The Uninhabitable Earth

by David Wallace-Wells;

  Katrina-level hurricanes are expected: Aslak Grinsted et al., “Projected Atlantic Hurricane Surge Threat from Rising Temperatures,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (March 2013), https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1209980110.

  Looking globally, researchers have found: Greg Holland and Cindy L. Bruyère, “Recent Intense Hurricane Response to Global Climate Change,” Climate Dynamics 42, no. 3–4 (February 2014): pp. 617–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1713-0.

  Between just 2006 and 2013, the Philippines: Food and Agriculture Organization, “The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security” (Rome, 2015), p. xix, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/a-i5128e.pdf.

  typhoons have intensified: Wei Mei and Shang-Ping Xie, “Intensification of Landfalling Typhoons over the Northwest Pacific Since the Late 1970s,” Nature Geoscience 9 (September 2016): pp. 753–57, https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEO2792.

  By 2070, Asian megacities: Linda Poon, “Climate Change Is Testing Asia’s Megacities,” CityLab, October 9, 2018, www.citylab.com/environment/2018/10/asian-megacities-vs-tomorrows-typhoons/572062.

  the more intense the blizzards: Judah Cohen et al., “Warm Arctic Episodes Linked with Increased Frequency of Extreme Winter Weather in the United States,” Nature Communications 9, no. 869 (March 2018): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02992-9.

  758 tornadoes: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, “State of the Climate: Tornadoes for April 2011,” May 2011, www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/tornadoes/201104.

  40 percent by 2010: Noah S. Diffenbaugh et al., “Robust Increases in Severe Thunderstorm Environments in Response to Greenhouse Forcing,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. 41 (October 2013): pp. 16361–66, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1307758110.

  $725 billion: Keith Porter et al., “Overview of the ARkStorm Scenario,” U.S. Geological Survey, January 2011, https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1312.

  a cloud of “unbearable” smells: Emily Atkin, “Minutes: ‘Unbearable’ Petrochemical Smells Are Reportedly Drifting into Houston,” The New Republic, August 2017.

  nearly half a billion gallons: Frank Bajak and Lise Olsen, “Silent Spills,” Houston Chronicle, May 2018.

  the city had already been knocked: Kevin Litten, “16 New Orleans Pumps, Not 14, Were Down Saturday and Remain Out: Officials,” The Times-Picayune, August 10, 2017.

  the 2000 population of 480,000: Elizabeth Fussell, “Constructing New Orleans, Constructing Race: A Population History of New Orleans,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 3 (December 2007), pp. 846–55, www.jstor.org/stable/25095147.

  as low as 230,000: Allison Plyer, “Facts for Features: Katrina Impact,” The Data Center, August 26, 2016, www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact.

  One of the fastest-growing cities: U.S. Census Bureau, “The South Is Home to 10 of the 15 Fastest-Growing Large Cities,” May 25, 2017, www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2017/cb17-81-population-estimates-subcounty.html.

  included the fastest-growing suburb: Amy Newcomb, “Census Bureau Reveals Fastest-Growing Large Cities,” U.S. Census Bureau, 2018.

  more than five times as many residents: U.S. Census Bureau figures.

  brought there by the oil business: John Schwartz, “Exxon Misled the Public on Climate Change, Study Says,” The New York Times, August 23, 2017.

  Lower Ninth Ward: Greg Allen, “Ghosts of Katrina Still Haunt New Orleans’ Shattered Lower Ninth Ward,” NPR, August 3, 2015, www.npr.org/2015/08/03/427844717/ghosts-of-katrina-still-haunt-new-orleans-shattered-lower-ninth-ward.

  the entire coastline of Louisiana: Kevin Sack and John Schwartz, “Left to Louisiana’s Tides, a Village Fights for Time,” The New York Times, February 24, 2018, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/24/us/jean-lafitte-floodwaters.html.

  2,000 square miles already gone: Bob Marshall, Brian Jacobs, and Al Shaw, “Losing Ground,” ProPublica, August 28, 2014, http://projects.propublica.org/louisiana.

  2018 road budget: Jeff Goodell, “Welcome to the Age of Climate Migration,” Rolling Stone, February 4, 2018.

  islanders arrived in Florida: John D. Sutter and Sergio Hernandez, “ ‘Exodus’ from Puerto Rico: A Visual Guide,” CNN, February 21, 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/puerto-rico-migration-data-invs/index.html.

  Freshwater Drain

  Seventy-one percent of the planet: USGS Water Science School, “How Much Water Is There on, in, and Above the Earth?” U.S. Geological Survey, December 2, 2016, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html.

  Barely more than 2 percent: USGS Water Science School, “The World’s Water,” U.S. Geological Survey, December 2, 2016, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html.

  only 0.007 percent of the planet’s water: “Freshwater Crisis,” National Geographic.

  Globally, between 70 and 80 percent: Tariq Khokhar, “Chart: Globally, 70% of Freshwater Is Used for Agriculture,” World Bank Data Blog, March 22, 2017, https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/chart-globally-70-freshwater-used-agriculture.

  twenty liters of water each day: “Water Consumption in Africa,” Institute Water for Africa, https://water-for-africa.org/en/water-consumption/articles/water-consumption-in-africa.html.

  less than half of what water organizations: UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication and Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, “The Human Right to Water and Sanitation,” www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/pdf/human_right_to_water_and_sanitation_media_brief.pdf.

  global water demand is expected: “Half the World to Face Severe Water Stress by 2030 Unless Water Use Is ‘Decoupled’ from Economic Growth, Says International Resource Panel,” United Nations Environment Programme, March 21, 2016, www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/half-world-face-severe-water-stress-2030-unless-water-use-decoupled.

  loss of 16 percent of freshwater: “Water Audits and Water Loss Control for Public Water Systems,” Environmental Protection Agency, July 2013, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-04/documents/epa816f13002.pdf.

  in Brazil, the estimate is 40 percent: “Treated Water Loss Is Still High in Brazil,” World Water Forum, November 21, 2017, http://8.worldwaterforum.org/en/news/treated-water-loss-still-high-brazil.

  a tool of inequality: In 2018, it was revealed that Harvard had aggressively bought up California vineyards for the water underground.

  2.1 billion people around the world: “2.1 Billion People Lack Safe Drinking Water at Home, More than Twice as Many Lack Safe Sanitation,” World Health Organization, July 12, 2017, www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-07-2017-2-1-billion-people-lack-safe-drinking-water-at-home-more-than-twice-as-many-lack-safe-sanitation.

  4.5 billion don’t have safely managed water: Ibid.

  Half of the world’s population: M. Huss et al., “Toward Mountains Without Permanent Snow and Ice,” Earth’s Future 5, no. 5 (May 2017): pp. 418–35, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000514.

  the glaciers of the Himalayas: P. D. A. Kraaijenbrink, “Impact of a Global Temperature Rise of 1.5 Degrees Celsius on Asia’s Glaciers,” Nature 549 (September 2017): pp. 257–60, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23878.

  At four degrees, the snow-capped Alps: Mark Lynas, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2008), p. 202.

  70 percent less snow: Christoph Marty et al., “How Much Can We Save? Impact of Different Emission Scenarios on Future Snow Cover in the Alps,” The Cryosphere, 2017.

  250 million Africans: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries” (New York, 2007), p. 5, https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/publications/impacts.pdf.

  a billion people in Asia: Charles Fant et al., “Projections of Water Stress Based on an Ensemble of Socioeconomic Growth and Climate Change Scenarios: A Case Study in A
sia,” PLOS One 11, no. 3 (March 2016), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150633.

  freshwater availability in cities: World Bank, “High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy” (Washington, D.C., 2016), p. vi.

  five billion people: UN Water, “The United Nations World Water Development Report 2018: Nature-Based Solutions for Water” (Paris, 2018), p. 3, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/261424e.pdf.

  boomtown Phoenix: Marcello Rossi, “Desert City Phoenix Mulls Ways to Quench Thirst of Sprawling Suburbs,” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, June 7, 2018, news.trust.org/item/20180607120002-7kwzq.

  even London is beginning to worry: Edoardo Borgomeo, “Will London Run Out of Water?” The Conversation, May 24, 2018, https://theconversation.com/will-london-run-out-of-water-97107.

  “high to extreme water stress”: NITI Aayog, Composite Water Management Index: A Tool for Water Management (June 2018), p. 15, www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf.

  water availability in Pakistan: Rina Saeed Khan, “Water Pressures Rise in Pakistan as Drought Meets a Growing Population,” Reuters, June 14, 2018, https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5N1T7502.

  the Aral Sea: NASA Earth Observatory, “World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea,” https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/WorldOfChange/AralSea.

  Lake Poopó: NASA Earth Observatory, “Bolivia’s Lake Poopó Disappears,” January 23, 2016, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87363/bolivias-lake-poopo-disappears.

  Lake Urmia: Amir AghaKouchak et al., “Aral Sea Syndrome Desiccates Lake Urmia: Call for Action,” Journal of Great Lakes Research 41, no. 1 (March 2015): pp. 307–11, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jglr.2014.12.007.

  Lake Chad: “Africa’s Vanishing Lake Chad,” Africa Renewal (April 2012), www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2012/africa%E2%80%99s-vanishing-lake-chad.

  warmwater-friendly bacteria: Boqiang Qin et al., “A Drinking Water Crisis in Lake Taihu, China: Linkage to Climatic Variability and Lake Management,” Environmental Management 45, no. 1 (January 2010): pp. 105–12, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9393-6.

  Lake Tanganyika: Jessica E. Tierney et al., “Late-Twentieth-Century Warming in Lake Tanganyika Unprecedented Since AD 500,” Nature Geoscience 3 (May 2010): pp. 422–25, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo865. See also, for instance, Clea Broadhurst, “Global Warming Depletes Lake Tanganikya’s Fish Stocks,” RFI, August 9, 2016, http://en.rfi.fr/africa/20160809-global-warming-responsible-decline-fish-lake-tanganyika.

  16 percent of the world’s natural methane: E. J. S. Emilson et al., “Climate-Driven Shifts in Sediment Chemistry Enhance Methane Production in Northern Lakes,” Nature Communications 9, no. 1801 (May 2018), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04236-2. See also David Bastviken et al., “Methane Emissions from Lakes: Dependence of Lake Characteristics, Two Regional Assessments, and a Global Estimate,” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 18 (2004), https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002238.

  could double those emissions: “Greenhouse Gas ‘Feedback Loop’ Discovered in Freshwater Lakes,” University of Cambridge, May 4, 2018, www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/greenhouse-gas-feedback-loop-discovered-in-freshwater-lakes.

  aquifers already supply: USGS Water Science School, “Groundwater Use in the United States,” U.S. Geological Survey, June 26, 2018, https://water.usgs.gov/edu/wugw.html.

  wells that used to draw water: Brian Clark Howard, “California Drought Spurs Groundwater Drilling Boom in Central Valley,” National Geographic, August 16, 2014.

  lost twelve cubic miles: Kevin Wilcox, “Aquifers Depleted in Colorado River Basin,” Civil Engineering, August 5, 2014, www.asce.org/magazine/20140805-aquifers-depleted-in-colorado-river-basin.

  Ogallala Aquifer: Sandra Postel, “Drought Hastens Groundwater Depletion in the Texas Panhandle,” National Geographic, July 24, 2014.

  expected to drain by 70 percent: Kansas State University, “Study Forecasts Future Water Levels of Crucial Agricultural Aquifer,” K-State News, August 26, 2013, www.k-state.edu/media/newsreleases/aug13/groundwater82613.html. See also David R. Steward et al., “Tapping Unsustainable Groundwater Stores for Agricultural Production in the High Plains Aquifer of Kansas, Projections to 2110,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 110. no. 37 (September 2013), pp. E3477–86, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1220351110.

  twenty-one cities: NITI Aayog, Composite Water Management Index, p. 22, www.niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/document_publication/2018-05-18-Water-index-Report_vS6B.pdf.

  The first Day Zero: City of Cape Town, “Day Zero: When Is It, What Is It, and How Can We Avoid It?” November 15, 2017.

  In a memorable first-person account: Adam Welz, “Letter from a Bed in Cape Town,” Sierra, February 12, 2018, www.sierraclub.org/sierra/letter-bed-cape-town-drought-day-zero.

  in arid Utah: Mark Milligan, “Glad You Asked: Does Utah Really Use More Water than Any Other State?” Utah Geological Survey, https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/does-utah-use-more-water.

  South Africa had nine million people: UNESCO, Water: A Shared Responsibility—The United Nations World Water Development Report 2 (Paris, 2006), p. 502, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001454/145405e.pdf#page=519.

  to produce the nation’s wine crop: Stephen Leahy, “From Not Enough to Too Much, the World’s Water Crisis Explained,” National Geographic, March 22, 2018.

  total urban consumption: Public Policy Institute for California, “Water Use in California,” July 2016, www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california.

  limiting water use to twelve hours: Jon Gerberg, “A Megacity Without Water: São Paulo’s Drought,” Time, October 13, 2015.

  aggressive rationing system: Simon Romero, “Taps Start to Run Dry in Brazil’s Largest City,” The New York Times, February 16, 2015.

  barge in drinking water from France: Graham Keeley, “Barcelona Forced to Import Emergency Water,” The Guardian, May 14, 2008.

  “millennium drought”: “Recent Rainfall, Drought and Southern Australia’s Long-Term Rainfall Decline,” Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology, April 2015, www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a010-southern-rainfall-decline.shtml.

  99 and 84 percent, respectively: Albert I. J. M. van Dijk et al., “The Millennium Drought in Southeast Australia (2001–2009): Natural and Human Causes and Implications for Water Resources, Ecosystems, Economy, and Society,” Water Resources Research 49 (February 2013): pp. 1040–57, http://doi.org/10.1002/wrcr.20123.

  wetlands turned acidic: “Managing Water for the Environment During Drought: Lessons from Victoria, Australia, Technical Appendices,” Public Policy Institute of California (San Francisco, June 2016), p. 8, www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/0616JMR_appendix.pdf.

  for weeks in May and June: Michael Safi, “Washing Is a Privilege: Life on the Frontline of India’s Water Crisis,” The Guardian, June 21, 2018. See also Maria Abi-Habib and Hari Kumar, “Deadly Tensions Rise as India’s Water Supply Runs Dangerously Low,” The New York Times, June 17, 2018.

  United States west of Texas: Mesfin M. Mekonnen and Arjen Y. Hoekstra, “Four Billion People Facing Severe Water Scarcity,” Science Advances 2, no. 2 (February 2016), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500323.

  water demand from the global food system: World Bank, “High and Dry,” p. 5.

  “the impacts of climate change”: Ibid., p. vi.

  regional GDP could decline: Ibid., p. 13.

  list of all armed conflicts: “Water Conflict,” Pacific Institute: The World’s Water, May 2018. www.worldwater.org/water-conflict.

  the number of cholera cases: International Committee of the Red Cross, “Health Crisis in Yemen,” www.icrc.org/en/where-we-work/middle-east/yemen/health-crisis-yemen.

  Dying Oceans

  “Undersea”: Carson was just thirty when she published h
er essay in The Atlantic, still working as a biologist for the Fisheries Bureau of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In the oceans, she wrote, “we see parts of the plan fall into place: the water receiving from earth and air the simple materials, storing them up until the gathering energy of the spring sun wakens the sleeping plants to a burst of dynamic activity, hungry swarms of planktonic animals growing and multiplying upon the abundant plants, and themselves falling prey to the shoals of fish; all, in the end; to be redissolved into their component substances when the inexorable laws of the sea demand it. Individual elements are lost to view, only to repair again and again in different incarnations in a kind of material immortality. Kindred forces to those which, in some period inconceivably remote, gave birth to that primeval bit of protoplasm tossing on the ancient seas continue their mighty and incomprehensible work. Against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant or animal appears, not as drama complete in itself, but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.”

  70 percent of the earth’s surface: National Ocean Service, “How Much Water Is in the Ocean?” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, June 25, 2018, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html.

  seafood accounts for nearly a fifth: “Availability and Consumption of Fish,” World Health Organization, www.who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index5.html.

  fish populations have migrated: Malin L. Pinsky et al., “Preparing Ocean Governance for Species on the Move,” Science 360, no. 6394 (June 2018): pp. 1189–91, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2360.

  13 percent of the ocean undamaged: Kendall R. Jones et al., “The Location and Protection Status of Earth’s Diminishing Marine Wilderness,” Current Biology 28, no. 15 (August 2018): pp. 2506–12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.010.

  parts of the Arctic have been so transformed: Sigrid Lind et al., “Arctic Warming Hotspot in the Northern Barents Sea Linked to Declining Sea-Ice Import,” Nature Climate Change 8 (June 2018): pp. 634–39, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0205-y.