The Uninhabitable Earth

by David Wallace-Wells;

  grew by 1.4 percent: International Energy Agency, Global Energy and CO2 Status Report, 2017 (Paris, March 2018), p. 1, www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/GECO2017.pdf.

  “in range”: See the Climate Action Tracker.

  emissions grew by 4 percent: Zach Boren and Harri Lammi, “Dramatic Surge in China Carbon Emissions Signals Climate Danger,” Unearthed, May 30, 2018, https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/05/30/china-co2-carbon-climate-emissions-rise-in-2018.

  coal power has nearly doubled: Simon Evans and Rosamund Pearce, “Mapped: The World’s Coal Power Plants,” Carbon Brief, June 5, 2018, www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants. Evans and Pearce estimate 1.061 million megawatts of coal power in 2000 and 1.996 million in 2017.

  the Chinese example: Yann Robiou du Pont and Malte Meinshausen, “Warming Assessment of the Bottom-Up Paris Agreement Emissions Pledges,” Nature Communications, November 2018.

  “limited realistic potential”: European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, Negative Emission Technologies: What Role in Meeting Paris Agreement Targets? (Halle, Ger., February 2018), p. 1, https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Negative_Carbon/EASAC_Report_on_Negative_Emission_Technologies.pdf.

  “magical thinking”: “Why Current Negative-Emissions Strategies Remain ‘Magical Thinking,’ ” Nature, February 21, 2018, www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02184-x.

  full-scale carbon capture plants: Andy Skuce, “ ‘We’d Have to Finish One New Facility Every Working Day for the Next 70 Years’—Why Carbon Capture Is No Panacea,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 4, 2016, https://thebulletin.org/2016/10/wed-have-to-finish-one-new-facility-every-working-day-for-the-next-70-years-why-carbon-capture-is-no-panacea.

  eighteen of them: Global CCS Institute, “Large-Scale CCS Facilities,” www.globalccsinstitute.com/projects/large-scale-ccs-projects.

  Asphalt and concrete: Linda Poon, “Street Grids May Make Cities Hotter,” CityLab, April 27, 2018, www.citylab.com/environment/2018/04/street-grids-may-make-cities-hotter/558845.

  22 degrees Fahrenheit: Environmental Protection Agency, “Heat Island Effect,” www.epa.gov/heat-islands.

  Chicago heat wave of 1995: Eric Klinenberg, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

  two-thirds of the global population: “Around 2.5 Billion More People Will Be Living in Cities by 2050, Projects New U.N. Report,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, May 16, 2018, www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-world-urbanization-prospects.html.

  that list could grow to 970: Urban Climate Change Research Network, The Future We Don’t Want: How Climate Change Could Impact the World’s Greatest Cities (New York, February 2018), p. 6, https://c40-production-images.s3.amazonaws.com/other_uploads/images/1789_Future_We_Don't_Want_Report_1.4_hi-res_120618.original.pdf.

  70,000 workers: Public Citizen, “Extreme Heat and Unprotected Workers: Public Citizen Petitions OSHA to Protect the Millions of Workers Who Labor in Dangerous Temperatures” (Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2018), p. 25, www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/extreme_heat_and_unprotected_workers.pdf.

  255,000 are expected: World Health Organization, “Quantitative Risk Assessment of the Effects of Climate Change on Selected Causes of Death, 2030s and 2050s” (Geneva, 2014), p. 21, http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/134014/9789241507691_eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

  a third of the world’s population: Camilo Mora et al., “Global Risk of Deadly Heat,” Nature Climate Change 7 (June 2017): pp. 501–6, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322.

  heat death is among: Langewiesche, “How Extreme Heat Could Leave Swaths.”

  Hunger

  the basic rule of thumb: David S. Battisti and Rosamond L. Naylor, “Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat,” Science 323, no. 5911 (January 2009): pp. 240–44.

  Some estimates run higher: “The temperature-crop relationship is nonlinear,” Battisti says. “Yields drop off faster for each one degree Celsius temperature increase—so yes, all else being the same, yields would drop off much more than 50 percent.”

  eight pounds of grain to produce: Lloyd Alter, “Energy Required to Produce a Pound of Food,” Treehugger, 2010. As Battisti put it in an interview, “Usually this is quoted as ‘it takes 8 to 10 kg of grain to produce 1 kg of beef.’ ”

  Globally, grain accounts: Ed Yong, “The Very Hot, Very Hungry Caterpillar,” The Atlantic, August 30, 2018.

  two-thirds of all human calories: Chuang Zhao et al., “Temperature Increase Reduces Global Yields of Major Crops in Four Independent Estimates,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 35 (August 2017): pp. 9326–31, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1701762114.

  the United Nations estimates: Food and Agriculture Organization, “How to Feed the World in 2050” (Rome, October 2009), p. 2, www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/expert_paper/How_to_Feed_the_World_in_2050.pdf.

  the tropics are already too hot: “In the tropics, the temperature already exceeds the optimate temperature for major grains,” Battisti told me. “Any additional increase in temperature will further reduce yield, even under otherwise optimal conditions.”

  at least a fifth of its productivity: Michelle Tigchelaar et al., “Future Warming Increases Probability of Globally Synchronized Maize Production Shocks,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 26 (June 2018): pp. 6644–49, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718031115.

  thicker leaves are worse: Marlies Kovenock and Abigail L. S. Swann, “Leaf Trait Acclimation Amplifies Simulated Climate Warming in Response to Elevated Carbon Dioxide,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 32 (October 2018), https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GB005883.

  75 billion tons of soil: Stacey Noel et al., “Report for Policy and Decision Makers: Reaping Economic and Environmental Benefits from Sustainable Land Management,” Economics of Land Development Initiative (Bonn, Ger., September 2015), p. 10, www.eld-initiative.org/fileadmin/pdf/ELD-pm-report_05_web_300dpi.pdf.

  the rate of erosion is ten times: Susan S. Lang, “ ‘Slow, Insidious’ Soil Erosion Threatens Human Health and Welfare as Well as the Environment, Cornell Study Asserts,” Cornell Chronicle, March 20, 2006, http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/03/slow-insidious-soil-erosion-threatens-human-health-and-welfare.

  thirty to forty times as fast: Ibid.

  lacking credit to make the necessary: Richard Hornbeck, “The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short- and Long-Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe,” American Economic Review 102, no. 4 (June 2012): pp. 1477–507, http://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1477.

  John Wesley Powell: Richard Seager et al., “Whither the 100th Meridian? The Once and Future Physical and Human Geography of America’s Arid-Humid Divide. Part 1: The Story So Far,” Earth Interactions 22, no. 5 (March 2018), https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1. You can read further by finding Powell’s own text, “Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah. With Maps” (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1879), https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf.

  less farmable land: Seager, “Whither the 100th Meridian?” https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1.

  separating the Sahara desert: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, “The 100th Meridian, Where the Great Plains Begins, May Be Shifting,” April 11, 2018, www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/100th-meridian-where-great-plains-begin-may-be-shifting.

  That desert has expanded: Natalie Thomas and Sumant Nigam, “Twentieth-Century Climate Change over Africa: Seasonal Hydroclimate Trends and Sahara,” Journal of Climate 31, no. 22 (2018).

  dropped from more than 30 percent: Food and Agriculture Organization, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World: Addressing Food Insecurity in Protracted Crises” (Rome,
2010), p. 9, www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1683e/i1683e.pdf.

  Born to Iowa family farmers: Charles C. Mann, The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (New York: Knopf, 2018).

  increase global greenhouse-gas emissions: Zhaohai Bai et al., “Global Environmental Costs of China’s Thirst for Milk,” Global Change Biology 24, no. 5 (May 2018): pp. 2198–211, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14047.

  food production accounts for about a third: Natasha Gilbert, “One-Third of Our Greenhouse Gas Emissions Come from Agriculture,” Nature, October 31, 2012, www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708.

  Greenpeace has estimated: Greenpeace International, “Greenpeace Calls for Decrease in Meat and Dairy Production and Consumption for a Healthier Planet” (press release), March 5, 2018, www.greenpeace.org/international/press-release/15111/greenpeace-calls-for-decrease-in-meat-and-dairy-production-and-consumption-for-a-healthier-planet.

  “the Malthusian tragic:” Kris Bartkus, “W. G. Sebald and the Malthusian Tragic,” The Millions, March 28, 2018.

  At 2 degrees of warming: Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2008), p. 84.

  “two globe-girdling belts of perennial drought”: Ibid.

  By 2080, without dramatic reductions: Benjamin I. Cook et al., “Global Warming and 21st Century Drying,” Climate Dynamics 43, no. 9–10 (March 2014): pp. 2607–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2075-y.

  The same will be true in Iraq and Syria: Joseph Romm, Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 101.

  all the rivers east of the Sierra Nevada: Ibid., p. 102.

  100 million hungry: Food and Agriculture Organization, “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World: Building Climate Resilience for Food Security and Nutrition” (Rome, 2018), p. 57, www.fao.org/3/I9553EN/i9553en.pdf.

  The spring of 2017 brought: “Fighting Famine in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen,” ReliefWeb, 2017, https://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/ep/wfp292787.pdf.

  truly customized farming strategies: Zhenling Cui et al, “Pursuing Sustainable Productivity with Millions of Smallholder Farmers,” Nature, March 7, 2018.

  “soil-free startup”: Madeleine Cuff, “Green Growth: British Soil-Free Farming Startup Prepares for First Harvest,” Business Green, May 1, 2018.

  “We are witnessing the greatest injection”: Helena Bottemiller Evich, “The Great Nutrient Collapse,” Politico, September 13, 2017.

  has declined by as much as one-third: Donald R. Davis et al., “Changes in USDA Food Composition Data for 43 Garden Crops, 1950 to 1999,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 23, no. 6 (2004): pp. 669–82.

  the protein content of bee pollen: Lewis H. Ziska et al., “Rising Atmospheric CO2 Is Reducing the Protein Concentration of a Floral Pollen Source Essential for North American Bees,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 283, no. 1828 (April 2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0414.

  by 2050 as many as 150 million: Danielle E. Medek et al., “Estimated Effects of Future Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations on Protein Intake and the Risk of Protein Deficiency by Country and Region,” Environmental Health Perspectives 125, no. 8 (August 2017), https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP41.

  138 million could suffer: Samuel S. Myers et al., “Effect of Increased Concentrations of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on the Global Threat of Zinc Deficiency: A Modelling Study,” The Lancet 3, no. 10 (October 2015): PE639–E645, https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(15)00093-5.

  1.4 billion could face a dramatic decline: M. R. Smith et al., “Potential Rise in Iron Deficiency Due to Future Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” GeoHealth 1 (August 2017): pp. 248–57, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GH000018.

  eighteen different strains of rice: Chunwu Zhu et al., “Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Levels This Century Will Alter the Protein, Micronutrients, and Vitamin Content of Rice Grains with Potential Health Consequences for the Poorest Rice-Dependent Countries,” Science Advances 4, no. 5 (May 2018), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq1012.

  Drowning

  four feet of sea-level rise: Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney, “Scientists Nearly Double Sea Level Rise Projections for 2100, Because of Antarctica,” The Washington Post, March 30, 2016.

  by the end of the century: Benjamin Strauss and Scott Kulp, “Extreme Sea Level Rise and the Stakes for America,” Climate Central, April 26, 2017, www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-sea-level-rise-stakes-for-america-21387.

  A radical reduction: See the graphic “Surging Seas: 2°C Warming and Sea Level Rise” on the Climate Central website.

  Jeff Goodell runs through: Jeff Goodell, The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World (New York: Little, Brown, 2017), p. 13.

  Atlantis: The historical basis, if any, for this legend remains a subject of debate and dispute, but for an overview (and the suggestion that the society was submerged by a volcano eruption on today’s Santorini), see Willie Drye, “Atlantis,” National Geographic, 2018.

  as much as 5 percent: Jochen Hinkel et al., “Coastal Flood Damage and Adaptation Costs Under 21st Century Sea-Level Rise,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (February 2014), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1222469111.

  Jakarta is one: Mayuri Mei Lin and Rafki Hidayat, “Jakarta, the Fastest-Sinking City in the World,” BBC News, August 13, 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44636934.

  China is evacuating: Andrew Galbraith, “China Evacuates 127,000 People as Heavy Rains Lash Guangdong—Xinhua,” Reuters, September 1, 2018, www.reuters.com/article/us-china-floods/china-evacuates-127000-people-as-heavy-rains-lash-guangdong-xinhua-idUSKCN1LH3BV.

  Much of the infrastructure: Ramakrishnan Durairajan et al., “Lights Out: Climate Change Risk to Internet Infrastructure,” Proceedings of the Applied Networking Research Workshop (July 16, 2018): pp. 9–15, https://doi.org/10.1145/3232755.3232775.

  nearly 311,000 homes: Union of Concerned Scientists, “Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate” (Cambridge, MA, 2018), p. 5, www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/sea-level-rise-chronic-floods-and-us-coastal-real-estate-implications.

  $100 trillion per year by 2100: University of Southampton, “Climate Change Threatens to Cause Trillions in Damage to World’s Coastal Regions If They Do Not Adapt to Sea-Level Rise,” February 4, 2014, www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2014/02/04-climate-change-threatens-damage-to-coastal-regions.page#.UvonXXewI2l.

  $14 trillion a year: Svetlana Jevrejeva et al., “Flood Damage Costs Under the Sea Level Rise with Warming of 1.5 °C and 2 °C,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 7 (July 2018), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacc76.

  continue for millennia: Andrea Dutton et al., “Sea-Level Rise Due to Polar Ice-Sheet Mass Loss During Past Warm Periods,” Science 349, no. 6244 (July 2015), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa4019.

  two-degree scenario: “Surging Seas,” Climate Central.

  about 444,000 square miles: Benjamin Strauss, “Coastal Nations, Megacities Face 20 Feet of Sea Rise,” Climate Central, July 9, 2015, www.climatecentral.org/news/nations-megacities-face-20-feet-of-sea-level-rise-19217.

  the twenty cities most affected: Ibid.

  flooding has quadrupled since 1980: European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, “New Data Confirm Increased Frequency of Extreme Weather Events, European National Science Academies Urge Further Action on Climate Change Adaptation,” March 21, 2018, https://easac.eu/press-releases/details/new-data-confirm-increased-frequency-of-extreme-weather-events-european-national-science-academies.

  by 2100 high-tide flooding: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Patterns and Projections of High Tide Flooding Along the US Coastline Us
ing a Common Impact Threshold” (Silver Spring, MD, February 2018), p. ix, https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/techrpt86_PaP_of_HTFlooding.pdf.

  affected 2.3 billion and killed 157,000: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, “The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters 1995–2015” (Geneva, 2015), p. 13, www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf.

  increase global rainfall to such a degree: Sven N. Willner et al., “Adaptation Required to Preserve Future High-End River Flood Risk at Present Levels,” Science Advances 4, no. 1 (January 2018), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao1914.

  at risk of catastrophic inundation: Oliver E. J. Wing et al., “Estimates of Present and Future Flood Risk in the Conterminous United States,” Environmental Research Letters 13, no. 3 (February 2018), https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaac65.

  floods in South Asia killed 1,200: Oxfam International, “43 Million Hit by South Asia Floods: Oxfam Is Responding,” August 31, 2017, www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-08-31/43-million-hit-south-asia-floods-oxfam-responding.

  António Guterres, the secretary-general: United Nations Secretary-General, “Secretary-General’s Press Encounter on Climate Change [with Q&A],” March 29, 2018, www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2018-03-29/secretary-generals-press-encounter-climate-change-qa.

  eight times the entire global population: U.S. Census Bureau, “Historical Estimates of World Population,” www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html.

  Noah’s Ark story: There are a number of theories about historical flood events that may have inspired the biblical story, but this popular one was presented at length in William Ryan and Walter Pitman, Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event That Changed History (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

  700,000 Rohingya refugees: Michael Schwirtz, “Besieged Rohingya Face ‘Crisis Within the Crisis’: Deadly Floods,” The New York Times, February 13, 2018.

  When the Paris Agreement was drafted: Meehan Crist, “Besides, I’ll Be Dead,” London Review of Books, February 22, 2018, www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n04/meehan-crist/besides-ill-be-dead.