Our Final Warning

pdotb@wyrms.de reviewed Our Final Warning by Mark Lynas

Well, that was terrifying

4 stars

Content warning climate crisis

The title and cover suggest this isn't going to be a particularly optimistic book, rather confirmed by the way the penultimate chapter talks about parallels with the end-Permian catastrophe...

Each chapter covers an assessment of what the world might look like at each degree of warming above pre-industrial times, starting with 1 degree (roughly where we are today) and going up to 6, with each chapter associated with a lengthy list of journal articles to make clear that these scenarios have a scientific basis.

Really drives home how each increment of warming makes a difference, but rather light on actions to achieve that.

BreadAndCircuses reviewed Our Final Warning by Mark Lynas

Scary but honest

5 stars

This book was published in 2020, but because gathering material and writing and editing all take time, much of the research the author reports on is from around 2015 to 2019. And you know what? It's already largely out of date.

I'm not faulting the author, Mark Lynas. He couldn't help that. Almost no one could have predicted how rapidly the climate would continue breaking down in just the next few years. But anyway, it's a very good book, an honest and frightening account of how bad the situation already is and how much worse it's likely to become within our lifetimes.

In the end, we're not left without hope. But that hope is based upon the possibility of our industrial society taking unprecedented steps, making enormous and drastic changes between now and circa 2030. Will that happen? Well, even if we the people wanted to make a start, I'm …

This book was published in 2020, but because gathering material and writing and editing all take time, much of the research the author reports on is from around 2015 to 2019. And you know what? It's already largely out of date.

I'm not faulting the author, Mark Lynas. He couldn't help that. Almost no one could have predicted how rapidly the climate would continue breaking down in just the next few years. But anyway, it's a very good book, an honest and frightening account of how bad the situation already is and how much worse it's likely to become within our lifetimes.

In the end, we're not left without hope. But that hope is based upon the possibility of our industrial society taking unprecedented steps, making enormous and drastic changes between now and circa 2030. Will that happen? Well, even if we the people wanted to make a start, I'm afraid that our leaders, the owners of society, would never allow it — because it would cost them too much money. So there you go.

RePlanet Bookworms

rated it

Jul 28

Our Final Warning

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