The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming

by David Wallace-Wells

Between 2008 and 2010, Guatemala was hit by Tropical Storm Arthur, Hurricane Dolly, Tropical Storm Agatha, and Tropical Storm Hermine—this a country that was already one of the ten most affected by extreme weather and reeling in the same years from the eruption of a local volcano and a regional earthquake. All told, almost three million were left “food insecure,” and at least 400,000 needed humanitarian assistance; from the 2010 disasters alone, the country sustained damages totaling more than a billion dollars, or roughly a quarter of the national budget, devastating its roads and supply chains. In 2011, it was hit by Tropical Storm 12E, and, in the wake of the disasters, farmers turned to growing poppies; organized crime, already an enormous problem, exploded—which