carbonbrief.org/methane-uptake-from-forest-soils-has-fallen-77-per-cent-three-decades

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa836d

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0131-z

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25344-5

https://iri.columbia.edu/news/tornado-outbreaks

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45264.pdf

PunishingandHistoricHeatinSevenChartsandMaps,”TheWashingtonPost,August17,2018.

In 1850, theareahad 150glaciers:U.S.Geological Survey, “Retreat ofGlaciers inGlacierNational Park,” April 6, 2016, www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park.

Already,stormshavedoubledsince1980:EuropeanAcademies’ScienceAdvisoryCouncil,“NewDataConfirmIncreasedFrequencyofExtremeWeatherEvents,EuropeanNationalScienceAcademies Urge Further Action on Climate Change Adaptation,” March 21, 2018,https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies.

NewYorkCitywillsuffer:Andra J.Garner et al., “Impact ofClimateChangeonNewYorkCity’s Coastal Flood Hazard: Increasing Flood Heights from the Preindustrial to 2300 CE,”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (September 2017),https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1703568114.

more intense rainstorms: U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2014 National ClimateAssessment (Washington, D.C., 2014), https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/heavy-downpours-increasing.

In theNortheast: U.S. Global Change Research Program, “Observed Change in Very HeavyPrecipitation,” September 19, 2013, https://data.globalchange.gov/report/nca3/chapter/our-changing-climate/figure/observed-change-in-very-heavy-precipitation-2.

TheislandofKauai:NationalWeatherService, “April 2018PrecipitationSummary,”May4,2018,www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/hydro/pages/apr18sum.php.

thedamagesfromquotidianthunderstorms:AlysonKenwardandUroojRaja,“Blackout:ExtremeWeather,ClimateChangeandPowerOutages,”ClimateCentral(Princeton,NJ,2014),p.4,http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/PowerOutages.pdf.

WhenHurricane Irma first emerged: Joe Romm, “The Case for a Category 6 Rating forSuper-Hurricanes like Irma,” ThinkProgress, September 6, 2017,https://thinkprogress.org/category-six-hurricane-irma-62cfdfdd93cb.

flooding its agricultural lands: Frances Robles and Luis Ferré-Sadurní, “Puerto Rico’sAgricultureandFarmersDecimatedbyMaria,”TheNewYorkTimes,September24,2017.

“We’re getting some intimations”: This was a comment Wark made on Twitter:https://twitter.com/mckenziewark/status/913382357230645248.

seventeentimesmoreoften:NingLinetal.,“HurricaneSandy’sFloodFrequencyIncreasingfromYear1800to2100,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyoftheSciences,October2016.

Katrina-levelhurricanesareexpected:AslakGrinstedetal.,“ProjectedAtlanticHurricaneSurge Threat from Rising Temperatures,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(March2013),https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1209980110.

Looking globally, researchers have found: Greg Holland and Cindy L. Bruyère, “RecentIntenseHurricaneResponsetoGlobalClimateChange,”ClimateDynamics42,no.3–4(February2014):pp.617–27,https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0.

http://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers-glacier-national-park

https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies


https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/heavy-downpours-increasing

https://data.globalchange.gov/report/nca3/chapter/our-changing-climate/figure/observed-change-in-very-heavy-precipitation-2

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/hydro/pages/apr18sum.php

http://assets.climatecentral.org/pdfs/PowerOutages.pdf

https://thinkprogress.org/category-six-hurricane-irma-62cfdfdd93cb

https://twitter.com/mckenziewark/status/913382357230645248


https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0

Between just 2006 and 2013, the Philippines: Food and Agriculture Organization, “TheImpact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security” (Rome, 2015), p. xix,https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/a-i5128e.pdf.

typhoons have intensified: Wei Mei and Shang-Ping Xie, “Intensification of LandfallingTyphoons over the Northwest Pacific Since the Late 1970s,”Nature Geoscience 9 (September2016):pp.753–57,https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO2792.

By 2070, Asian megacities: Linda Poon, “Climate Change Is Testing Asia’s Megacities,”CityLab, October 9, 2018, www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/asian-megacities-vs-tomorrows-typhoons/572062.

themore intense the blizzards: Judah Cohen et al., “Warm Arctic Episodes Linked withIncreasedFrequencyofExtremeWinterWeatherintheUnitedStates,”NatureCommunications9,no.869(March2018):https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02992-9.

758tornadoes:NOAANationalCentersforEnvironmentalInformation,“StateoftheClimate:TornadoesforApril2011,”May2011,www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tornadoes/201104.

40percentby2010: Noah S.Diffenbaugh et al., “Robust Increases in Severe ThunderstormEnvironments in Response to Greenhouse Forcing,” Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences110,no.41(October2013):pp.16361–66,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307758110.

$725billion:KeithPorteretal.,“OverviewoftheARkStormScenario,”U.S.GeologicalSurvey,January2011,https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1312.

acloudof “unbearable”smells:EmilyAtkin, “Minutes: ‘Unbearable’Petrochemical SmellsAreReportedlyDriftingintoHouston,”TheNewRepublic,August2017.

nearlyhalfabilliongallons:FrankBajakandLiseOlsen,“SilentSpills,”HoustonChronicle,May2018.

the city had already been knocked: Kevin Litten, “16 New Orleans Pumps, Not 14,WereDownSaturdayandRemainOut:Officials,”TheTimes-Picayune,August10,2017.

the 2000 population of 480,000: Elizabeth Fussell, “Constructing New Orleans,ConstructingRace:APopulationHistoryofNewOrleans,”TheJournalofAmericanHistory94,no.3(December2007),pp.846–55,www.jstor.org/stable/25095147.

aslowas230,000:AllisonPlyer,“FactsforFeatures:KatrinaImpact,”TheDataCenter,August26,2016,www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact.

Oneofthefastest-growingcities:U.S.CensusBureau, “TheSouthIsHometo10of the15Fastest-Growing Large Cities,” May 25, 2017, www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-81-population-estimates-subcounty.html.

included the fastest-growing suburb: Amy Newcomb, “Census Bureau Reveals Fastest-GrowingLargeCities,”U.S.CensusBureau,2018.

morethanfivetimesasmanyresidents:U.S.CensusBureaufigures.

brought there by the oil business: John Schwartz, “Exxon Misled the Public on Climate

https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/a-i5128e.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO2792

http://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/asian-megacities-vs-tomorrows-typhoons/572062

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02992-9

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tornadoes/201104


https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1312

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25095147

http://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-81-population-estimates-subcounty.html

Change,StudySays,”TheNewYorkTimes,August23,2017.

LowerNinthWard:GregAllen,“GhostsofKatrinaStillHauntNewOrleans’ShatteredLowerNinthWard,”NPR,August3,2015,www.npr.org/2015/08/03/427844717/ghosts-of-katrina-still-haunt-new-orleans-shattered-lower-ninth-ward.

theentirecoastlineofLouisiana:KevinSackandJohnSchwartz,“LefttoLouisiana’sTides,aVillage Fights for Time,” The New York Times, February 24, 2018,www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/24/us/jean-lafitte-floodwaters.html.

2,000 square miles already gone: Bob Marshall, Brian Jacobs, and Al Shaw, “LosingGround,”ProPublica,August28,2014,http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana.

2018roadbudget: Jeff Goodell, “Welcome to the Age of ClimateMigration,”Rolling Stone,February4,2018.

islandersarrived inFlorida: JohnD.Sutter andSergioHernandez, “ ‘Exodus’ fromPuertoRico: A Visual Guide,” CNN, February 21, 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/puerto-rico-migration-data-invs/index.html.

FreshwaterDrainSeventy-onepercentoftheplanet:USGSWaterScienceSchool,“HowMuchWaterIsThereon, in, and Above the Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, December 2, 2016,https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html.

Barely more than 2 percent: USGS Water Science School, “The World’s Water,” U.S.GeologicalSurvey,December2,2016,https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html.

only0.007percentoftheplanet’swater:“FreshwaterCrisis,”NationalGeographic.

Globally,between70and80percent:TariqKhokhar,“Chart:Globally,70%ofFreshwaterIsUsed for Agriculture,” World Bank Data Blog, March 22, 2017,https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture.

twentylitersofwatereachday: “WaterConsumptioninAfrica,”InstituteWaterforAfrica,https://water-for-africa.org/en/water-consumption/articles/water-consumption-in-africa.html.

lessthanhalfofwhatwaterorganizations:UN-WaterDecadeProgrammeonAdvocacyandCommunication andWater Supply and SanitationCollaborativeCouncil, “TheHumanRight toWater and Sanitation,”www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf.

globalwater demand is expected: “Half theWorld to Face SevereWater Stress by 2030UnlessWater Use Is ‘Decoupled’ from Economic Growth, Says International Resource Panel,”UnitedNationsEnvironmentProgramme,March 21, 2016,www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-face-severe-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupled.

loss of 16 percent of freshwater: “Water Audits andWater Loss Control for PublicWaterSystems,” Environmental Protection Agency, July 2013,www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents/epa816f13002.pdf.

http://www.npr.org/2015/08/03/427844717/ghosts-of-katrina-still-haunt-new-orleans-shattered-lower-ninth-ward

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/24/us/jean-lafitte-floodwaters.html

http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana

http://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/puerto-rico-migration-data-invs/index.html

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html

https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture

https://water-for-africa.org/en/water-consumption/articles/water-consumption-in-africa.html

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf

http://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-face-severe-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupled

http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents/epa816f13002.pdf

inBrazil, the estimate is 40percent: “TreatedWater Loss Is StillHigh in Brazil,”WorldWater Forum, November 21, 2017, http://8.worldwaterforum.org/en/news/treated-water-loss-still-high-brazil.

a tool of inequality: In 2018, it was revealed that Harvard had aggressively bought upCaliforniavineyardsforthewaterunderground.

2.1billionpeoplearoundtheworld:“2.1BillionPeopleLackSafeDrinkingWateratHome,More than Twice as Many Lack Safe Sanitation,” World Health Organization, July 12, 2017,www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation.

4.5billiondon’thavesafelymanagedwater:Ibid.

Halfoftheworld’spopulation:M.Hussetal.,“TowardMountainsWithoutPermanentSnowand Ice,” Earth’s Future 5, no. 5 (May 2017): pp. 418–35,https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000514.

theglaciersoftheHimalayas:P.D.A.Kraaijenbrink,“ImpactofaGlobalTemperatureRiseof 1.5 Degrees Celsius on Asia’s Glaciers,” Nature 549 (September 2017): pp. 257–60,https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23878.

Atfourdegrees,thesnow-cappedAlps:MarkLynas,SixDegrees:OurFutureonaHotterPlanet(Washington,D.C.:NationalGeographicSociety,2008),p.202.

70percentlesssnow:ChristophMartyetal.,“HowMuchCanWeSave?ImpactofDifferentEmissionScenariosonFutureSnowCoverintheAlps,”TheCryosphere,2017.

250millionAfricans: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “ClimateChange:Impacts,VulnerabilitiesandAdaptationinDevelopingCountries”(NewYork,2007),p.5,https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/impacts.pdf.

abillionpeopleinAsia:CharlesFantetal.,“ProjectionsofWaterStressBasedonanEnsembleofSocioeconomicGrowthandClimateChangeScenarios:ACaseStudyinAsia,”PLOSOne11,no.3(March2016),https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150633.

freshwateravailabilityincities:WorldBank,“HighandDry:ClimateChange,Water,andtheEconomy”(Washington,D.C.,2016),p.vi.

fivebillionpeople:UNWater, “TheUnitedNationsWorldWaterDevelopmentReport2018:Nature-Based Solutions for Water” (Paris, 2018), p. 3,http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/261424e.pdf.

boomtownPhoenix: Marcello Rossi, “Desert City Phoenix Mulls Ways to Quench Thirst ofSprawling Suburbs,” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, June 7, 2018,news.trust.org/item/20180607120002-7kwzq.

evenLondonisbeginningtoworry:EdoardoBorgomeo,“WillLondonRunOutofWater?”The Conversation, May 24, 2018, https://theconversation.com/will-london-run-out-of-water-97107.

“hightoextremewaterstress”:NITIAayog,CompositeWaterManagementIndex:ATool

http://8.worldwaterforum.org/en/news/treated-water-loss-still-high-brazil

http://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation

https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000514


https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/impacts.pdf


http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/261424e.pdf

http://news.trust.org/item/20180607120002-7kwzq

https://theconversation.com/will-london-run-out-of-water-97107

for Water Management (June 2018), p. 15,www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf.

water availability in Pakistan: Rina Saeed Khan, “Water Pressures Rise in Pakistan asDrought Meets a Growing Population,” Reuters, June 14, 2018,https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T7502.

the Aral Sea: NASA Earth Observatory, “World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea,”https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/WorldOfChange/AralSea.

LakePoopó:NASAEarthObservatory, “Bolivia’s LakePoopóDisappears,” January 23, 2016,https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87363/bolivias-lake-poopo-disappears.

LakeUrmia: Amir AghaKouchak et al., “Aral Sea SyndromeDesiccates Lake Urmia: Call forAction,” Journal of Great Lakes Research 41, no. 1 (March 2015): pp. 307–11,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.007.

Lake Chad: “Africa’s Vanishing Lake Chad,” Africa Renewal (April 2012),www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2012/africa%E2%80%99s-vanishing-lake-chad.

warmwater-friendlybacteria: BoqiangQin et al., “ADrinkingWater Crisis in Lake Taihu,China:LinkagetoClimaticVariabilityandLakeManagement,”EnvironmentalManagement 45,no.1(January2010):pp.105–12,https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9393-6.

Lake Tanganyika: Jessica E. Tierney et al., “Late-Twentieth-Century Warming in LakeTanganyika Unprecedented Since AD 500,” Nature Geoscience 3 (May 2010): pp. 422–25,https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo865. See also, for instance, Clea Broadhurst, “Global WarmingDepletesLakeTanganikya’sFishStocks,”RFI,August9,2016,http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20160809-global-warming-responsible-decline-fish-lake-tanganyika.

16percentoftheworld’snaturalmethane:E.J.S.Emilsonetal.,“Climate-DrivenShiftsinSedimentChemistryEnhanceMethaneProductioninNorthernLakes,”NatureCommunications9,no.1801(May2018),https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04236-2.SeealsoDavidBastvikenet al., “Methane Emissions from Lakes: Dependence of Lake Characteristics, Two RegionalAssessments, and a Global Estimate,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 18 (2004),https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002238.

coulddoublethoseemissions: “GreenhouseGas ‘FeedbackLoop’Discovered inFreshwaterLakes,”University ofCambridge,May4, 2018,www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/greenhouse-gas-feedback-loop-discovered-in-freshwater-lakes.

aquifersalreadysupply:USGSWaterScienceSchool,“GroundwaterUseintheUnitedStates,”U.S.GeologicalSurvey,June26,2018,https://water.usgs.gov/edu/wugw.html.

wellsthatusedtodrawwater:BrianClarkHoward,“CaliforniaDroughtSpursGroundwaterDrillingBoominCentralValley,”NationalGeographic,August16,2014.

lost twelve cubic miles: Kevin Wilcox, “Aquifers Depleted in Colorado River Basin,” CivilEngineering,August5,2014,www.asce.org/magazine/20140805-aquifers-depleted-in-colorado-river-basin.

http://www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf

https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T7502

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/WorldOfChange/AralSea

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87363/bolivias-lake-poopo-disappears

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.007

http://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2012/africa%E2%80%99s-vanishing-lake-chad

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9393-6

https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo865

http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20160809-global-warming-responsible-decline-fish-lake-tanganyika

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04236-2

https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002238

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/greenhouse-gas-feedback-loop-discovered-in-freshwater-lakes

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/wugw.html

http://www.asce.org/magazine/20140805-aquifers-depleted-in-colorado-river-basin

Ogallala Aquifer: Sandra Postel, “Drought Hastens Groundwater Depletion in the TexasPanhandle,”NationalGeographic,July24,2014.

expected to drain by 70 percent: Kansas State University, “Study Forecasts FutureWaterLevels of Crucial Agricultural Aquifer,” K-State News, August 26, 2013, www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/aug13/groundwater82613.html. See alsoDavidR. Steward et al.,“Tapping Unsustainable Groundwater Stores for Agricultural Production in the High PlainsAquiferofKansas,Projectionsto2110,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciencesoftheUnited States of America 110. no. 37 (September 2013), pp. E3477–86,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1220351110.

twenty-one cities: NITI Aayog, Composite Water Management Index, p. 22,www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf.

ThefirstDayZero:CityofCapeTown,“DayZero:WhenIs It,WhatIs It,andHowCanWeAvoidIt?”November15,2017.

In a memorable first-person account: Adam Welz, “Letter from a Bed in Cape Town,”Sierra,February12,2018,www.sierraclub.org/sierra/letter-bed-cape-town-drought-day-zero.

inaridUtah:MarkMilligan, “Glad You Asked: DoesUtah Really UseMoreWater than AnyOtherState?”UtahGeologicalSurvey,https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/does-utah-use-more-water.

South Africa had nine million people: UNESCO,Water: A Shared Responsibility—TheUnited Nations World Water Development Report 2 (Paris, 2006), p. 502,http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001454/145405e.pdf#page=519.

to produce thenation’swine crop: Stephen Leahy, “FromNot Enough to TooMuch, theWorld’sWaterCrisisExplained,”NationalGeographic,March22,2018.

total urban consumption: Public Policy Institute for California, “Water Use in California,”July2016,www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california.

limitingwateruseto twelvehours: JonGerberg, “AMegacityWithoutWater:SãoPaulo’sDrought,”Time,October13,2015.

aggressiverationingsystem:SimonRomero,“TapsStarttoRunDryinBrazil’sLargestCity,”TheNewYorkTimes,February16,2015.

barge in drinking water from France: Graham Keeley, “Barcelona Forced to ImportEmergencyWater,”TheGuardian,May14,2008.

“millennium drought”: “Recent Rainfall, Drought and Southern Australia’s Long-TermRainfall Decline,” Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology, April 2015,www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern-rainfall-decline.shtml.

99and84percent,respectively:AlbertI.J.M.vanDijketal.,“TheMillenniumDroughtinSoutheast Australia (2001–2009): Natural and Human Causes and Implications for WaterResources,Ecosystems,Economy,andSociety,”WaterResourcesResearch49(February2013):pp.1040–57,http://doi.org/10.1002/wrcr.20123.

http://www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/aug13/groundwater82613.html


http://www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/letter-bed-cape-town-drought-day-zero

https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/does-utah-use-more-water

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001454/145405e.pdf#page=519

http://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern-rainfall-decline.shtml

http://doi.org/10.1002/wrcr.20123

wetlandsturnedacidic:“ManagingWaterfortheEnvironmentDuringDrought:LessonsfromVictoria, Australia, Technical Appendices,” Public Policy Institute of California (San Francisco,June2016),p.8,www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/0616JMR_appendix.pdf.

forweeks inMayandJune:Michael Safi, “Washing Is aPrivilege:Life on theFrontlineofIndia’sWaterCrisis,”TheGuardian,June21,2018.SeealsoMariaAbi-HabibandHariKumar,“DeadlyTensionsRise as India’sWater SupplyRunsDangerouslyLow,”TheNewYork Times,June17,2018.

United States west of Texas: Mesfin M. Mekonnen and Arjen Y. Hoekstra, “Four BillionPeople Facing Severe Water Scarcity,” Science Advances 2, no. 2 (February 2016),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500323.

waterdemandfromtheglobalfoodsystem:WorldBank,“HighandDry,”p.5.

“theimpactsofclimatechange”:Ibid.,p.vi.

regionalGDPcoulddecline:Ibid.,p.13.

listofallarmedconflicts:“WaterConflict,”PacificInstitute:TheWorld’sWater,May2018.www.worldwater.org/water-conflict.

thenumberof cholera cases: International Committee of the Red Cross, “Health Crisis inYemen,”www.icrc.org/en/where-we-work/middle-east/yemen/health-crisis-yemen.

DyingOceans“Undersea”:CarsonwasjustthirtywhenshepublishedheressayinTheAtlantic,stillworkingas abiologist for theFisheriesBureauof theU.S.Fish andWildlife Service. In theoceans, shewrote,“weseepartsoftheplanfallintoplace:thewaterreceivingfromearthandairthesimplematerials,storingthemupuntilthegatheringenergyofthespringsunwakensthesleepingplantsto a burst of dynamic activity, hungry swarms of planktonic animals growing andmultiplyingupontheabundantplants,andthemselvesfallingpreytotheshoalsoffish;all,intheend;toberedissolved into their component substances when the inexorable laws of the sea demand it.Individualelementsarelosttoview,onlytorepairagainandagainindifferentincarnationsinakindofmaterialimmortality.Kindredforcestothosewhich,insomeperiodinconceivablyremote,gavebirthtothatprimevalbitofprotoplasmtossingontheancientseascontinuetheirmightyandincomprehensible work. Against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant oranimalappears,not asdramacomplete in itself,butonlyasabrief interlude inapanoramaofendlesschange.”

70 percent of the earth’s surface: National Ocean Service, “How Much Water Is in theOcean?” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, June 25, 2018,https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html.

seafoodaccounts fornearlya fifth: “AvailabilityandConsumptionofFish,”WorldHealthOrganization,www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index5.html.

fish populations havemigrated: Malin L. Pinsky et al., “Preparing Ocean Governance forSpecies on the Move,” Science 360, no. 6394 (June 2018): pp. 1189–91,

http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/0616JMR_appendix.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500323

http://www.worldwater.org/water-conflict

http://www.icrc.org/en/where-we-work/middle-east/yemen/health-crisis-yemen

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html

http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index5.html

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2360.

13percentoftheoceanundamaged:KendallR.Jonesetal., “TheLocationandProtectionStatusofEarth’sDiminishingMarineWilderness,”CurrentBiology28,no.15(August2018):pp.2506–12,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.010.

partsoftheArctichavebeensotransformed:SigridLindetal.,“ArcticWarmingHotspotintheNorthernBarentsSeaLinkedtoDecliningSea-IceImport,”NatureClimateChange8(June2018):pp.634–39,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0205-y.

morethanafourthofthecarbonemitted:RobMonroe,“HowMuchCO2CantheOceansTake Up?” Scripps Institution of Oceanography, July 13, 2013,https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2013/07/03/how-much-co2-can-the-oceans-take-up.

90percentofglobalwarming’sexcessheat:PeterJ.Gleckleretal.,“Industrial-EraGlobalOceanHeatUptakeDoublesinRecentDecades,”NatureClimateChange6(January2016):pp.394–98,https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2915.

absorbingthreetimesasmuch:Ibid.

90 percent of the energy needs: Australian Government Great Barrier Reef Marine ParkAuthority,“ManagingtheReef.”

GreatBarrierReef:RobinsonMeyer,“Since2016,HalfofAllCoral intheGreatBarrierReefHasDied,”TheAtlantic,April2018.

from2014to2017:MichonScottandRebeccaLindsey,“UnprecedentedThreeYearsofGlobalCoral Bleaching, 2014–2017,” Climate.gov, August 1, 2018, www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/unprecedented-3-years-global-coral-bleaching-2014%E2%80%932017.

“twilightzone”: C.C.Baldwin et al., “Below theMesophotic,”ScientificReports 8, no. 4920(March2018),https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-23067-1.

threaten 90 percent of all reefs: Lauretta Burke et al., “Reefs at Risk Revisited,” WorldResources Institute (Washington, D.C., 2011), p. 6, https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pdf/reefs_at_risk_revisited.pdf.

as much as a quarter of all marine life: Ocean Portal Team, “Corals and Coral Reefs,”Smithsonian,April2018,https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/corals-and-coral-reefs.

foodandincomeforhalfabillion: “CoralEcosystems,”NationalOceanicandAtmosphericAdministration,www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/coral-ecosystems.

worthat least$400million:MichaelW.Beck et al., “TheGlobal FloodProtection SavingsProvided by Coral Reefs,” Nature Communications 9, no. 2186 (June 2018),https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04568-z.

oystersandmusselswillstruggle:KateMadin,“OceanAcidification:ARiskyShellGame,”OceanusMagazine, December 4, 2009, www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-shell-game.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2360

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.010

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0205-y

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2013/07/03/how-much-co2-can-the-oceans-take-up


http://Climate.gov

http://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/unprecedented-3-years-global-coral-bleaching-2014%E2%80%932017

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-23067-1

https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pdf/reefs_at_risk_revisited.pdf

https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/corals-and-coral-reefs

http://www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/coral-ecosystems

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04568-z

http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/ocean-acidification--a-risky-shell-game

fishes’ senseof smell: CosimaPorteus et al., “Near-FutureCO2 Levels Impair theOlfactorySystemofMarineFish,”NatureClimateChange8(July23,2018).

32percentinjusttenyears:GrahamEdgarandTrevorJ.Ward,“AustralianCommercialFishPopulations Drop by a Third over Ten Years,” The Conversation, June 6, 2018,https://theconversation.com/australian-commercial-fish-populations-drop-by-a-third-over-ten-years-97689.

by a factor perhaps as large as a thousand: JurriaanM. De Vos et al., “Estimating theNormalBackgroundRateofSpeciesExtinction,”ConservationBiology,August26,2014.

aneramarkedbyoceanacidification:A.H.AltieriandK.B.Gedan,“ClimateChangeandDeadZones,”GlobalChangeBiology(November10,2014),https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12754.

with no oxygen at all: “SOS: Is Climate Change Suffocating Our Seas?” National ScienceFoundation,www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/deadzones/climatechange.jsp.

a dead zone the size of Florida: Bastien Y. Queste et al., “Physical Controls on OxygenDistributionandDenitrificationPotentialintheNorthWestArabianSea,”GeophysicalResearchLetters45,no.9(May2018).Seealso“Growing‘DeadZone’ConfirmedbyUnderwaterRobots”(pressrelease),UniversityofEastAnglia,April27,2018,www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/growing-dead-zone-confirmed-by-underwater-robots-in-the-gulf-of-oman.

Dramatic declines in ocean oxygen: Peter Brannen, “A Foreboding Similarity in Today’sOceansanda94-Million-Year-OldCatastrophe,”TheAtlantic, January 12, 2018. See alsoDanaNuccitelli, “Burning Coal May Have Caused Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction,” The Guardian,March12,2018.

trip can take a thousand years: National Ocean Service, “Currents: The Global ConveyorBelt,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/05conveyor2.html.

depressedthevelocityoftheGulfStream:StefanRahmstorfetal.,“ExceptionalTwentieth-CenturySlowdown inAtlanticOceanOverturningCirculation,”NatureClimateChange 5 (May2015),https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2554.

“anunprecedentedevent”:Ibid.

twomajor papers: L. Caesar et al., “Observed Fingerprint of a Weakening Atlantic OceanOverturningCirculation,”Nature556(April2018):pp.191–96,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5; David J. R. Thornalley et al., “Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection andAtlantic overturning during the past 150 years,” Nature 556 (April 2018), pp. 227–30,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0007-4.

“tippingpoint”:JosephRomm,“DangerousClimateTippingPointIs‘AboutaCenturyAheadofSchedule’WarnsScientist,”ThinkProgress,April12,2018.

UnbreathableAircognitiveabilitydeclines: JosephRomm,ClimateChange:WhatEveryoneNeeds toKnow

https://theconversation.com/australian-commercial-fish-populations-drop-by-a-third-over-ten-years-97689

https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12754

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/deadzones/climatechange.jsp

http://www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/growing-dead-zone-confirmed-by-underwater-robots-in-the-gulf-of-oman

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/05conveyor2.html


https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0007-4

(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,2016),p.113.

almostaquarterofthosesurveyedinTexas:Ibid.,p.114.

deathsfromdustpollution:PloyAchakulwisutetal.,“DroughtSensitivityinFineDustintheU.S.Southwest,”EnvironmentalResearchLetters13(May2018),https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabf20.

a70percentincrease:G.G.Pfisteretal.,“ProjectionsofFutureSummertimeOzoneovertheU.S.,” Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 119, no. 9 (May 2014): pp. 5559–82,https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020932.

2billionpeopleglobally:Romm,ClimateChange,p.105.

10,000peopledie:DARA,ClimateVulnerabilityMonitor:AGuide to theColdCalculusofaHot Planet, 2nd ed. (Madrid, 2012), p. 17, https://daraint.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CVM2-Low.pdf.JamesHansenhimselfhasmadethiscomparisoninanumberofvenues,includinginaninterviewwithmepublishedinNewYorkas“ClimateScientistJamesHansen:‘ThePlanetCouldBecomeUngovernable,’ ”July12,2017.

researcherscalltheeffect“huge”:XinZhangetal.,“TheImpactofExposuretoAirPollutionon Cognitive Performance,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 155, no. 37(September 2018): pp. 9193–97, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1809474115. Coauthor Xi Chenmade the “huge” comment to a number of news outlets, including The Guardian: DamianCarringtonandLilyKuo,“AirPollutionCauses‘Huge’ReductioninIntelligence,StudyReveals,”August27,2018.

Simpletemperaturerise: JoshuaGoodmanet al., “Heat andLearning” (NationalBureauofEconomicResearchworkingpaperno.24639,May2018),https://doi.org/10.3386/w24639.

increased mental illness in children: Anna Oudin et al., “Association BetweenNeighbourhoodAirPollutionConcentrationsandDispensedMedicationforPsychiatricDisordersinaLargeLongitudinalCohortofSwedishChildrenandAdolescents,”BMJOpen6,no.6(June2016),https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010004.

likelihood of dementia in adults: Hong Chen et al., “Living near Major Roads and theIncidenceofDementia,Parkinson’sDisease,andMultipleSclerosis:APopulation-BasedCohortStudy,”TheLancet389,no.10070(February2017),pp.718–26,https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32399-6.

reduceearningsandlaborforceparticipation:AdamIsenetal.,“EveryBreathYouTake—EveryDollarYou’llMake:TheLong-TermConsequencesoftheCleanAirActof1970”(NationalBureau of Economic Research working paper no. 19858, September 2015),https://doi.org/10.3386/w19858.

E-ZPass: Janet Currie andW. ReedWalker, “Traffic Congestion and InfantHealth: Evidencefrom E-ZPass” (National Bureau of Economic Research working paper no. 15413, April 2012),https://doi.org/10.3386/w15413.

meltingArctic ice remodeledAsianweatherpatterns: Yufei Zou et al., “Arctic Sea Ice,Eurasia Snow, and ExtremeWinter Haze in China,” ScienceAdvances 3, no. 3 (March 2017),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602751.

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aabf20

https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JD020932

https://daraint.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/CVM2-Low.pdf


https://doi.org/10.3386/w24639

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010004

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32399-6



https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1602751

peakAirQuality Indexof993: SteveLeVine, “PollutionScore:Beijing 993,NewYork 19,”Quartz,January14,2013,https://qz.com/43298/pollution-score-beijing-993-new-york-19.

new and unstudied kind of smog: Lijian Han et al., “Multicontaminant Air Pollution inChineseCities,”Bulletin of theWorldHealthOrganization 96 (February 2018): pp. 233–42E,http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.195560; Fred Pearce, “How a ‘Toxic Cocktail’ Is Posing aTroubling Health Risk in China’s Cities,” Yale Environment 360, April 17, 2018,https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-toxic-cocktail-is-posing-a-troubling-health-risk-in-chinese-cities.

1.37milliondeaths:JunLiuetal.,“EstimatingAdultMortalityAttributabletoPM2.5Exposurein China with Assimilated PM2.5 Concentrations Based on a Ground Monitoring Network,”Science of the Total Environment 568 (October 2016): pp. 1253–62,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.165.

theairaroundSanFrancisco:MichelleRobertson,“It’sNotJustFogTurningtheSkyGray:SFAirQualityIsThreeTimesWorsethanBeijing,”SFGate,August23,2018.

InSeattle: InAugust2018, themayor’s office tweeted, “Today’s air qualityhasbeendeclaredUNHEALTHYFORALLGROUPS.Stayinside,limitoutdoorwork,andtrynottodrive.”

AirQuality Indexreached999:Rachel Feltman, “AirPollution inDelhi Is Literally off theCharts,”PopularScience,November8,2016.

morethantwopacksofcigarettes:RichardA.MullerandElizabethA.Muller,“AirPollutionandCigaretteEquivalence,”BerkeleyEarth,http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence.

patientsurgeof20percent:DurgeshNandanJha,“PollutionCausingArthritis toFlareUp,20%RiseinPatientsatHospitals,”TheTimesofIndia,November11,2017.

cars crashed in pileups: “Blinding Smog Causes 24-Vehicle Pile-up on Expressway nearDelhi,”NDTV,November8,2017.

United canceled flights: Catherine Ngai, Jamie Freed, and Henning Gloystein, “UnitedResumesNewark-DelhiFlightsAfterHaltDuetoPoorAirQuality,”Reuters,November12,2017,https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airlines-india-pollution/united-resumes-newark-delhi-flights-after-halt-due-to-poor-air-quality-idUSKBN1DC142?il=0.

even short-term exposure: Benjamin D. Horne et al., “Short-Term Elevation of FineParticulateMatter Air Pollution and Acute Lower Respiratory Infection,”American Journal ofRespiratory and Critical Care Medicine 198, no. 6, (September 2018),https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201709-1883OC.

ninemillionprematuredeaths:PamelaDasandRichardHorton,“Pollution,Health,andthePlanet: Time for Decisive Action,” The Lancet 391, no. 10119 (October 2017): pp. 407–8,https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6.

prevalenceofstroke:KuamKenLeeetal.,“AirPollutionandStroke,”JournalofStroke 20,no.1(January2018):pp.2–11,https://doi.org/10.5853/jos.2017.02894.

https://qz.com/43298/pollution-score-beijing-993-new-york-19

http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.17.195560

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-toxic-cocktail-is-posing-a-troubling-health-risk-in-chinese-cities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.165

http://berkeleyearth.org/air-pollution-and-cigarette-equivalence

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airlines-india-pollution/united-resumes-newark-delhi-flights-after-halt-due-to-poor-air-quality-idUSKBN1DC142?il=0

https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201709-1883OC

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6

https://doi.org/10.5853/jos.2017.02894

heartdisease:R.D.Brooketal.,“ParticulateMatterAirPollutionandCardiovascularDisease:AnUpdatetotheScientificStatementfromtheAmericanHeartAssociation,”Circulation121,no.21(June2010):pp.2331–78,https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0b013e3181dbece1.

cancerofallkinds:KateKellandandStephanieNebehay, “AirPollution aLeadingCauseofCancer—U.N. Agency,” Reuters, October 17, 2013, www.reuters.com/article/us-cancer-pollution/air-pollution-a-leading-cause-of-cancer-u-n-agency-idUSBRE99G0BB20131017.

acuteandchronicrespiratorydiseases:MichaelGuarnieriandJohnR.Balmes,“OutdoorAir Pollution and Asthma,” The Lancet 383, no. 9928 (May 2014),https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60617-6.

adversepregnancyoutcomes:JessicaGlenza,“MillionsofPrematureBirthsCouldBeLinkedtoAirPollution,StudyFinds,”TheGuardian,February16,2017.

worsememory,attention,andvocabulary:NicoleWetsman, “AirPollutionMightBe theNewLead,”PopularScience,April5,2018.

ADHD:OddvarMyhre et al., “EarlyLifeExposure toAirPollutionParticulateMatter (PM) asRiskFactor forAttentionDeficit/HyperactivityDisorder (ADHD):Need forNovelStrategies forMechanismsandCausalities,”ToxicologyandAppliedPharmacology354(September2018):pp.196–214,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.taap.2018.03.015.

autismspectrumdisorders:RaananRaz et al., “AutismSpectrumDisorder andParticulateMatterAirPollutionBefore,During,andAfterPregnancy:ANestedCase-ControlAnalysisWithintheNurses’HealthStudyIICohort,”EnvironmentalHealthPerspectives123,no.3(March2015):pp.264–70,https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1408133.

damagethedevelopmentofneurons: SamBrockmeyer andAmedeoD’Angiulli, “HowAirPollution Alters Brain Development: The Role of Neuroinflammation,” TranslationalNeuroscience7(March2016):pp.24–30,https://doi.org/10.1515/tnsci-2016-0005.

deformyourDNA:FredericaPereraetal.,“ShorterTelomereLengthinCordBloodAssociatedwithPrenatalAirPollutionExposure:Benefitsof Intervention,”Environment International 113(April2018):pp.335–40,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.01.005.

98percentofcities:WorldHealthOrganization, “WHOGlobalUrbanAmbientAirPollutionDatabase,”2016,www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/cities/en.

95percentoftheworld’spopulation:HealthEffectsInstitute,“StateofGlobalAir2018:ASpecialReportonGlobalExposuretoAirPollutionandItsDiseaseBurden”(Boston,2018),p.3,www.stateofglobalair.org/sites/default/files/soga-2018-report.pdf.

more than a million Chinese each year: Aaron J. Cohen et al., “Estimates and 25-YearTrendsoftheGlobalBurdenofDiseaseAttributabletoAmbientAirPollution:AnAnalysisofDatafrom the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015,”TheLancet 389, no. 10082 (May 2017): pp.1907–18,https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30505-6.

one out of six deaths: Das and Horton, “Pollution, Health, and the Planet,”https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6.

“GreatPacificgarbagepatch”:Smithsoniancallsitmoreofa“trashsoup.”

https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0b013e3181dbece1

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cancer-pollution/air-pollution-a-leading-cause-of-cancer-u-n-agency-idUSBRE99G0BB20131017

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60617-6

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.taap.2018.03.015


https://doi.org/10.1515/tnsci-2016-0005

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.01.005

http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/cities/en

http://www.stateofglobalair.org/sites/default/files/soga-2018-report.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30505-6

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6

700,000ofthemcanbereleased:ImogenE.NapperandRichardC.Thompson,“ReleaseofSynthetic Microplastic Fibres from Domestic Washing Machines: Effects of Fabric Type andWashing Conditions,” Marine Pollution Bulletin 112, no. 1–2 (November 2016): pp. 39–45,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.09.025.

a quarter of fish sold: Kat Kerlin, “Plastic for Dinner: A Quarter of Fish Sold at MarketsContainHuman-MadeDebris,”UCDavis, September 24, 2015,www.ucdavis.edu/news/plastic-dinner-quarter-fish-sold-markets-contain-human-made-debris.

11,000 bits each year: Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe and Colin R. Janssen, “Microplastics inBivalvesCultured forHumanConsumption,”EnvironmentalPollution 193 (October 2014): pp.65–70,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2014.06.010.

totalnumberofmarinespecies:CliveCookson,“TheProblemwithPlastic:CanOurOceansSurvive?”FinancialTimes,January23,2018.

73 percent of fish surveyed: Alina M. Wieczorek et al., “Frequency of Microplastics inMesopelagicFishesfromtheNorthwestAtlantic,”Frontiers inMarineScience (February2018),https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00039.

every100gramsofmussels:JianaLeeetal.,“MicroplasticsinMusselsSampledfromCoastalWatersandSupermarketsintheUnitedKingdom,”EnvironmentalPollution241(October2018):pp.35–44,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2018.05.038.

Somefishhavelearnedtoeatplastic:MatthewS.Savocaetal.,“OdoursfromMarinePlasticDebris Induce Food Search Behaviours in a Forage Fish,”Proceedings of the Royal Society BBiologicalSciences284,no.1860(August2017),https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1000.

bits that scientists are now calling “nanoplastics”: Amanda L. Dawson et al., “TurningMicroplastics into Nanoplastics Through Digestive Fragmentation by Antarctic Krill,” NatureCommunications9,no.1001(March2018),https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03465-9.

3.4millionmicroplasticparticles:CourtneyHumphries, “Freshwater’sMacroMicroplasticProblem,”Nova,May11,2017,www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/freshwater-microplastics.

225piecesofplastic:Cookson,“TheProblemwithPlastic.”

sixteen of seventeen tested brands: Ali Karami et al., “The Presence of Microplastics inCommercial Salts from Different Countries,” Scientific Reports 7, no. 46173 (April 2017),https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173.

onemillion times more toxic: 5 Gyres: Science to Solutions, “Take Action: Microbeads,”www.5gyres.org/microbeads.

We can breathe in microplastics: Johnny Gasperi et al., “Microplastics in Air: Are WeBreathingItIn?”CurrentOpinioninEnvironmentalScienceandHealth1(February2018):pp.1–5,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2017.10.002.

94percentofalltestedAmericancities:DanMorrisonandChristopherTyree,“Invisibles:ThePlasticInsideUs,”Orb(2017),https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics.

expectedtotripleby2050:WorldEconomicForum,TheNewPlasticsEconomy:Rethinking

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.09.025

http://www.ucdavis.edu/news/plastic-dinner-quarter-fish-sold-markets-contain-human-made-debris

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2014.06.010

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00039

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2018.05.038

https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1000

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03465-9

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/freshwater-microplastics

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46173

http://www.5gyres.org/microbeads

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2017.10.002

https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics

theFutureofPlastics(Cologny,Switz.:January2016),p.10.

theyreleasemethaneandethylene:Sarah-JeanneRoyeretal.,“ProductionofMethaneandEthylene from Plastic in the Environment,” PLOS One 13, no. 8 (August 2018),https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200574.

Aerosolproductsactuallysuppress:B.H.Samsetetal.,“ClimateImpactsfromaRemovalofAnthropogenicAerosolEmissions,”GeophysicalResearchLetters45,no.2 (January2018):pp.1020–29,https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079.

only heated up two-thirds as much: Samset, “Climate Impacts from a Removal,”https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079. Samset himself says, “Global warming to date is onedegree Celsius (or thereabouts). Our paper showed that industrial/human induced aerosolemissions mask about half a degree of additional warming.” And because of how unevenlywarming isdistributedacross theplanet,headds, “wenote that in twomodels,Arcticwarmingduetoaerosolreductionsreaches4°Cinsomelocations.”

“Catch-22”: P. J. Crutzen, “Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: AContribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?” Climatic Change 77 (2006): pp. 211–19,https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y.

“devil’s bargain”: Eric Holthaus, “Devil’s Bargain,” Grist, February 8, 2018,https://grist.org/article/geoengineering-climate-change-air-pollution-save-planet.

millionsofliveseachyear:ThisestimateofdeathsfromairpollutioncomesfromtheWorldHealthOrganization.

tens of thousands of additional premature deaths: Sebastian D. Eastham et al.,“Quantifying the Impact of Sulfate Geoengineering on Mortality from Air Quality and UV-BExposure,” Atmospheric Environment 187 (August 2018): pp. 424–34,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.05.047.

rapidlydry theAmazon: ChristopherH.Trisos et al., “PotentiallyDangerousConsequencesforBiodiversityofSolarGeoengineeringImplementationandTermination,”NatureEcologyandEvolution2(January2018),pp.472–82,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0431-0.

negative effect on plant growth: Jonathan Proctor et al., “Estimating Global AgriculturalEffects of GeoengineeringUsing Volcanic Eruptions,”Nature 560 (August 2018): pp. 480–83,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0417-3.

PlaguesofWarmingdiseasesthathavenotcirculated:JasminFox-Skelly,“ThereAreDiseasesHiddeninIce,andThey Are Waking Up,” BBC, May 4, 2017, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up.

“extremophile” bacteria: “NASA Finds Life at ‘Extremes,’ ” NASA, February 24, 2005,www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/extremophile1.html.

an8-million-year-oldbug:KayD.Bidleetal.,“FossilGenesandMicrobesintheOldestIceonEarth,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademiesofScience104,no.33(August2007):pp.13455–


https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079

https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076079

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y

https://grist.org/article/geoengineering-climate-change-air-pollution-save-planet

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.05.047

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0431-0

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0417-3

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases-hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/extremophile1.html

60,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0702196104.

aRussianscientistself-injected:JordanPearson,“MeettheScientistWhoInjectedHimselfwith 3.5 Million-Year-Old Bacteria,” Motherboard, December 9, 2015,https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp3gg7/meet-the-scientist-who-injected-himself-with-35-million-year-old-bacteria.

awormthathadbeenfrozen:MikeMcRae,“ATinyWormFrozeninSiberianPermafrostfor42,000 Years Was Just Brought Back to Life,” Science Alert, July 27, 2018,www.sciencealert.com/40-000-year-old-nematodes-revived-siberian-permafrost.

remnantsofthe1918flu:JefferyK.Taubenbergeretal., “DiscoveryandCharacterizationofthe1918PandemicInfluenzaVirusinHistoricalContext,”AntiviralTherapy12(2007):pp.581–91.

infectedasmanyas500millionandkilledasmanyas50million:CentersforDiseaseControl and Prevention, “Remembering the 1918 Influenza Pandemic,”www.cdc.gov/features/1918-flu-pandemic/index.html; Jeffery K. Taubenberger and DavidMorens, “1918 Influenza:TheMotherofAllPandemics,”EmergingInfectiousDiseases 12,no.1(January2006):pp.15–22,https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1201.050979.

3percent of theworld’s population: U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Estimates ofWorldPopulation,” www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.

smallpox:“ExpertsWarnofThreatofBorn-AgainSmallpoxfromOldSiberianGraveyards,”TheSiberian Times, August 12, 2016, https://siberiantimes.com/science/opinion/features/f0249-experts-warn-of-threat-of-born-again-smallpox-from-old-siberian-graveyards.

bubonicplague:Fox-Skelly,“ThereAreDiseasesHiddeninIce.”

amongmanyotherdiseases:RobinsonMeyer,“TheZombieDiseasesofClimateChange,”TheAtlantic,November6,2017.

Butin2016,aboy:MichaeleenDoucleff,“AnthraxOutbreakinRussiaThoughttoBeResultofThawing Permafrost,” NPR, August 3, 2016,www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/488400947/anthrax-outbreak-in-russia-thought-to-be-result-of-thawing-permafrost.

Haemagogus and Sabethes mosquitoes: World Health Organization, “Yellow Fever—Brazil,”March9,2018,www.who.int/csr/don/09-march-2018-yellow-fever-brazil.

morethanthirtymillionpeople:Ibid.

killsbetween3and8percent:ShastaDarlingtonandDonaldG.McNeilJr., “YellowFeverCirclesBrazil’sHugeCities,”TheNewYorkTimes,March8,2018.

Malaria alone kills: World Health Organization, “Number of Malaria Deaths,”www.who.int/gho/malaria/epidemic/deaths.SeealsoCentersforDiseaseControlandPrevention,“Epidemiology,”www.cdc.gov/dengue/epidemiology/index.html.

diseasemutation: “ZikaMicrocephaly Linked to SingleMutation,”Nature, October 3, 2017,


https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp3gg7/meet-the-scientist-who-injected-himself-with-35-million-year-old-bacteria

http://www.sciencealert.com/40-000-year-old-nematodes-revived-siberian-permafrost

http://www.cdc.gov/features/1918-flu-pandemic/index.html

https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1201.050979


https://siberiantimes.com/science/opinion/features/f0249-experts-warn-of-threat-of-born-again-smallpox-from-old-siberian-graveyards

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/03/488400947/anthrax-outbreak-in-russia-thought-to-be-result-of-thawing-permafrost

http://www.who.int/csr/don/09-march-2018-yellow-fever-brazil

http://www.who.int/gho/malaria/epidemic/deaths

http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/epidemiology/index.html

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-04093-x.

appeartocausebirthdefects:LingYuanetal.,“ASingleMutationintheprMProteinofZikaVirusContributes toFetalMicrocephaly,”Science358,no.6365(November2017):pp.933–36,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam7120.

whenanotherdisease ispresent: DeclanButler, “Brazil AsksWhether ZikaActs Alone toCause Birth Defects,”Nature, July 25, 2016, www.nature.com/news/brazil-asks-whether-zika-acts-alone-to-cause-birth-defects-1.20309.

WorldBankestimatesthatby2030:WorldBankGroup’sClimateChangeandDevelopmentSeries,“ShockWaves:ManagingtheImpactsofClimateChangeonPoverty”(Washington,D.C.,2016), p. 119,https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22787/9781464806735.pdf.

Lyme case counts have spiked: Mary Beth Pfeiffer, Lyme: The First Epidemic of ClimateChange(Washington,D.C.:IslandPress,2018),pp.3–13.

300,000newinfectionseachyear:CentersforDiseaseControlandPrevention,“LymeandOther Tickborne Diseases,” www.cdc.gov/media/dpk/diseases-and-conditions/lyme-disease/index.html.

fleashave tripled in theU.S.: Centers forDisease Control and Prevention, “Illnesses fromMosquito, Tick, and Flea Bites Increasing in the U.S.,” May 1, 2018,www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0501-vs-vector-borne.html.

encounteringticksforthefirsttime:AvichaiScherandLaurenDunn,“ ‘CitizenScientists’Take On Growing Threat of Tick-Borne Diseases,” NBC News, July 12, 2018,www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/citizen-scientists-take-growing-threat-tick-borne-diseases-n890996.

winter tickshelpeddrop themoosepopulation: Center forBiologicalDiversity, “Savingthe Midwestern Moose,”www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/midwestern_moose/index.html.

90,000engorgedticks:KatieBurton,“Climate-ChangeTriggeredTicksCausingRisein‘GhostMoose,’ ” Geographical, November 27, 2018,http://geographical.co.uk/nature/wildlife/item/3008-ghost-moose.

amillionyet-to-be-discoveredviruses:DennisCarroll etal., “TheGlobalViromeProject,”Science359,no.6378(February2018):pp.872–74,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7463.

Morethan99percent:NathanCollins,“StanfordStudyIndicatesThatMorethan99Percentof the Microbes Inside Us Are Unknown to Science,” Stanford News, August 22, 2017,https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/22/nearly-microbes-inside-us-unknown-science.

thecaseofthesaiga:EdYong,“WhyDidTwo-ThirdsofTheseWeirdAntelopeSuddenlyDropDead?”TheAtlantic,January17,2018.

nearly two-thirdsof theglobalpopulation: RichardA.Kock et al., “Saigas on theBrink:MultidisciplinaryAnalysisoftheFactorsInfluencingMassMortalityEvents,”ScienceAdvances4,no.1(January2018),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao2314.

http://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-04093-x

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam7120

http://www.nature.com/news/brazil-asks-whether-zika-acts-alone-to-cause-birth-defects-1.20309

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22787/9781464806735.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/media/dpk/diseases-and-conditions/lyme-disease/index.html

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0501-vs-vector-borne.html

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/citizen-scientists-take-growing-threat-tick-borne-diseases-n890996

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/midwestern_moose/index.html

http://geographical.co.uk/nature/wildlife/item/3008-ghost-moose

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7463

https://news.stanford.edu/2017/08/22/nearly-microbes-inside-us-unknown-science

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao2314

EconomicCollapse“WhoeversaysIndustrialRevolution”:EricHobsbawm,IndustryandEmpire:TheBirthoftheIndustrialRevolution(NewYork:TheNewPress,1999),p.34.

about one percentage point: Solomon Hsiang et al., “Estimating Economic Damage fromClimate Change in the United States,” Science 356, no. 6345 (June 2017): 1362–69,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369.

23percentlossinpercapita:MarshallBurkeetal.,“GlobalNon-LinearEffectofTemperatureon Economic Production,” Nature 527 (October 2015): pp. 235–39,https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15725.

Thereisa51percentchance:MarshallBurke, “EconomicImpactofClimateChangeon theWorld,”http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php.

ateamledbyThomasStoerk:ThomasStoerket al., “Recommendations for Improving theTreatment of Risk and Uncertainty in Economic Estimates of Climate Impacts in the SixthIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report,” Review of EnvironmentalEconomicsandPolicy12,no.2(August2018):pp.371–76,https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rey005.

global boom of the early 1960s: World Bank, “GDP Growth (Annual %),”https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG.

There are places that benefit: Burke, “Economic Impact of Climate Change,”http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php.

India alone, one study proposed: Katharine Ricke et al., “Country-Level Social Cost ofCarbon,” Nature Climate Change 8 (September 2018): pp. 895–900,http://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0282-y.

800million:World Bank, “SouthAsia’sHotspots: Impacts of Temperature and PrecipitationChangesonLivingStandards”(Washington,D.C.,2018),p.xi.

draggedintoextremepoverty:WorldBankGroup’sClimateChangeandDevelopmentSeries,“ShockWaves:ManagingtheImpactsofClimateChangeonPoverty”(Washington,D.C.,2016),p.xi,https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22787/9781464806735.pdf.

chronicfloodingby2100:UnionofConcernedScientists,“Underwater:RisingSeas,ChronicFloods, and the Implications for U.S. Coastal Real Estate” (Cambridge, MA, 2018), p. 5,www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications.

$30billion inNewJersey:Union of Concerned Scientists, “NewStudy Finds 251,000NewJersey Homes Worth $107 Billion Will Be at Risk from Tidal Flooding,” June 18, 2018,www.ucsusa.org/press/2018/new-study-finds-251000-new-jersey-homes-worth-107-billion-will-be-risk-tidal-flooding#.W-o1FehKg2x.

whichisnowcommonplace:ZachWichter,“TooHottoFly?ClimateChangeMayTakeaTollonFlying,”TheNewYorkTimes,June20,2017.

Everyround-tripplaneticket:DirkNotzandJulienneStroeve,“ObservedArcticSea-IceLoss



http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php

https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rey005

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

http://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php

http://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0282-y

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/22787/9781464806735.pdf

http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications

http://www.ucsusa.org/press/2018/new-study-finds-251000-new-jersey-homes-worth-107-billion-will-be-risk-tidal-flooding#.W-o1FehKg2x

DirectlyFollowsAnthropogenicCO2Emission,”Science354,no.6313(November2016):pp.747–50,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2345.

FromSwitzerland toFinland:OlavVilnes et al., “FromFinland toSwitzerland—FirmsCutOutput Amid Heatwave,”Montel News, July 27, 2018, www.montelnews.com/en/story/from-finland-to-switzerland--firms-cut-output-amid-heatwave/921390.

670million lost power: Jim Yardley and Gardiner Harris, “Second Day of Power FailuresCripplesWideSwathofIndia,”TheNewYorkTimes,July31,2012.

13 degrees Celsius: Burke, “Global Non-Linear Effect of Temperature,”https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15725;authorinterviewwithMarshallBurke.

Already-hotcountries:WorldBank,“SouthAsia’sHotspots.”

up to 20 percent: Hsiang, “Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change,”https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369.

“economicrippleeffect”: ZhengtaoZhanget al., “Analysisof theEconomicRippleEffectoftheUnited States on theWorldDue to FutureClimateChange,”Earth’sFuture 6, no. 6 (June2018):pp.828–40,https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000839.

negative$26trillion:TheNewClimateEconomy,“UnlockingtheInclusiveGrowthStoryofthe21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times” (Washington, D.C.: GlobalCommission on the Economy and Climate, September 2018), p. 8,https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018.

growthconsequencesofsomescenarios:MarshallBurkeetal.,“LargePotentialReductionin Economic Damages Under U.N. Mitigation Targets,”Nature 557 (May 2018): pp. 549–53,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0071-9.

ClimateConflictforeveryhalfdegreeofwarming:SolomonM.Hsiangetal., “Quantifying theInfluenceofClimate on Human Conflict,” Science 341, no. 6151 (September 2013),https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367.

elevatedAfrica’sriskofconflict:TammaA.CarletonandSolomonM.Hsiang, “Social andEconomic Impacts of Climate,” Science 353, no. 6304 (September 2016),http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9837.

393,000additionaldeaths:MarshallB.Burkeetal.,“WarmingIncreasestheRiskofCivilWarinAfrica,”Proceedingsof theNationalAcademyofSciences 106,no.49(December2009):pp.20670–74, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0907998106. This would represent a 54 percentincrease.

ThedrowningofAmericannavybases:UnionofConcernedScientists,“TheU.S.Militaryonthe Front Lines of Rising Seas” (Cambridge, MA, 2016), www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/sea-level-rise-flooding-us-military-bases#.W-pKUuhKg2x.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aag2345

http://www.montelnews.com/en/story/from-finland-to-switzerland--firms-cut-output-amid-heatwave/921390



https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000839

https://newclimateeconomy.report/2018

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0071-9

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367

http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9837


http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/sea-level-rise-flooding-us-military-bases#.W-pKUuhKg2x

its islands will be underwater: “We show that, on the basis of current greenhouse-gasemission rates, the nonlinear interactions between sea-level rise andwave dynamics over reefswillleadtotheannualwave-drivenoverwashofmostatollislandsbythemid-21stcentury.Thisannualfloodingwillresultintheislandsbecominguninhabitablebecauseoffrequentdamagetoinfrastructureandtheinabilityoftheirfreshwateraquiferstorecoverbetweenoverwashevents.”CurtD.Storlazzi etal., “MostAtollsWillBeUninhabitableby theMid-21stCenturyBecauseofSea-Level Rise ExacerbatingWave-Driven Flooding,” Science Advances 4, no. 4 (April 2018),https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap9741.

theworld’slargestnuclearwastesite:KimWall,ColeenJose,andJanHenrikHinzel,“ThePoisonandtheTomb:OneFamily’sJourneytoTheirContaminatedHome,”Mashable,February25,2018.

FromBokoHaramtoISIS:KatharinaNettandLukasRüttinger,“Insurgency,TerrorismandOrganisedCrimeinaWarmingClimate:AnalysingtheLinksBetweenClimateChangeandNon-StateArmedGroups,”ClimateDiplomacy(Berlin:Adelphi,October2016).

23percentofconflict:Carl-FriedrichSchleussneretal., “Armed-ConflictRisksEnhancedbyClimate-RelatedDisasters in Ethnically Fractionalized Countries,”Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences 113, no. 33 (August 2016): pp. 9216–21,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1601611113.

“extremerisk”:VeriskMaplecroft,“ClimateChangeandEnvironmentalRiskAtlas2015”(Bath,UK, October 2014), www.maplecroft.com/portfolio/new-analysis/2014/10/29/climate-change-and-lack-food-security-multiply-risks-conflict-and-civil-unrest-32-countries-maplecroft.

Whataccountsfortherelationship:ChristianParenti,TropicofChaos:ClimateChangeandtheNewGeographyofViolence(NewYork:NationBooks,2011).

theforcedmigrationthatcanresult:RafaelReuveny,“ClimateChange–InducedMigrationand Violent Conflict,” Political Geography 26, no. 6 (August 2007): pp. 656–73,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.05.001.

seventymilliondisplaced: AdrianEdwards, “ForcedDisplacement atRecord68.5Million,”UNHCR: The U.N. Refugee Agency, June 19, 2018, www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2018/6/5b222c494/forced-displacement-record-685-million.html.

Egypt,Akkadia,Rome:WilliamWan,“AncientEgypt’sRulersMishandledClimateDisasters.ThenthePeopleRevolted,”TheWashingtonPost,October17,2017;H.M.Cullenetal.,“ClimateChangeandtheCollapseoftheAkkadianEmpire:EvidencefromtheDeepSea,”Geology28,no.4(April 2000): pp. 379–82; KyleHarper, “HowClimate Change andDiseaseHelped the Fall ofRome,” Aeon, December 15, 2017, https://aeon.co/ideas/how-climate-change-and-disease-helped-the-fall-of-rome.

sixcategories:CenterforClimateandSecurity,“EpicentersofClimateandSecurity:TheNewGeostrategic Landscape of the Anthropocene” (Washington, D.C., June 2017), pp. 12–17,https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/1_eroding-sovereignty.pdf.

linguistStevenPinker: ForPinker’s case for theworld’s improvement, seeBetterAngels ofOurNature:WhyViolenceHasDeclined(NewYork:Viking,2012);forhisargumentaboutwhywe can’t appreciate that improvement, seeEnlightenmentNow:TheCase forReason, Science,

https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aap9741


http://www.maplecroft.com/portfolio/new-analysis/2014/10/29/climate-change-and-lack-food-security-multiply-risks-conflict-and-civil-unrest-32-countries-maplecroft

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.05.001

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/stories/2018/6/5b222c494/forced-displacement-record-685-million.html

https://aeon.co/ideas/how-climate-change-and-disease-helped-the-fall-of-rome

https://climateandsecurity.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/1_eroding-sovereignty.pdf

Humanism,andProgress(NewYork:Viking,2018).

increases violent crime rates: Leah H. Schinasi and Ghassan B. Hamra, “A Time SeriesAnalysis of Associations Between Daily Temperature and Crime Events in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,” Journal of Urban Health 94, no. 6 (December 2017): pp. 892–900,http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0181-y.

swearingonsocialmedia:PatrickBaylis,“TemperatureandTemperament:EvidencefromaBillion Tweets” (Energy Institute at Haas working paper, November 2015),https://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/research/papers/WP265.pdf.

amajor leaguepitcher: Richard P. Larrick et al., “Temper, Temperature, and Temptation,”Psychological Sciences 22, no. 4 (February 2011): pp. 423–28,http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611399292.

the longer driverswill honk: Douglas T. Kenrick et al., “Ambient Temperature and HornHonking: A Field Study of the Heat/Aggression Relationship,” Environment and Behavior(March1986),https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916586182002.

policeofficersaremorelikelytofire:AldertVrijetal.,“AggressionofPoliceOfficersasaFunction of Temperature: An Experiment with the Fire Arms Training System,” Journal ofCommunity and Applied Social Psychology 4, no. 5 (December 1994): pp. 365–70,https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2450040505.

anadditional 22,000murders:Matthew Ranson, “Crime,Weather, and Climate Change,”Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 67, no. 3 (May 2014): pp. 274–302,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2013.11.008.

everysinglecrimecategory:JacksonG.Luetal., “PollutedMorality:AirPollutionPredictsCriminalActivityandUnethicalBehavior,”PsychologicalScience29,no.3(February2018):pp.340–55,https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617735807.

“foodinsecure”:NettandRüttinger,“Insurgency,TerrorismandOrganisedCrime,”p.37.

organizedcrime…exploded:Ibid.,p.39.

Sicilianmafiawasproducedbydrought:DaronAcemoglu,GiuseppeDeFeo,andGiacomoDeLuca,“WeakStates:CausesandConsequencesoftheSicilianMafia,”VOXCEPRPolicyPortal,March2,2018,https://voxeu.org/article/causes-and-consequences-sicilian-mafia.

fifth-highest homicide rate: Nett and Rüttinger, “Insurgency, Terrorism and OrganisedCrime,”p.35.

secondmost dangerous country in theworld for children: UNICEF,Hidden in PlainSight:AStatisticalAnalysisofViolenceAgainstChildren(NewYork:UnitedNationsChildren’sFund, 2014), p. 35,http://files.unicef.org/publications/files/Hidden_in_plain_sight_statistical_analysis_EN_3_Sept_2014.pdf

couldmakebothofthemungrowable:PabloImbachetal.,“CouplingofPollinationServicesandCoffeeSuitability fromClimateChange,”Proceedingsof theNationalAcademyofSciences114,no.39(September2017):pp.10438–42,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617940114;MartinaK. Linnenluecke et al., “Implications of Climate Change for the Sugarcane Industry,” WIREs

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0181-y

https://ei.haas.berkeley.edu/research/papers/WP265.pdf

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611399292

https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916586182002

https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2450040505

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2013.11.008

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617735807

https://voxeu.org/article/causes-and-consequences-sicilian-mafia

http://files.unicef.org/publications/files/Hidden_in_plain_sight_statistical_analysis_EN_3_Sept_2014.pdf


ClimateChange9,no.1(January–February2018),https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.498.

“Systems”22millionofthem: “InPhotos:ClimateChange,DisastersandDisplacement,”UNHCR:TheU.N.RefugeeAgency,January1,2015,www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html.

60,000climatemigrants:EmilySchmallandFrankBajak,“FEMASeesTrailersOnlyasLastResort After Harvey, Irma,” Associated Press, September 10, 2017,https://apnews.com/7716fb84835b48808839fbc888e96fb7.

the evacuation of nearly 7million: Greg Allen, “Lessons from Hurricane Irma: When toEvacuate and When to Shelter in Place,” NPR, June 1, 2018,www.npr.org/2018/06/01/615293318/lessons-from-hurricane-irma-when-to-evacuate-and-when-to-shelter-in-place.

13millionAmericans: AndrewD. King and Luke J.Harrington, “The Inequality of ClimateChangefrom1.5to2°CofGlobalWarming,”GeophysicalResearchLetters45,no.10(May2018):pp.5030–33,https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078430.

greatestintheworld’sleastdeveloped:Ibid.

In2011,asingleheatwave:KatinkaX.Ruthrof et al., “SubcontinentalHeatWaveTriggersTerrestrial andMarine, Multi-Taxa Responses,” Scientific Reports 8 (August 2018): p. 13094,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31236-5.

“currentandexistentialnationalsecurityrisk”:ParliamentofAustralia,“ImplicationsofClimate Change for Australia’s National Security, Final Report, Chapter 2,”www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/Nationalsecurity/Final%20Report/c02BenDoherty, “ClimateChange an ‘Existential SecurityRisk’ toAustralia, Senate Inquiry Says.”TheGuardian,May17,2018.

Morethan140million:WorldBank,Groundswell:PreparingforInternalClimateMigration(Washington,D.C.,2018),p.xix,https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461.

as many as a billion migrants: International Organization for Migration, “Migration,EnvironmentandClimateChange:Assessing theEvidence,”UnitedNations (Geneva,2009),p.43.

more than two-thirds of outbreaks: Frank C. Curriero et al., “The Association BetweenExtreme Precipitation and Waterborne Disease Outbreaks in the United States, 1948–1994,”American Journal of Public Health 91, no. 8 (August 2001),https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.91.8.1194.

more than400,000 inMilwaukee:WilliamR.MacKenzie et al., “AMassiveOutbreak inMilwaukee of Cryptosporidium Infection Transmitted Through the Public Water Supply,” TheNew England Journal of Medicine 331 (July 1994): pp. 161–67,https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199407213310304.

inVietnam,thosewhopassed:ThuanQ.Thai andEvangelosM.Falaris, “ChildSchooling,ChildHealth,andRainfallShocks:EvidencefromRuralVietnam”(MaxPlanckInstituteworking

https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.498

http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate-change-and-disasters.html

https://apnews.com/7716fb84835b48808839fbc888e96fb7

http://www.npr.org/2018/06/01/615293318/lessons-from-hurricane-irma-when-to-evacuate-and-when-to-shelter-in-place

https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078430

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31236-5

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Foreign_Affairs_Defence_and_Trade/Nationalsecurity/Final%20Report/c02

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461

https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.91.8.1194

https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199407213310304

paper,September2011),www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2011-011.pdf.

In India, the same cycle-of-poverty pattern: Santosh Kumar, Ramona Molitor, andSebastianVollmer,“ChildrenofDrought:RainfallShocksandEarlyChildHealthinRuralIndia”(working paper, 2014); Santosh Kumar and Sebastian Vollmer, “Drought and Early ChildhoodHealthinRuralIndia,”PopulationandDevelopmentReview(2016).

diminishingcognitiveability:R.K.Phalkeyetal., “SystematicReviewofCurrentEfforts toQuantify the Impacts of Climate Change on Undernutrition,” Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences 112, no. 33 (August 2015): pp. E4522–29,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1409769112; CharmianM. Bennett and Sharon Friel, “Impacts ofClimateChangeonInequities inChildHealth,”Children 1,no.3(December2014):pp.461–73,https://doi.org/10.3390/children1030461;IffatGhanietal.,“ClimateChangeandItsImpactonNutritionalStatusandHealthofChildren,”BritishJournalofAppliedScienceandTechnology21,no. 2 (2017): pp. 1–15, https://doi.org/10.9734/BJAST/2017/33276; Kristina Reinhardt andJessica Fanzo, “Addressing Chronic Malnutrition Through Multi-Sectoral, SustainableApproaches,” Frontiers in Nutrition 1, no. 13 (August 2014),https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2014.00013.

InEcuador,climatedamage:RamFishmanetal.,“Long-TermImpactsofHighTemperaturesonEconomicProductivity” (GeorgeWashingtonUniversity Institute for InternationalEconomicPolicy working paper, October 2015), https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/gwiwpaper/2015-18.htm.

measurabledeclines:AdamIsenetal., “RelationshipBetweenSeasonofBirth,TemperatureExposure,andLaterLifeWell-Being,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyofSciences114,no.51(December2017):pp.13447–52,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702436114.

An enormous study in Taiwan: C. R. Jung et al., “Ozone, ParticulateMatter, and Newly-DiagnosedAlzheimer’sDisease,” Journal of Alzheimer’sDisease 44, no. 2 (2015): pp. 573–84,https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-140855.

Similar patterns: Emily Underwood, “The Polluted Brain,” Science 355, no. 6323 (January2017):pp.342–45,https://doi.org/10.1126/science.355.6323.342.

“Wanttofightclimatechange?”:DamianCarrington,“WanttoFightClimateChange?HaveFewerChildren,”TheGuardian,July12,2017.

“Addthistothelistofdecisions”:MaggieAstor,“NoChildrenBecauseofClimateChange?SomePeopleAreConsideringIt,”TheNewYorkTimes,February5,2018.

a half of all those exposed: Janna Trombley et al., “Climate Change and Mental Health,”American Journal of Nursing 117, no. 4 (April 2017): pp. 44–52,https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515232.51795.fa.

InEngland,flooding:M.Reacheretal.,“HealthImpactsofFloodinginLewes,”CommunicableDiseaseandPublicHealth7,no.1(March2004):pp.39–46.

aftermath of Hurricane Katrina: Mary Alice Mills et al., “Trauma and Stress ResponseAmongHurricaneKatrinaEvacuees,”American Journal of PublicHealth 97 (April 2007): pp.S116-23,https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2006.086678.

http://www.demogr.mpg.de/papers/working/wp-2011-011.pdf


https://doi.org/10.3390/children1030461

https://doi.org/10.9734/BJAST/2017/33276

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2014.00013

https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/gwiwpaper/2015-18.htm


https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-140855

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.355.6323.342

https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NAJ.0000515232.51795.fa

https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2006.086678

Wildfires, curiously:GrantN.Marshall et al., “PsychiatricDisordersAmongAdults SeekingEmergencyDisasterAssistanceAfteraWildland-UrbanInterfaceFire,”PsychiatricServices 58,no.4(April2007):pp.509–14,https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.4.509.

“Idon’tknowofasinglescientist”:KevinJ.DoyleandLiseVanSusteren,ThePsychologicalEffectsofGlobalWarmingontheUnitedStates:AndWhytheU.S.MentalHealthCareSystemIsNot Adequately Prepared (Merrifield, VA: National Wildlife Federation, 2012), p. 19,www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Psych_Effects_Climate_Change_Full_3_23.ashx.

“climatedepression”:MadeleineThomas,“ClimateDepressionIsReal,JustAskaScientist,”Grist,October28,2014,https://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-depression-is-for-real-just-ask-a-scientist.

“environmental grief”: Jordan Rosenfeld, “Facing Down ‘Environmental Grief,’ ” ScientificAmerican,July21,2016.

HurricaneAndrewhitFlorida: ErnestoCaffo andCarlottaBelaise, “Violence andTrauma:Evidence-BasedAssessmentandInterventioninChildrenandAdolescents:ASystematicReview,”in The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents: An Area of Global Neglect, ed. HelmutRehmschmidtetal.(WestSussex,Eng.:Wiley,2007),p.141.

soldiers returning from war: “PTSD: A Growing Epidemic,” NIH MedlinePlus 4, no. 1(2009): pp. 10–14, https://medlineplus.gov/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html.

One especially detailed study: Armen K. Goenjian et al., “Posttraumatic Stress andDepressiveReactionsAmongNicaraguanAdolescentsAfterHurricaneMitch,”AmericanJournalofPsychiatry158,no.5(May2001):pp.788–94,https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.5.788.

both theonset and the severity:HarisMajeed and Jonathan Lee, “The Impact of ClimateChangeonYouthDepressionandMentalHealth,”TheLancet 1,no.3 (June2017):pp.E94–95,https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30045-1.

Rising temperature and humidity: S. Vida, “Relationship Between Ambient Temperatureand Humidity and Visits to Mental Health Emergency Departments in Quebec,” PsychiatricServices63,no.11(November2012):pp.1150–53,https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201100485.

spikesinproperinpatientadmissions:AlanaHansenetal.,“TheEffectofHeatWavesonMentalHealth inaTemperateAustralianCity,”EnvironmentalHealthPerspectives 116,no. 10(October2008):pp.1369–75,https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.11339.

Schizophrenics, especially: Roni Shiloh et al., “A Significant Correlation Between WardTemperatureandtheSeverityofSymptomsinSchizophreniaInpatients:ALongitudinalStudy,”European Neuropsychopharmacology 17, no. 6–7 (May–June 2007): pp. 478–82,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2006.12.001.

mooddisorders,anxietydisorders:Hansen,“TheEffectofHeatWavesonMentalHealth,”https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.11339.

Each increase of a single degree: Marshall Burke et al., “Higher Temperatures IncreaseSuicideRatesintheUnitedStatesandMexico,”NatureClimateChange8(July2018):pp.723–

https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2007.58.4.509

http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Psych_Effects_Climate_Change_Full_3_23.ashx

https://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-depression-is-for-real-just-ask-a-scientist

https://medlineplus.gov/magazine/issues/winter09/articles/winter09pg10-14.html

https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.5.788

https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(17)30045-1

https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201100485


https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2006.12.001


29,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0222-x.

59,000suicides: Tamma Carleton, “Crop-Damaging Temperatures Increase Suicide Rates inIndia,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyoftheSciences114,no.33(August2017):pp.8746–51,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1701354114.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0222-x


III.TheClimateKaleidoscopeStorytellingOn-screen,climatedevastation:One good academic survey of this phenomenon is E.AnnKaplan,ClimateTrauma:ForeseeingtheFutureinDystopianFilmandFiction(NewBrunswick,NJ:RutgersUniversityPress,2015).

“Dying Earth”: The genre really picks up steam with H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine,eventuallyfindinganaturalhomeinpostapocalypticcinema,e.g.,TheWorld,theFlesh,andtheDevilandTheDayAfter.

“climateexistentialism”:“Nihilismanddefeatisminresponsetotheclimatecrisisisn’teitherbraveorinsightfulandit’sdeeplyweirdtoseeittreatedassomebeautiful,poeticintervention,”KateAronoffhaswritten,onTwitter,referringprobablytothewritingofRoyScranton.“Climatechangeismanythings.Onethingit’snotisavehicleforliterarymentoopineontheirexistentialdread and then dress it up as science.” Seehttps://twitter.com/KateAronoff/status/1035022145565470725.

literary theorists call metanarrative: See, especially, Jean-Francois Lyotard, ThePostmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1984).

assurelyasscrewballcomedies:AgreataccountofthisisMorrisDickstein,DancingintheDark:ACulturalHistoryoftheGreatDepression(NewYork:W.W.Norton,2009).

The Great Derangement: Ghosh’s book (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016) waspublishedwiththevividsubtitleClimateChangeandtheUnthinkable.

“cli-fi”:Thetermhasgainedcurrencyonlyoverthelastdecadeorso,butexamplesofthegenre—typicallyspeculativefictiondrivenbyclimateconditions—datebackatleastasfarasJ.G.Ballard(TheWindfromNowhere,TheDrownedWorld,TheBurningWorld)andpossiblytoH.G.Wells(TheTimeMachine)andJulesVerne(ThePurchaseoftheNorthPole).Inotherwords,it’smoreor less as old as the science fiction genre, from which it draws its name. Margaret Atwood’sMaddAddam trilogy (which also includes The Year of the Flood andOryx and Crake) surelyqualifies,asdoesevenIanMcEwan’sSolar.AllofthesetestGhosh’sthesis,sincetheyareclimate-powered novels with the narrative architecture of the classic bourgeois novel, more or less.CormacMcCarthy’sTheRoadisabitofadifferentbeast—aclimateepic.Butthosewhothesedaystalkup cli-fi as a genre seem tomean somethingmore…well,genre—for instance,KimStanleyRobinson’sScience in the Capital trilogy and, later,NewYork2140. Going back further, J. G.Ballard’sDrownedWorldtrilogyisanexquisiteexample.

especiallyinconventionalnovels:Ghoshisdealingherewithaverynarrowdefinitionofthearchetypal novel, emphasizing stories of protagonist journeys through emerging bourgeoissystems.Andwhileheraises theColdWarand9/11asexamplesofreal-worldstories thathaveinspirednovelsinthattradition,it’snotreallythecasethatthebestnovels,andfilms,abouttheendoftheColdWararetheonesthatplacetheircharactersverypreciselyonamapofthe1989world, like butterflies pinned to a screen. And the ones that have approached 9/11 have beenmostlyduds,aswell,thoughanentiregeneration,especiallythemalehalf,sometimesseemedto

https://twitter.com/KateAronoff/status/1035022145565470725

feel called to literary action by it. “If September 11 had to happen,”MartinAmiswrote inTheSecondPlane,hismeditationonthefateoftheimaginationintheageofterror,“thenIamnotatall sorry that it happened inmy lifetime.”GlobalwarminghasnotmadeMartinAmis feel likeGeorgeOrwell,asfarasIknow,thoughithasspawnedawholesmallgenreofmourningessay:thefatalistic,quasi-poetic,first-personecologicallamentation—exemplifiedbyRoyScranton,withhisLearningtoDieintheAnthropoceneandWe’reDoomed.NowWhat?—whichmaybetheclosestthatclimatechangestoriescangettotheself-mythologizingmoralclarityofOrwell.

“managainstnature”:Thisisoneofthearchetypal“conflictnarratives.”OtherexamplesrangefromRobinsonCrusoetoLifeofPi.

the richest 10 percent: Oxfam, “Extreme Carbon Inequality,” December 2015,www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf.

manyontheLeft:Theargumentisapervasiveone,inpartbecauseitissopersuasive,buthasbeen made with special flair by Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything and The Battle forParadise; Jedediah Purdy in After Nature but perhaps more strikingly in his essays andexchangespublishedinDissent;andofcourseAndreasMalminFossilCapital.

thesocialistcountries:Historyisnotamuchbetterguide,withLeft industrializationduringStalin’sFiveYearPlanorMao’sGreatLeapForward,orevenVenezuelaunderHugoCháveznotofferingamoreresponsibleapproachthananythingthatwashappeningintheWest.

Thenaturalvillains:Accountsofthebadbehaviorofoilcompaniesabound,too,buttwogoodplaces to start are Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt (New York:Bloomsbury, 2010) and Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles, The Madhouse Effect (New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,2016).

a recent survey of movies: Peter Kareiva and Valerie Carranza, “Existential Risk Due toEcosystemCollapse:NatureStrikesBack,”Futures,September2018.

lessthan40percent:AccordingtotheIPCC,thefigureis35percent:seeIPCC,ContributionofWorkingGroup III to theFifthAssessmentReportof the IntergovernmentalPanelonClimateChange(Geneva,2014).

world’stenbiggestoilcompanies:ClairePoole,“TheWorld’sLargestOilandGasCompanies2018:RoyalDutchShellSurpassesExxonasTopDog,”Forbes,June6,2018.

15percentoftheworld’semissions:AccordingtotheWorldResourcesInstitute,thefigurewas 14.36 percent in 2017: Johannes Friedrich, Mengpin Ge, and Andrew Pickens, “ThisInteractive Chart Explains World’s Top Ten Emitters, and How They’ve Changed,” WorldResourcesInstitute,April11,2017,www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-explains-worlds-top-10-emitters-and-how-theyve-changed.

the storyofnatureandour relationship to it: In 1980, the art critic JohnBerger calledmodernzoos“anepitaphtoarelationshipthatisasoldasman”:“thezootowhichpeoplegotomeetanimals,toobservethem,is,infact,amonumenttotheimpossibilityofsuchencounters.”“Todaythosewordscouldbeappliedtomuchofmiddle-classmassculture,” the legalscholar

andenvironmentalistJedediahPurdywrotein“ThinkingLikeaMountain”(n+129,Fall2017),anessayonnew formsofnaturewriting in theageof theAnthropocene. “Ithasbecomeakindof

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/mb-extreme-carbon-inequality-021215-en.pdf

http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-explains-worlds-top-10-emitters-and-how-theyve-changed

memorialtothenonhumanworld,revivedinathousandrepresentationsevenasitdisappearsallat once.”Whathemeans is thatwebuilt a zoooutofnature, yes;butwe live still inside thosecages.“Alongsideglobaldomestication,anoppositeandterrifyingpotentialbroods,”Purdywrites.“Everynewsuperstorm,contagion,orannualheatrecordispregnantwithdoom,mostacutelyfortheworld’spoor,butfinallyfornearlyeveryone.Forallourdeepandacceleratinginequalities,lifeislessdangerous,andthenaturalworldamorestableandfungiblebackdropforhumanactivity,thaneverbefore.Yetthewholeworldalsoseemspoisedtocomeforuslikeaphalanxofpiquedgodswhohavejustswitchedsides.”

halfofthemextinct:E.O.WilsonmadethispredictioninaNewYorkTimesop-ed,“TheEightMillionSpeciesWeDon’tKnow,”publishedonMarch3,2018—and it echoes, conceptually,his2016bookHalf-Earth:OurPlanet’sFightforLife(NewYork:W.W.Norton,2016).Accordingtothe2018LivingPlanetreport,preparedbytheWorldWildlifeFundandtheZoologicalSocietyofLondon,worldwildlifehasalreadydeclinedthatmuch—infact,by60percent,allsince1970.

Anothersuchparable isbeedeath: Iwrote a longmagazine story about thephenomenoncalled“TheAnxietyofBees”(NewYork,June17,2015).

Flyinginsectsmightbedisappearing:The2017studywaspublishedinPLOSOneundertheunwieldy title “More than 75 Percent Decline over 27 Years in Total Flying Insect Biomass inProtectedAreas.” In2018,a surveyof insectpopulations in the rain forestsofPuertoRicowasevenmore alarming—in fact, another researcher called their findings “hyperalarming.” Insectsthere have declined sixtyfold. (Bradford Lister andAndresGarcia, “Climate-DrivenDeclines inArthropod Abundance Restructure a Rainforest Food Web,” Proceedings of the NationalAcademyofSciences,October30,2018.)

devotingwhole feature articles: Jamie Lowe’s “The Super Bowl of Beekeeping” (TheNewYorkTimesMagazine,August15,2018)isperhapsthemostrecentexample.Theoriginal“fableofthe bees” had a very differentmeaning: BernardMandeville’s 1705 poem of that namewas anextendedargumentthatpublicdisplaysofvirtuewereinvariablyhypocriticalandthattheworldwasmadeabetterplace,infact,themoreruthlesslyindividualspursuedtheirown“vices.”Thatthepoemeventuallybecameatouchstoneoffree-marketthinking,andamajorinfluenceonAdamSmith,isallthemoreremarkablegiventhatitfirstgainedpopularityintheaftermathoftheSouthSeaBubble.

“designerclimates”: “If geoengineering worked, whose hand would be on the thermostat?”askedAlanRobockinScience,in2008.“Howcouldtheworldagreeonanoptimalclimate?”Tenyears later,his studentBenKravitzwrote, on theHarvardgeoengineeringprogram’sblog—yes,Harvardhas a geoengineeringprogram,andyes, theyhaveablog—“itmaybepossible tomeetmultiple,simultaneousobjectivesintheclimatesystem.”

Twenty-twopercent: JakubNowosad et al., “GlobalAssessment andMappingofChanges inMesoscale Landscapes: 1992–2015,” International Journal of Applied Earth Observation andGeoinformation(October2018).

Ninety-sixpercent:YinonM.Bar-Onetal.,“TheBiomassDistributiononEarth,”ProceedingsoftheNationalAcademyoftheSciences(June2018).

theageof loneliness:BrookeJarvis, “The InsectApocalypse IsHere,”TheNewYorkTimesMagazine,November27,2018.

“scientificreticence”:J.E.Hansen,“ScientificReticenceandSeaLevelRise,”EnvironmentalResearchLetters2(May2007).

a 2017Nature paper: Daniel A. Chapman et al., “Reassessing Emotion in Climate ChangeCommunication,”NatureClimateChange(November2017):pp.850–52.

IPCC released a dramatic, alarmist report: IPCC, Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCCSpecial Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C Above Pre-Industrial Levels andRelatedGlobalGreenhouseGasEmissionPathways,intheContextofStrengtheningtheGlobalResponse to theThreatofClimateChange,SustainableDevelopment,andEfforts toEradicatePoverty(Incheon,Korea,2018),www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15.

CrisisCapitalismThescrollofcognitivebiases:Thesinglebestprimeronwhatbehavioral economicshas toteachusaboutthesebiasesisbytheNobellaureateDanielKahneman,Thinking,FastandSlow(NewYork:Farrar,Straus&Giroux,2013).

thescopeof theclimate threat: This iswhy the theoristTimothyMorton refers to climatechangeasa“hyperobject.”Butwhilethetermisusefulinsuggestingjusthowlargeclimatechangeis, and just how poorly we’ve been able to perceive that scale to date, the deeper you get intoMorton’s analysis, the less illuminating it becomes. InHyperobjects: Philosophy and EcologyAfter theEnd of theWorld (Minneapolis:University ofMinnesota Press, 2013), he names fivecharacteristics:hyperobjectsare1)viscous,bywhichhemeansthattheysticktoanyobjectorideatheycomeintocontactwith,likeoil;2)molten,bywhichhemeanssobig,theyseemtodefyoursenseofspace-time;3)nonlocal,bywhichhemeansdistributedinwaysthatfrustrateanyattempttoperceivethementirelyfromasingleperspective;4)phased,bywhichhemeansthattheyhavedimensionalqualitieswecannotunderstand,aswewouldn’tunderstandafive-dimensionalobjectpassingthroughourthree-dimensionalspace;and5)interobjective,bywhichhemeansthattheyconnect divergent items and systems.Viscous, nonlocal, and interobjective—okay.But thesedonotmakeglobalwarmingadifferentkindofphenomenonthanwehaveseenbefore,orthanthose—likecapitalism,say—thatweactuallyunderstandquitewell.Asfortheotherqualities…Ifclimatechangedefiesoursenseofspace-time,itisonlybecausewehaveanimpoverished,narrowideaofspace-time,sinceinfactwarmingistakingplaceverymuchwithinourplanet’satmosphere,notinexplicablybutinwaysscientistshavepredictedquitepreciselyoverdecades.Thatwehavefailedtodealwithit,overthosesamedecades,doesnotmeanitisliterallybeyondourcomprehension.Sayingsosoundsalmostlikeacop-out,infact.

“Itiseasiertoimagine”:Jamesonwrotethisin“FutureCity,”publishedinNewLeftReviewinMay–June2003.

pettheoryofthesocialistLeft:Degreesofemphasisvary,ofcourse,butyoucanfindformsofthe “fossil capitalism” argument in Vaclav Smil’sEnergy and Civilization, along with AndreasMalm’sFossilCapitalandJasonMoore’sCapitalismintheWebofLife.

Cancapitalismsurvive climate change?:Moore raises this question inCapitalism in theWebofLife,anditisdiscussedatsomelengthinBenjaminKunkel,“TheCapitalocene,”LondonReviewofBooks,March2,2017.

Klein memorably sketched out: Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15

Capitalism(NewYork:Picador,2007).

theislandofPuertoRico:NaomiKlein,TheBattle forParadise:PuertoRicoTakesOn theDisasterCapitalists(Chicago:Haymarket,2018).

MariacouldcutPuertoRican incomes:Thiscomes fromHsiangandHouser’s “Don’tLetPuertoRicoFallintoanEconomicAbyss,”TheNewYorkTimes,September29,2017.

carbonemissionshaveexploded:AccordingtotheInternationalEnergyAgency,totalglobalemissionswere32.5gigatonsin2017,upfrom22.4in1990.Ofcourse,itisworthrememberingthat theworld’s socialist nations, and even its left-of-center ones, donot have a notably betterrecordwhenitcomestoemissionsthanitsexcessivelycapitalisticones.Thissuggeststhatitmaybe a bitmisleading to describe emissions as having been driven by capitalism per se, or eveninterests made especially prominent and powerful within capitalistic systems. Instead, it mayreflecttheuniversalpowerofmaterialcomforts,benefitsthatwetendtoassessusingonlyaveryshort-termcalculus.

“Neoliberalism: Oversold?”: This paper, by Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, andDavideFurceri,waspublishedinJune2016.

somethinglikeafantasyfield:Romerpublished“TheTroublewithMacroeconomics”onhisownwebsiteonSeptember14,2016.

Nordhausfavorsacarbontax:TheNobellaureatehaspublishedwidelyonthesubjectofthecarbon tax, andhe gives themostplainspokenaccountof the tax levelhe considers optimal in“Integrated Assessment Models of Climate Change,” National Bureau of Economic Research,2017,https://www.nber.org/reporter/2017number3/nordhaus.html.

$306 billion: Adam B. Smith, “2017 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: AHistoricYearinContext,”NationalOceanicandAtmosphericAssociation,January8,2018.

$551trillionindamages:“RisksAssociatedwithGlobalWarmingof1.5DegreesCelsiusor2DegreesCelsius,”TyndallCentreforClimateChangeResearch,May2018.

23percentofpotentialglobalincome:MarshallBurkeetal., “GlobalNon-LinearEffectofTemperature on Economic Production,” Nature 527 (October 2015): pp. 235–39,https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15725.

Of400 IPCCemissionsmodels: “NegativeEmissionsTechnologies:WhatRole inMeetingParisAgreementTargets?”EuropeanAcademies’ScienceAdvisoryCouncil,February2018.

athirdoftheworld’sfarmableland:JasonHickel,“TheParisAgreementIsDeeplyFlawed—It’sTimeforaNewDeal,”AlJazeera,March16,2018.

a paper by David Keith: David Keith et al., “A Process for Capturing CO2 from theAtmosphere,”Joule,August15,2018.

total global fossil fuel subsidies: David Coady et al., “How Large Are Global Fossil FuelSubsidies?”WorldDevelopment91(March2017):pp.11–27.

$2.3 trillion taxcut: DavidRogers, “At $2.3 TrillionCost, TrumpTaxCuts LeaveBigGap,”Politico,February28,2018.Otherestimatesrunhigher.

https://www.nber.org/reporter/2017number3/nordhaus.html


TheChurchofTechnologyoutlinedbyEricSchmidt:He laid out this perspectivemost clearly at a conference inNewYorkinJanuary2016.

“Consider:Whopursues”:TedChiang,“SiliconValleyIsTurningintoItsOwnWorstFear,”BuzzFeed,December18,2017.

an influential 2002 paper: Nick Bostrom, “Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios andRelatedHazards,”JournalofEvolutionandTechnology9(March2002).

close touniversal: In “Survival of theRichest” (Medium, July 5, 2018), the futuristDouglasRushkoffdescribedhisexperienceasakeynote speakerataprivateconferenceattendedby thesuperrich—these patrons not themselves technologists but hedge-funders he came to feel weretakingalloftheircuesfromthem.Quickly,hewrites,theconversationattainedaclearfocus:

Whichregionwillbelessimpactedbythecomingclimatecrisis:NewZealandorAlaska?IsGoogle really buildingRayKurzweil ahome forhis brain, andwill his consciousness livethroughthetransition,orwillitdieandberebornasawholenewone?Finally,theCEOofabrokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own undergroundbunker system and asked, “Howdo Imaintain authority overmy security force after theevent?”

“The event.” In Rushkoff’s telling, this is a kind of catchall phrase for anything that mightthreaten their status or security as the world’s most privileged—“their euphemism for theenvironmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, orMr.Robot hackthattakeseverythingdown.“Thissinglequestionoccupiedusfortherestofthehour,”Rushkoffcontinues.

They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angrymobs.Buthowwouldtheypaytheguardsoncemoneywasworthless?Whatwouldstoptheguards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using specialcombination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards weardisciplinarycollarsof somekind in return for their survival.Ormaybebuilding robots toserveasguardsandworkers—ifthattechnologycouldbedevelopedintime.

InToBeaMachine,MarkO’Connell traced the same impulse throughSiliconValley’swholeBrahmancaste.ThebookopenswithanepigraphfromDonDeLillo:“This isthewholepointoftechnology. It creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. It threatens universalextinction on the other.” The quote comes fromWhiteNoise, in particular from its narrator’scolleagueandsidekickMurrayJaySiskind,whoisboththenovel’scomicfoilandits“explainer.”ItwasnevercleartomejusthowseriouslywearemeanttotakeMurray’spronouncements,butthis one does quite sharply describe the contemporary tech two-step: freaking out about“existentialrisks”whilesimultaneouslycultivatingprivateexitsfrommortality.ForRushkoff,theseareallfacetsofthesameimpulse,broadlysharedbytheclassofvisionaries

andpowerbrokersandventurecapitalistswhosedreamsforthefuturearereceivedasblueprints,especiallyby thearmiesof engineers theycommand like impetuous fiefdoms—investing innewformsofspacetravel,lifeextension,andtechnology-aidedlifeafterdeath.“Theywerepreparingforadigitalfuturethathadawholelotlesstodowithmakingtheworldabetterplacethanitdid

withtranscendingthehumanconditionaltogetherandinsulatingthemselvesfromaveryrealandpresentdangerof climate change, rising sea levels,massmigrations, globalpandemics,nativistpanic,andresourcedepletion,”hewrites.“Forthem,thefutureoftechnologyisreallyaboutjustonething:escape.”

“AnAccountofMyHut”:ChristinaNichol,“AnAccountofMyHut,”n+1,Spring2018.Nicholexplainsthetitlethisway:

I once read a story called “AnAccount ofMyHut,” byKamo no Chōmei, a 12th-centuryJapanese hermit. Chōmei describes how after witnessing a fire, an earthquake, and atyphooninKyoto,heleavessocietyandgoestoliveinahut.

Seven hundred years later, Basil Bunting, the Northumberland poet, wrote his ownrenditionofChōmei’sstory:

Oh!There’snothingtocomplainabout.Buddhasays:“Noneoftheworldisgood.”

Iamfondofmyhut…

ButevenifIwantedtorenouncetheworld,Iwouldn’tbeabletoaffordahutinCalifornia.

asoldasJohnMaynardKeynes:Keynesextendedtheprediction—much,muchtalkedabouteversince—inanessaynotablypublishedin1930,justafterthestockmarketcrashof1929:JohnMaynard Keynes, “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” Nation and Athenaeum,October11and18,1930.

“Youcanseethecomputerage”:This linefirstappearedinRobertM.Solow,“We’dBetterWatchOut,”reviewofManufacturingMattersbyStephenS.CohenandJohnZysman,TheNewYorkTimesBookReview,July12,1987.

amilliontransatlanticflights:AlexHern,“Bitcoin’sEnergyUsageIsHuge—WeCan’tAffordtoIgnoreIt,”TheGuardian,January17,2018.

“Ifwe don’t act quickly”: BillMcKibben, “Winning Is the Same as Losing,”RollingStone,December1,2017.“Anotherwayofsayingthis:By2075,theworldwillbepoweredbysolarpanelsand windmills—free energy is a hard business proposition to beat,” McKibben wrote. “But oncurrenttrajectories,they’lllightupabustedplanet.Thedecisionswemakein2075won’tmatter;indeed,thedecisionswemakein2025willmattermuchlessthantheoneswemakeinthenextfewyears.Theleverageisnow.”

“Thefutureisalreadyhere”:ThequipfirstappearedinTheEconomistin2003.

less than 10 percent of the world: IDC, “Smartphone OS Market Share,”www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os.

somewherebetweenaquarteranda third:DavidMurphy, “2.4BNSmartphoneUsers in2017, Says eMarketer,” Mobile Marketing, April 28, 2017,https://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/24bn-smartphone-users-in-2017-says-emarketer.

global decarbonization in 2000: These figures come from Robbie Andrew, a seniorresearcher at the Center for International Climate Research, and his presentation “Global

http://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os

https://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/24bn-smartphone-users-in-2017-says-emarketer

Collective Effort,” which he published on his website in May 2018(http://folk.uio.no/roberan/t/2C.shtml).Hewas drawing on figures put forward byMichaelR.Raupachet al. in “SharingaQuotaonCumulativeCarbonEmissions,”NatureClimateChange(September2014).

onlyoneyear:“UNSecretary-GeneralAntonioGuterresCallsforClimateLeadership,OutlinesExpectationsforNextThreeYears,”UNClimateChangeNews,September10,2018:“Ifwedonotchangecourseby2020,weriskmissing thepointwherewecanavoidrunawayclimatechange,withdisastrousconsequencesforpeopleandallthenaturalsystemsthatsustainus.”

pouredmore concrete in three years: Jocelyn Timperley, “Q&A:Why Cement EmissionsMatter for Climate Change,”CarbonBrief, September 13, 2018, www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-cement-emissions-matter-for-climate-change.

theworldwouldneedtoadd:KenCaldeira,“ClimateSensitivityUncertaintyandtheNeedforEnergyWithoutCO2Emission,”Science299(March2003):pp.2052–54.

infourhundredyears:JamesTemple,“AtThisRate,It’sGoingtoTakeNearly400YearstoTransform the Energy System,” MIT Technology Review, March 14, 2018,www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system.

officialdeathcount is47:U.N. InformationService, “NewReport onHealthEffectsDue toRadiation from the Chernobyl Accident,” February 28, 2011,www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2011/unisinf398.html.

ashigh as 4,000:WorldHealth Organization, “Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident,”September5,2005,www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38.

“no discernible increased incidence”: United Nations, “Report of the United NationsScientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation” (May 2013): p. 11,www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf.

anadditional1,400Americans:LisaFriedman,“CostofNewE.P.A.CoalRules:Upto1,400MoreDeathsaYear,”TheNewYorkTimes,August21,2018.

ninemillioneachyear:PamelaDasandRichardHorton,“Pollution,Health,andthePlanet:Time for Decisive Action,” The Lancet 391, no. 10119 (October 2017): pp. 407–8,https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6.

growingitscarbonemissions:JamesConca,“WhyAren’tRenewablesDecreasingGermany’sCarbonEmissions?”Forbes,October10,2017.

“Howmanywill play augmented reality games”: Andreas Malm, The Progress of ThisStorm:NatureandSocietyinaWarmingWorld(London:Verso,2018).

ThepoetandmusicianKateTempest:Thesearelyricstohersong“TunnelVision.”

PoliticsofConsumptionanote,handwritten:AnnieCorreal,“WhatDroveaMantoSetHimselfonFireinBrooklyn?”

http://folk.uio.no/roberan/t/2C.shtml

http://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-cement-emissions-matter-for-climate-change

http://www.technologyreview.com/s/610457/at-this-rate-its-going-to-take-nearly-400-years-to-transform-the-energy-system

http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2011/unisinf398.html

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38

http://www.unscear.org/docs/GAreports/A-68-46_e_V1385727.pdf

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32588-6

TheNewYorkTimes,May28,2018.

alongerletter,typed: For an in-depthaccountof this letter, seeTheodoreParisienneet al.,“FamedGayRightsLawyerSetsHimselfonFireatProspectParkinProtestSuicideAgainstFossilFuels,”NewYorkDailyNews,April14,2018.

moral arms race: Citizens who now clean their consciences with philanthropic donationsdirectedtowardmedicalresearch,collegescholarships,ormuseumsandliterarymagazinesmaybeginincreasinglytodosobybuyingcarbonoffsetsorinvestingincarbon-capturefunds(indeed,someprogressivenationsmayinvesttheproceedsofcarbontaxesdirectlyintoCCSandBECCS).Progressivescientistswillapplygenetherapytoclimatechange,astheyhavealreadybeguntodowith the woolly mammoth—which they hope, once brought back to life, might restore thegrasslands of the Eurasian steppe and prevent methane release from permafrost—and willprobablydosoonwiththemosquito,hopingtoeradicatemosquito-bornedisease.Perhapsaroguebillionaire will try to single-handedly cool the earth with geoengineering, flying a few privateplanesaroundtheequatortodispersesulfurandcitingthemodelofBillGatesandhismosquitonets.

“apparatus of justification”: Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century(Cambridge,MA:HarvardUniversityPress,2014).

SoulCycle,Goop,MoonJuice:ThefounderofhipsterfoodiemagazineModernFarmeris,in2018,rumoredtobelaunchinga“Goopforclimatechange.”

thepesticideRoundup:AlexisTemkin,“BreakfastwithaDoseofRoundup?”EnvironmentalWorking Group Children’s Health Initiative, August 15, 2018,www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal.

elaborate guidance: “During a wildfire, dust masks aren’t enough!” the National WeatherServicewarnedonFacebook.“Theywon’tprotectyoufromthefineparticlesinwildfiresmoke.Itisbest tostay indoors,keepingwindowsanddoorsclosed. Ifyou’rerunninganairconditioner,keepthefresh-airintakeclosedandthefiltercleantopreventoutdoorsmokefromgettinginside.”

“philanthrocapitalism”: Perhaps the most piercing account of this phenomenon is AnandGiridharadas,WinnersTakeAll:TheEliteCharadeofChanging theWorld (NewYork:Knopf,2018).

“moraleconomy”: This story is recounted inTimRogan,TheMoralEconomists (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversityPress,2018);seealsoTehilaSasson’sreview,publishedinDissentundertheheadline“TheGospelofWealth,”August22,2018.

asked to be entrepreneurs: StephenMetcalf, amongmany others, has written memorablyabout this phenomenon, in his brief history of neoliberalism, “Neoliberalism: The Idea ThatSwallowedtheWorld,”TheGuardian,August18,2017.

ClimateLeviathan:GeoffMannandJoelWainwright,ClimateLeviathan:APoliticalTheoryofOurPlanetaryFuture(London:Verso,2018).

In2018,anilluminatingstudy:KatharineRickeetal.,“Country-LevelSocialCostofCarbon,”NatureClimateChange8(September2018):pp.895–900.

BeltandRoadInitiative:PerhapsthebestaccountofthisinitiativeisBrunoMaçães’sBeltand

http://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/glyphosateincereal

Road: A Chinese World Order (London: Hurst, 2018). The initiative “may also promotepermanent environmental degradation,” a group of researchers argued recently. (FernandoAscensão et al., “Environmental Challenges for the Belt and Road Initiative,” NatureSustainability,May2018).

thepossibilityofdisequilibrium:HaraldWelzer,ClimateWars:WhatPeopleWillBeKilledForinthe21stCentury(Cambridge:Polity,2012).

pullscriminalsoutofpopconcerts:According toTheWashingtonPost’s Hamza Shaban,thishappenedthreetimesinjusttwomonthsinthespringof2018:“FacialRecognitionCamerasinChinaSnagManWhoAllegedlyStole$17,000WorthofPotatoes,”May22,2018.

domestic-spydrones:StephenChen,“ChinaTakesSurveillancetoNewHeightswithFlockofRoboticDoves,butDoTheyComeinPeace?”SouthChinaMorningPost,June24,2018.

HistoryAfterProgressmost unshakable creeds: It wasn’t just the promise of growth that was invented in theindustrialera,buttheideaofhistory,whichpromisesthatthepasttellsastoryofhumanprogress—andsuggests,therefore,thatthefuturewill,too.This progressive faith has a demotic basis, which is that daily life changed so quickly in the

Victorian era that no onewith eyes open could havemissed it. It also has an intellectual one,which is that philosophers fromHegel to Comte proposed, at various points in the nineteenthcentury,thathistoryhadashape—thatitevolved,inoneformoranother,towardthelight,ofonekindoranother.Theideawouldnothaveconfusedreadersof theircontemporariesDarwinandSpencer. Nor, for that matter, visitors to Queen Victoria’s Crystal Palace exhibition, the firstWorld’s Fair, which organized national showcases into an implicit competition of relativedevelopmentandmoreorlesspromisedthattechnologywouldbringaboutabetterfutureforall.By the time Jacob Burckhardt was writing hisCivilization of the Renaissance in Italy, whichfurnished the now-proverbial three-act structure ofWestern history—antiquity followed by theDarkAges followedbymodernity—hecould imaginehimselfasanopponentofbothHegelandComte and yet nevertheless produce a work that explicitly periodized the past into a singleunfoldingdrama.Thatishowthoroughlytheideaofprogressivehistoryhadtakenholdinatimeof rapid social, economic, and cultural change: even critics of reflexiveWestern triumphalismtendedtoseehistoryasmarchingforward.Marxistheclearestexample:squintathisreimaginedHegelianism,and its shape looksa lot like theenduringwall-chartofhistory firstpublishedbySebastianAdams—motivatedbyChristianevangelism,amazingly—in1871. In1920,H.G.Wellspublished his influential version,TheOutlineofHistory; in it, he declared that “the history ofmankind,”whichhe tracedthroughfortychapters from“TheEarth inSpaceandTime”to“TheNext Stage of History,” “is a history of more or less blind endeavours to conceive a commonpurpose in relation to which all men may live happily.” It sold millions of copies and wastranslated intodozensof languages,and it castsa shadowovernearlyeveryprojectofpopular,long-viewhistoryundertakensince,fromKennethClark’sCivilisationtoJaredDiamond’sGuns,Germs,andSteel.

Sapiens: That this kind of total skepticismwonHarari such an admiring audience among somanyleadingavatarsoftechnocraticprogressisoneofthecuriositiesoftheTEDTalkage.Buttheskepticism also flatters, especially those inclined by their own sense of accomplishment tocontemplate the longestsweepsofhistory. Invitingyou tocontemplate thathistory,Hararialso

seemstopullyoubeyondoroutsideit.Inthisway,hesharesstrainsoflecturesomeDNAnotjustwith Diamond but with Joseph Campbell and even Jordan Peterson. In his subsequent book,HomoDeus,Harariendorsesanewcontemporarymyth,thoughhedoesn’tquiterecognizeitassuch—makinghisowncaseforthenear-termarrivalofasuperpowerfulartificialintelligencethatwillrendereverythingweknowas“humanity”closetoobsolete.

AgainsttheGrain:Thehumanremainsexcavated fromthis time tell a clear storyofhumanstrife: the people were shorter, sicker, and died younger than their predecessors. The averageheight fell from 5′10″ for men and 5′6″ for women to 5′5″ and 5′1″, respectively; settledcommunities were more vulnerable to infectious disease, but obesity and heart disease alsospiked.Thisiswhyit’ssothatthecaseagainstcivilization,asthecriticJohnLanchesterhascalledit,canbemadesimplyasacaseagainstfarming.

“theworstmistake”:JaredDiamond,“TheWorstMistakeintheHistoryoftheHumanRace,”Discover,May1987.

“wemightcalltheLiberalStory”:YuvalNoahHarari,“DoesTrump’sRiseMeanLiberalism’sEnd?”TheNewYorker,October7,2016.

ekpyrosis:Thiswasthebeliefthat,periodically,thecosmoswouldbeentirelydestroyedinwhatwascalleda“GreatYear,”thenbere-createdandtheprocesswouldbeginagain.Platopreferredtheterm“perfectyear,”inwhichthestarswouldbereturnedtotheiroriginalpositions.

“dynastic cycle”: Although some accounts of the cycle offered a dozen or more phases,accordingtotheChinesephilosopherMenciusthecyclehadonlythree(essentiallyrise,peak,anddecline).

“eternalrecurrence”: Nietzsche first proposes this idea, that everything is bound to repeatitselfeternally,asasortofthoughtexperimentinTheGayScience(1882).Buthewouldreturntoit again and again, often describing it as somethingmore like a law of the universe—which issimilartohowitwastreatedbytheancientEgyptians,Indians,andGreekStoics.

“public purpose” and “private interest”: ArthurM. Schlesinger,The Cycles of AmericanHistory(NewYork:HoughtonMifflin,1986).

TheRiseandFalloftheGreatPowers:Inhis1987book,Kennedyoffersarelativelysimplemodelofgreat-powerhistory:growthfueledbynaturalresourcesfollowedbydeclineprecipitatedbymilitaryoverreach.

TheProgressofThisStorm:Themainthrustofthisbook,Malm’sfollow-uptoFossilCapital,isthatwhilewemaybelievethat“nature,”assomethingdistinctfrom“society,”hasdisappeared,infactglobalwarminghasbroughtitbackwithapunitivevengeance.

EthicsattheEndoftheWorldpodcast “S-Town”: McLemore, whose panic may have been caused in part by mercurypoisoning, was most concerned about Arctic ice melt, drought, and the slowdown of thethermohalineconvector.

“Isometimescallittoxicknowledge”:RichardHeinberg,“SurvivingS-Town,”PostCarbon

Institute,April7,2017.

“natureisthriving”:Thomas’sbookisInheritorsoftheEarth:HowNatureIsThrivinginanAgeofExtinction(NewYork:PublicAffairs,2017),andwhileitoffersnotsomuchafull-throatedcelebrationofwhathecallsan“ageofextinction”butamoremodestproposal thatweviewthepositive, generative effects of climate change alongside its crueler impacts. This is a note ofcontrarianoptimismechoingMichaelShellenbergerandTedNordhaus,intheirBreakThrough:Why We Can’t Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists and Love Your Monsters:Postenvironmentalism and the Anthropocene; and the Canadian, Swedish, and South Africanacademics behind the research collaboration “Bright Spots,” who, despite considerably moreconcern about the effects of global warming, nevertheless keep a running list of positiveenvironmental developments they believe makes the case for what they call a “goodAnthropocene.”

“TheSecondComing”:Amongotherthings,YeatsgaveJoanDidionthelinesshebuiltintoheressay“SlouchingTowardsBethlehem”:“Thingsfallapart;thecentrecannothold;/Mereanarchyisloosedupontheworld.”

“immanentanti-humanism”:TheprogramisalsoneatlycontainedinJeffers’smostfamouspoem,“CarmelPoint”:

Wemustuncenterourmindsfromourselves;Wemustunhumanizeourviewsalittle,andbecomeconfident

Astherockandoceanthatweweremadefrom.

a time of approaching ecological collapse: Indeed, the manifesto continues, “humancivilizationisanintenselyfragileconstruction,”andyet,theywrite,weareforeverindenialaboutthatfragility—ourveryday-to-daylivesdependonthatdenialoffragility,perhapsasmuchastheydependonthedenialofourownmortality.ThisiswhatthephilosopherSamuelSchefflermeanswhenhesuggeststhat,inanagnosticworld,theroleonceplayedbyanafterlifeininspiringandorganizingandpolicingmoralandethicalbehaviorhasbeentakenup,inpart,bytheconvictionthattheworldwillcontinueonafteruswhenwedie.Inotherwords,theideathatlifeisnotjustworth living but worth living well, he suggests, “would bemore threatened by the prospect ofhumanity’sdisappearancethanbytheprospectofourowndeaths.”AsCharlesMannsummarizesScheffler, considering the ethical paradox of human action on climate change, “The belief thathumanlifewillcontinue,evenifweourselvesdie,isoneoftheunderpinningsofsociety.”“Once that belief begins to crumble, the collapse of a civilizationmay become unstoppable,”

KingsnorthandHinewroteintheirmanifesto.“Thatcivilizationsfall,soonerorlater,isasmuchalawofhistoryasgravityisalawofphysics.Whatremainsafterthefallisawildmixtureofculturaldebris,confusedandangrypeoplewhosecertaintieshavebetrayedthem,andthoseforceswhichwere always there, deeper than the foundations of the citywalls: the desire to survive and thedesireformeaning.”

“Webelievethattheroots”:“Wedonotbelievethateverythingwillbefine,”KingsnorthandHinewrite.“Wearenotevensure,basedoncurrentdefinitionsofprogressandimprovement,thatwewantittobe.”In the manifesto, Dark Mountain outlined what they called “the eight principles of

uncivilization,”asortofmissionstatementfortheirmovementthatmovesfromgeneralprincipleandperceptionstoamorefocusedstatementofintent.“Werejectthefaithwhichholdsthatthe

converging crises of our time can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological orpolitical‘solutions,’ ”thelistbegins,andthoughtheyforeswearthesekindsofsolutions,theydon’tentirely give up on response. But DarkMountain is ultimately a literary collective—organizingfestivals,workshops,andmeditationretreats—andthemostconcrete,practicalresponsetheycallforintheirmanifestoisinart.“Webelievethattherootsofthesecriseslieinthestorieswehavebeentellingourselves,”namely“themythofprogress,themythofhumancentrality,andthemythofourseparationfrom‘nature.’ ”These,theyadd,“aremoredangerousforthefactthatwehaveforgotten they aremyths.” In response, they promise, “wewill assert the role of storytelling asmorethanmereentertainment”and“willwritewithdirtunderourfingernails.”Thegoal:throughstorytelling,tofindanewvantagefromwhichtheendofcivilizationwouldnotseemsobad.Inacertainway,theysuggest,theythemselveshavealreadyachievedthisstateofenlightenment.“Theendoftheworldasweknowitisnottheendoftheworld,fullstop,”theywrite.“Togetherwewillfindthehopebeyondhope,thepathswhichleadtotheunknownworldaheadofus.”

Kingsnorth published a new manifesto: Paul Kingsnorth, “Dark Ecology,” Orion,November–December2012.Thismanifestoincludesthispassage:

What does the near future look like? I’d put my bets on a strange and unworldlycombinationofongoingcollapse,whichwillcontinuetofragmentbothnatureandculture,andanewwaveoftechno-green“solutions”beingunveiledinadoomedattempttopreventit. I don’t believenow that anything canbreak this cycle, barring somekindof reset: thekindthatwehaveseenmanytimesbeforeinhumanhistory.Somekindoffallbackdowntoa lower level of civilizational complexity. Something like the storm that is now visiblybrewingallaroundus.Ifyoudon’tlikeanyofthis,butyouknowyoucan’tstopit,wheredoesitleaveyou?The

answeristhatitleavesyouwithanobligationtobehonestaboutwhereyouareinhistory’sgreat cycle, andwhatyouhave thepower todoandwhatyoudon’t. If you thinkyoucanmagicusoutoftheprogresstrapwithnewideasornewtechnologies,youarewastingyourtime. If you think that the usual “campaigning” behavior is going towork todaywhere itdidn’t work yesterday, you will be wasting your time. If you think the machine can bereformed,tamed,ordefanged,youwillbewastingyourtime.Ifyoudrawupagreatbigplanforabetterworldbasedonscienceandrationalargument,youwillbewastingyourtime.Ifyou try to live in thepast, youwill bewasting your time. If you romanticizehuntingandgatheringorsendbombstocomputerstoreowners,youwillbewastingyourtime.

tendingtowardmoreengagement:Youcanseethisinhowquiteradicalthinkersabouttheenvironmentandourobligationstoit,fromJedediahPurdytoNaomiKlein,focussointentlyonthe problems of political action. In Purdy’s After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene(Cambridge,MA.:HarvardUniversityPress,2015),hebuildsanentirepracticalpoliticsoutoftheintuition, inarguably true, that the final and total conquest of the planet by people is markedsimultaneouslybyitsdegradation;andarguesthattheendofthatlongeraofnaturalabundancedemandsamoredemocraticapproachtoenvironmentalpolitics,policy,andlaw—evenwhen,orperhapsespeciallybecause,anyalterationfromthepresentcourseseemsalmostinfrastructurallyimpossible.Ina2017exchangewithKatrinaForrester,laterpublishedinDissent,heelaborated:

Hereisourparadox:Theworldcan’tgoonthisway;and itcan’tdootherwise.Itwasthecollectivepowerofsome—notall—humanbeingsthatgotusintothis:poweroverresources,powerovertheseasons,poweroveroneanother.Thatpowerhascreatedaglobalhumanity,entangledinaFrankensteinecology.Butitdoesnotyetincludethepowerofaccountability

or restraint, thepowerweneed.To face theAnthropocene,humanswouldneedawayoffacingoneanother.Wewouldneed,first,tobeawe.

Fromacertainvantage,thismayjustlooklikeconventionalpolitics,ofthekindthatKingsnorthderides as impossibly naive. They are also my politics, for what it’s worth—I nodmy head inrecognitionwhenIreadKateMarvelcallingforcourageratherthanhope,andwhenIreadNaomiKlein rhapsodizing about a community of political resistance growing out of the local sites ofprotestsshecalls“Blockadia.”Ibelieve,asPurdydoes,thatthedegradationoftheplanetandtheendofnaturalabundancedemandanewprogressivismanimatedbyarenewedegalitarianenergy;andIbelieve,asAlGoredoes,thatweshouldpushtechnologytochaseeverylastglimmerofhopeforavertingdisastrousclimatechange—includingunleashing,orindulging,marketforcestohelpdo so when we can. I believe, as Klein does, that some particular market forces have almostconqueredourpolitics,butnotentirely,leavingabrightshiningsliverofopportunity;andIalsobelieve, as Bill McKibben does, that meaningful and even dramatic change can be achievedthroughthefamiliarpaths:votingandorganizingandpoliticalactivitydeployedateverylevel.Inotherwords,Ibelieveinengagementaboveall,engagementwhereveritmayhelp.Infact,Ifindanyotherresponsetotheclimatecrisismorallyincomprehensible.

global mobilization: That this is a familiar analogy is unfortunate, because it blunts theintendedimpression:theAllies’mobilizationwasunprecedentedinhumanhistoryandhasneverbeenmatchedsince.WedidnotdefeattheNaziswithachangetothemarginaltaxrate,asmuchasproponentsofaclimatetaxwanttoseeitasasingle-stepcure-all.InWorldWarII,therewasalsoadraft,anationalizationofindustry,andwidespreadrationing.Ifyoucanimagineataxrateon carbon that would produce that kind of action in just three decades, you have a betterimaginationthanIdo.

“eco-nihilism”:WendyLynneLee,Eco-Nihilism:ThePhilosophicalGeopoliticsoftheClimateChangeApocalypse(Lanham,MD:Lexington,2017).

“climate nihilism”: Parker used the term in explaining his decision to quit Canada’s NewDemocraticPartyafteritspremierendorsedsubsidizingnaturalgas.

“climaticregime”: In an essay titled “LoveYourMonsters,” Latour elaborated a jeremiad ofenvironmental responsibility from Mary Shelley’s parable, one that begins with a perhapsromanticpleaforaclear-eyedrecognitionofjustwhatwehavewrought—writingthat,“justaswehave forgotten that Frankenstein was the man, not the monster, we have also forgottenFrankenstein’srealsin.”

Dr.Frankenstein’scrimewasnotthatheinventedacreaturethroughsomecombinationofhubrisandhightechnology,butratherthatheabandonedthecreaturetoitself.WhenDr.FrankensteinmeetshiscreationonaglacierintheAlps,themonsterclaimsthatitwasnotborn amonster, but that it becamea criminal onlyafter being left alonebyhishorrifiedcreator,whofledthelaboratoryoncethehorriblethingtwitchedtolife.

AsimilarcaseforresponsibilitycomesfromDonnaHaraway,thetheoristbehindthepioneeringfeministCyborgManifesto(1985),inhermorerecentStayingwiththeTrouble,subtitledMakingKin in the Chthulucene (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016)—after Chthulu, H. P.Lovecraft’smany-facedmonsterofcosmicmalevolence.

“human futilitarianism”: Sam Kriss and Ellie Mae O’Hagan, “Tropical Depressions,” The

Baffler 36 (September2017). “Climate changemeans,quiteplausibly, theendof everythingwenow understand to constitute our humanity,” Kriss and O’Hagan write. “Something about themagnitude of all this is shattering:most people try not to think about it toomuchbecause it’sunthinkable,inthesamewaythatdeathisalwaysunthinkablefortheliving.Forthepeoplewhohave to think about it—climate scientists, activists, and advocates—that looming catastropheevokes a similar horror: the potential extinction of humanity in the future puts humanity intoquestionnow.”

“species loneliness”: “If the most common causes of individual suicide are depression andpsychicisolation,thecauseofouracceleratingandcollectivelywilledsuicidemaybedespairoverthefailedsystemofcapitalismandcommodity-drivenmeaning,aswellasthecripplingconditionthat psychologists call ‘species loneliness,’ ” Powers told Everett Hamner of The Los AngelesReview of Books (April 7, 2018), in an interview published under the headline “Here’s toUnsuicide.” “We will always be parasites on plants. But that parasitism can be turned intosomethingbetter—amutualism.Oneofmyradicalizedactivistsmakesthisproposal:Weshouldcut trees like they are a gift, not like they are something we a priori deserve. Such a shift inconsciousnessmighthavetheeffectofslowingdowndeforestation,sincewetendtocareforgiftsbetterthanwedoforfreebies.Butitwouldalsogoalongwaytowardtreatingthesuicidalimpulseinpeoplecausedbyspeciesloneliness.Manyindigenouspeopleknewthisformillennia:thankinga living thingandasking for itspardonbeforeusing it goesa longway towardexonerating theguiltthatleadstoviolenceagainsttheselfandothers.”

TheAnthropicPrinciplerudimentaryunderstanding: Eunice Foote, “CircumstancesAffecting theHeat of the Sun’sRays,”TheAmerican Journal of Science andArts 22, no. 46 (November 1856). This paper, inwhichFootedescribestheeffectofcarbondioxideonglobaltemperature,wasfirstpresentedatameetingoftheAmericanAssociationfortheAdvancementofSciencein1856—whereitwasreadbyamalecolleague,JosephHenry.JohnTyndallpublishedhisworkseveralyearslater,in1859.

“Whereiseverybody?”:In1985,LosAlamospublishedahistoryoftheconversation;seeEricM. Jones, “Where Is Everybody?: An Account of Fermi’s Question,”www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5746675.

Fortheentirehistoricalwindow:Perhapsthemostvividillustrationofthisisthexkcdwebcomic“ATimelineofEarth’sAverageTemperature,”September12,2016.

“the great filter”: Hanson first published his thinking on this subject in a 1998 paper, theominouslastlineofwhichis“Ifwecan’tfindtheGreatFilterinourpast,we’llhavetofearitinour future.” Robert Hanson, “The Great Filter—AreWe Almost Past It?” September 15, 1998,http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html.

“Isitinhabited?”:ThiscomesfromArchibaldMacLeish’sbeautifulaccount,publishedonthefrontpageofTheNewYorkTimes,December25,1968—thedayafterApollo8orbitedthemoon—under the headline “Riders on Earth Together, Brothers in Eternal Cold.” The case MacLeishmadewasthatseeingtheplanetfromadistancecouldprofoundlychangehowwesawourplaceintheuniverse: “Men’s conceptionof themselves andof eachotherhasalwaysdependedon theirnotionoftheearth,”hewrote.

http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5746675

http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/greatfilter.html

Now,inthelastfewhours,thenotionmayhavechangedagain.Forthefirsttimeinalloftimemenhaveseenitnotascontinentsoroceansfromthelittledistanceofahundredmilesortwoorthree,butseenitfromthedepthofspace;seenitwholeandroundandbeautifulandsmallasevenDante—that “first imaginationofChristendom”—hadneverdreamedofseeingit;astheTwentiethCenturyphilosophersofabsurdityanddespairwereincapableofguessing that itmightbeseen.Andseeing it so,onequestioncameto themindsof thosewholookedatit.“Isitinhabited?”theysaidtoeachotherandlaughed—andthentheydidnotlaugh.Whatcametotheirmindsahundredthousandmilesandmoreintospace—“halfwayto themoon”theyput it—whatcameto theirmindswasthe lifeonthat little, lonely,floatingplanet;thattinyraftintheenormous,emptynight.“Isitinhabited?”Themedievalnotionoftheearthputmanatthecenterofeverything.Thenuclearnotion

oftheearthputhimnowhere—beyondtherangeofreasoneven—lostinabsurdityandwar.This latestnotionmayhaveotherconsequences.Formedas itwas in themindsofheroicvoyagers who were also men, it may remake our image of mankind. No longer thatpreposterous figureat thecenter,no longer thatdegradedanddegradingvictimoffat themarginsofrealityandblindwithblood,manmayatlastbecomehimself.

the Drake equation: Drake himself saw the equation as something very preliminary andtentative, a list of factors that would influence the likelihood of finding extraterrestrialintelligence,whichhesketchedoutinadvanceofasmallconferencetodiscusstheissuein1960.In 2003, Drake recounted the story in Astrobiology Magazine under the title “The DrakeEquationRevisited”(September29,2003).

literallyclosedthemselvesoff:Dysonfirstproposedthispossibilityina1960paper,“SearchforArtificialStellarSourcesofInfraredRadiation”(Science131,no.3414[June1960],pp.1667–68),thoughasaconceptitappearedearlierinthe1937sci-finovelStarMakerbyOlafStapledon.

“theastrobiologyoftheAnthropocene”:AdamFrank,LightoftheStars:AlienWorldsandthe Fate of the Earth (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018). In this book, Frank writes, “Ourtechnologyandthevastenergiesithasunleashedgiveusenormouspoweroverourselvesandtheworldaroundus.It’slikewe’vebeengiventhekeystotheplanet.Nowwe’rereadytodriveitoffacliff.”

“thinking likeaplanet”: Thephrase also recallsAldoLeopold’s “thinking like amountain,”which first appeared in hisSand County Almanac of 1937, andwhich provided the title of anexcellentmeditativeessaybyJedediahPurdyonnaturewritingandourchangingrelationshiptothenaturalworld,publishedinn+1in2017.PersonallytheperspectivestrikesmeastooStoic—amountainwouldnotmuchcareifhumans,

asinglespecies,sufferedtremendoussetbacks,andthesameistruefortheplanetasawhole.Asthosescientistskeptremindingme,“Theearthwillsurvive;it’sthehumansthatmightnot.”Andindeed, commentators have traced a prehistory of Leopold’s phrase through the ancientphilosophyofEpicurusandLucretius.

anunconventionalrecentpaper:GavinA.Schmidt,“TheSilurianHypothesis:WouldItBePossibletoDetectanIndustrialCivilizationintheGeologicalRecord?”InternationalJournalofAstrobiology,April16,2018,https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550418000095.

anyone trying to “solve” the Drake equation: One especially notable effort was AndersSandberg’s et al., “Dissolving the Fermi Paradox,” Future of Humanity Institute, OxfordUniversity,June6,2018,https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550418000095

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf

“Now I am become death”: An account of this—including the fact that Oppenheimer firstquoted the line twenty years after the event—appears in Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin,American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York:Vintage,2006).

“Itworked”:FrankOppenheimertoldthisstoryinthe1981documentaryTheDayAfterTrinity,directedbyJonH.Else.

forty-two scientists: Connor Nolan et al., “Past and Future Global Transformation ofTerrestrialEcosystemsUnderClimateChange,”Science361,no.6405(August2018):pp.920–23.

JamesLovelock:His “TheQuest forGaia”was first published inNewScientist in 1975, andovertheyearsLovelockbecamelessandlesssanguine.In2005,hepublishedGaia:MedicineforanAilingPlanet,in2006TheRevengeofGaia,andin2009TheVanishingFaceofGaia.Hehasalsoadvocatedgeoengineeringasalast-ditchefforttostopclimatechange.

“spaceshipearth”:BuckminsterFullerpopularizedtheterm,butitappearedoriginallyalmosta century before him, in Henry George’s 1879 workProgress and Poverty—in a passage latersummarizedbyGeorgeOrwellinTheRoadtoWiganPier:

The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions foreverybody;theideathatwemustallcooperateandseetoitthateveryonedoeshisfairshareof thework and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that onewouldsaythatnoonecouldpossiblyfailtoacceptitunlesshehadsomecorruptmotiveforclingingtothepresentsystem.

In 1965,Adlai Stevensonmanaged to give amorepoetic treatment, in an address before theUnitedNationsSocialandEconomicCouncilinGeneva:

Wetraveltogether,passengersonalittlespaceship,dependentonitsvulnerablereservesofair and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved fromannihilationonlybythecare,thework,and,Iwillsay,thelovewegiveourfragilecraft.Wecannotmaintainithalffortunate,halfmiserable,halfconfident,halfdespairing,halfslave—totheancientenemiesofman—halffreeinaliberationofresourcesundreamedofuntilthisday.Nocraft,nocrewcan travel safelywithsuchvast contradictions.On their resolutiondependsthesurvivalofusall.

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