Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Hysteria is not constructive

Earlier, I found that David Wallace-Wells book The Uninhabitable Earth was off the rails by page 8. But I wanted to see if he redeems himself in the rest of the book.

Not so much.

On pp 198-199, he says that agriculture and civilization were a mistake. He basically doesn't want us to deal with climate change, he wants humanity to be a handful of hunter-gatherers.

To lead his penultimate chapter (p. 204-205), he features what appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic who, years ago, predicted that humanity will be extinct within ten years. (And he also claims he's been surveilled by the "Deep State" since 1996.)

Then, on p. 221, he goes on to claim that not only is climate change going to kill us all on Earth, but it is why there is no intelligent life in the universe.

That is a simply amazing level of hyperbole and arrogance. Breathtaking.

In case anyone reading this is looking for some actual sane and real-world writing on the topic, check out Project Drawdown. But if your first, second, and third priorities aren't winning elections, then you are just wasting your time with disaster porn.

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