STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
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Climate of fear
The Uninhabitable Earth paints a deeply disturbing picture of what lies in store if global warming goes unchecked, says IAN SINCLAIR
Existential crisis
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
GORDON PARSONS is fascinated by a unique dream journal collected by a Jewish journalist in Nazi Berlin
Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, Parthenope, Where Dragons Live and Thunderbolts* reviewed by MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE
The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future
by David Wallace-Wells
(Allen Lane, £20)
CLEARLY intended to shock, last month the Guardian published a report warning that climate risks were similar to the 2008 financial crash.
The problem with this formulation, to partially quote the soon-to-be-iconic first sentence of The Uninhabitable Earth, is that “it is worse, much worse” than this. “What climate change has in store is not... a Great Recession or a Great Depression but, in economic terms, a Great Dying,” David Wallace-Wells argues in his book.
The 2016 UN Paris Agreement, which aims to limit warming to an increase of 2°C on pre-industrial levels, gave hope to many. But Wallace-Wells, deputy editor of New York magazine, injects a dose of frightening realism into the debate, noting all the commitments made at the summit by the 195 signatories would still mean 3.2°C of warming by 2100.
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IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
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