Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Uninhabitable Earth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cascades, Systems Crises, and Interconnectedness
Human Responsibility and the Natural World
Optimism and Action vs. Despair and Nihilism
The Effects of Climate Change on Humanity
Summary
Analysis
In 2017, the Thomas Fire spread through Southern California, forcing over 100,000 people to evacuate and burning over 50,000 acres in one day. The fires that broke out in 2017 weren’t as “unthinkable” as the media suggested they were: California’s fire seasons are, almost every year, debilitating. But they’re getting worse. In 2017, five of the 20 worst fires in the state’s history hit. In the years that followed, the fires continued to worsen, and the media continued to spin stories of “unprecedented” damage, when really, it wasn’t the scales of the disasters that were unbelievable but the types of people they affected. Realizing that a city as wealthy and beautiful as Los Angeles was so vulnerable came as a shock to many.
Natural disasters like wildfires are one thing when they strike poor, vulnerable areas—but when they force celebrities from their homes in real-time, more people notice just how bad things are really getting. Wallace-Wells seems to lament that it takes this kind of destruction to get people to see that climate disaster is indiscriminate, immune to the supposed barriers of wealth and class.
Themes
The extreme fires in California are likely to worsen—soon, we will long for the “normal” fire seasons we’re experiencing right now. The United States is vulnerable to the effects of climate chaos—and it’s becoming harder to protect against them. Wildfire damage is expected to double by 2050, and there will be no fire “season”—the scourge will be year-round.
This passage calls into question what humanity is willing to accept as normal. We already look at superstorms and raging, prolonged wildfire seasons as a part of everyday life—even though they’re markedly worse now than they have been in recent decades. One of the biggest threats to collective action against climate change is this phenomenon of normalization.
Themes
Globally, wildfires are beginning to set off new biological feedback cycles. From mudslides to air pollution to compromised drinking water to the release of carbon stored in the trees that burn, fires threaten to unleash one of the “most feared” cascades of all. Right now, deforestation comprises about 12 percent of carbon emissions, while forest fires comprise about 25 percent. The deforestation of the Amazon promises to add 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming. Additionally, when forests are decimated, the bugs that live there flee—spreading insect-borne diseases to new regions. These cascades reveal the “true cruelty” of climate change.
This passage is one of the book’s most direct illustrations of how the interconnected cascades of our climate systems threaten to provoke one another and create chaos for humanity. Wildfires aren’t just concerning in and of themselves—all the other forms of destruction and change they threaten to unleash also have to be taken into account. Wallace-Wells continues to illustrate the interconnectedness between the many disparate parts of our world in order to emphasize that fighting climate change requires innovation, dedication, and a rigorous understanding of how these feedback systems function.
Themes
