The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming

Climate journalist Holthaus imagines a different world in his cautionary but guardedly optimistic debut about how humanity might meet the climate change challenge. As a worst-case scenario, Holthaus cites the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, “the worst humanitarian crisis in modern American history.” He does not mince words, describing how the storm caused countless deaths, a monthslong power outage, and “damaged or destroyed about 30 million trees, inflicting profound and unprecedented changes on the landscape.” It exacted an extraordinary mental toll as well, Holthaus observes. Having himself gone into therapy in 2017 for climate-related anxiety, he discusses the threat posed by feelings of existential despair while going through the “living emergency” of global climate change, a situation in which a state of crisis is normalized. In the book’s second half, he balances the doom-and-gloom by envisioning how, in the coming decades, humanity might remake food systems to be locally controlled, phase out fossil fuel use in transportation, and reform democracies to be more responsive to voters. These are not impossibilities, he suggests, if the world acts now. He wraps up with suggestions for coping mechanisms and exercises on handling grief and stress. Serious and substantial, this will give readers plenty to consider. (July)