The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells: summary and key ideas. Knowingo.

Why read it

Learn what warming does beyond rising seas: the wet bulb heat limit, about ten percent less grain per degree, and longer wildfire seasons
See rescue hopes tested against the numbers: carbon capture, Mars as an escape, and green energy that has not bent emissions downward
Follow the case that how bad warming gets is a choice, through climate liability, the politics of consumption, and the writer's stated optimism

Andrew SolomonAuthor of The Noonday Demon
The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.
Elizabeth KolbertAuthor of The Sixth Extinction
David Wallace-Wells argues that the impacts of climate change will be much graver than most people realize, and he’s right. The Uninhabitable Earth is a timely and provocative work.
Jonathan Safran FoerAuthor of Everything Is Illuminated
David Wallace-Wells has now provided the details, and with writing that is not only clear and forceful, but often imaginative and even funny, he has found a way to make the information deeply felt.
Amitav GhoshAuthor of The Great Derangement
This gripping, terrifying, furiously readable book is possibly the most wide-ranging account yet written of the ways in which climate change will transform every aspect of our lives, ranging from where we live to what we eat and the stories we tell.
Timothy SnyderHistorian and author of On Tyranny
If we don’t want our grandchildren to curse us, we had better read this book.
Margaret AtwoodAuthor of The Handmaid's Tale
A must-read. It's not only the grandkids and the kids: it's you. And it's not only those in other countries: it's you.

David Wallace WellsJournalist, formerly deputy editor of New York magazine and now a writer for The New York Times
- He was born in 1982 in the Inwood neighborhood of Manhattan and spent his later childhood and teenage years in Riverdale.
- He attended the University of Chicago for one year, then transferred to Brown University and graduated in 2004 with a degree in history.
- Before New York magazine he was deputy editor of The Paris Review and a national fellow at the New America Foundation.
- He was a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine, where he spent 11 years.
- His July 2017 New York magazine cover story on worst case warming became the most read story the magazine had published.
- The Times describes his New York magazine work as agenda setting essays on the dangers and complexities of global warming.
- In 2022 he joined The New York Times Opinion section to launch a weekly climate newsletter, and became a staff writer at the magazine.
- He lives in Lower Manhattan and has two daughters.

Goes deeperThe Heat Will Kill You First
David Wallace Wells cites a wet bulb red line for habitability, and Jeff Goodell explains how humidity, exertion and the body's limited ability to shed heat make humid heat dangerous.