Journalist Eric Holthaus, in “The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible in the Age of Warming,” seeks to “encourage all of us to explore possible futures based on the latest science and continue to have faith that the conversations themselves could be transformative.” A talented stylist with an urgent tone, Holthaus sets the scene by surveying the climate emergency, appeals to our common sense of humanity, and then walks the Earth forward three decades, decade by decade, based on the author’s scientific knowledge and interviews with leading thinkers. This “hypothetical” makes narrative momentum difficult to sustain, and sometimes there is a sense of a sci-fi script, but, as the author believes, the very act of telling a story of properly transformative emissions reduction (and some drawdown) is most instructive and encouraging. The author concludes with personal suggestions on how to model change. Overall, “The Future Earth” is an intriguing exhortation.
Book, album, and movie reviews
