The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

by David Wallace-Wells

In the West, we often think of refugees as a failed-state problem—that is, a problem that the broken and impoverished parts of the world inflict on relatively more stable, and wealthier, societies.

It should be no great prize to be right about the end of the world.

This is climate’s kaleidoscope: we can be mesmerized by the threat directly in front of us without ever perceiving it clearly.

Scientists spent decades presenting the unambiguous data, demonstrating to anyone who would listen just what kind of crisis will come for the planet if nothing is done, and then watched, year after year, as nothing was done. It should not be altogether surprising that they returned again and again to the communications greenroom, scratching their heads about rhetorical strategy and “messaging.” If only they were in charge, they would know exactly what to do, and there would be no need to panic. So why wouldn’t anyone listen to them? It had to be the rhetoric. What other explanation could there be?

when Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no-holds-barred capitalism.