Losing Earth

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Losing Earth is a book by Nathaniel Rich . It was published on April 9, 2019 in English and German and on May 2, 2019 in French. The book quickly became an international bestseller. It is based on numerous interviews and emerged from an extensive report on the climate crisis published in the New York Times Magazine .

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The Keeling curve shows the increase in the proportion of CO 2 in the atmosphere, measured on the Mauna Loa

The core thesis of Losing Earth is that the climate catastrophe in which the earth finds itself could have been averted in the years 1979 to 1989, but the chance to do so was wasted. At that time, the concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, at around 335 ppm, was already above the stable limit for thousands of years, but this value would have had comparatively harmless consequences. Actors in Rich's report are environmental representative Rafe Pomerance and NASA scientist James E. Hansen as well as other activists, scientists and consultants in their environment. Together they recognized the acceleration of the overheating of the earth's climate system and collected solutions with which this overheating can be averted. Rich argues that the debate at that time does not differ significantly from today's debate, neither in terms of knowledge about the problem situation nor in terms of possible solutions. However - shortly before a breakthrough could be achieved in 1989 - all attempts to achieve a broad public consensus that would have averted a climate catastrophe failed.

Rich believes we are already in the midst of a catastrophic development and that it is very unlikely to limit global warming to two degrees, which, according to James E. Hansen , is "a guide to a long-lasting disaster". This long-lasting catastrophe is now the most favorable scenario. Should the warming rise to 3 degrees, this would be a brief catastrophe, at 5 degrees warming threatens, according to some "the most famous climatologists, who otherwise hardly tend to exaggerate", the "end of human civilization". Global warming would then no longer be the direct cause, but rather the consequential effects triggered by it and accompanying environmental crises such as hunger , drought , sea ​​level rise and refugee flows of hundreds of millions of people and the associated wars over resources the main reason.

"We" humans would have known in the past decades that we were risking the downfall of our civilization today , and we would know today. We know "that global warming by two degrees is far worse than one and a half degrees and that operating in half a degree increments is in itself euphemistic". "Every place after the decimal point" is "worse than the one before it: 2.1 degrees is considerably better than 2.2 degrees, which in turn is dramatically better than 2.3 degrees." We also knew "that the changes to come will be worse for our children and worse again for their children," and we have proven through our behavior that we "do not care" about their fate. Instead, we would throw ourselves into "excuses" because we "do not like to think of loss or death" and it is difficult to "think soberly about an existential threat to the species". Of course, "the earth and the climate" will be fine, but "people will not be fine". A warming of 5 degrees means that mankind is "facing a new dark age". People cannot easily see this fact in the eye, but it has "enlightening effects if one does". Only then can "that dimension of the crisis emerge that has so far largely been neglected: the moral dimension".

Reviews

  • "Reading that can make you angry: Nathaniel Rich shows that the consequences of climate change were already known in the late 1970s." - Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  • “ Losing Earth is a revelation. When I read the story in the New York Times last summer , I couldn't believe my eyes. It is not often that a newspaper prints a small book as a special edition and keeps it freely accessible online with photos and videos. I kept my mouth open while reading. I was angry and got belligerent. I could hardly believe what I was reading. ”- The standard
  • "The subject of global warming is a constant topic: based on interviews, the US author Nathaniel Rich reports in his historical report 'Losing Earth' how the impending climate catastrophe could have been prevented decades ago." - Deutschlandradio Kultur
  • "There are stories that change the way we see and understand the world, and" Losing Earth "by Nathaniel Rich in the New York Times magazine is one of those stories, journalism from another planet: all at once everything that you already knew is tangible in a new clarity and urgency, with a bang it becomes clear in the never-ending heat of these weeks what it means to live in the age of disaster. ”- Spiegel Online
  • “A book that is just as thoroughly researched as it is passionate ... This story is a warning and has not yet been told to the end. As I read the book, I could not help imagining my children reading a later edition, which then also reports how my generation reacts to what we now know. ”- Jonathan Safran Foer

literature

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nathaniel Rich: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change. In: New York Times . August 1, 2018, accessed June 10, 2019 .
  2. ^ Nathaniel Rich: Losing Earth , Berlin 2019, pp. 11-13.
  3. ^ Nathaniel Rich: Losing Earth , Berlin 2019, pp. 215-217.
  4. ↑ Christian Schwägerl : Learning to live with extremes. In: FAZ . June 7, 2019, accessed on June 10, 2019 : "Reading that can make you angry: Nathaniel Rich shows that the consequences of climate change were already known in the late 1970s."
  5. ↑ Clemens Berger: "Losing Earth": The earth will soon be history. In: The Standard . April 14, 2019, accessed June 10, 2019 (essay): “Losing Earth is a revelation. When I read the story in the New York Times last summer, I couldn't believe my eyes. It is not often that a newspaper prints a small book as a special edition and keeps it freely accessible online with photos and videos. I kept my mouth open while reading. I was angry and got belligerent. I could hardly believe what I was reading. "
  6. ↑ Volkart Wildermuth: 30 years ago the climate rescue failed. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur . April 9, 2019, accessed on June 10, 2019 : “The subject of global warming is an ongoing topic: based on interviews, the US author Nathaniel Rich reports in his historical report“ Losing Earth ”how the impending climate catastrophe could have been prevented decades ago. "
  7. ↑ Georg Diez: Climate Change - The disaster could have been prevented. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved August 5, 2018, from June 10, 2019 (About the original feature in the New York Times magazine): "There are stories that change the way we see and understand the world, and" Losing Earth "by Nathaniel Rich in the "New York Times" magazine is such a story, journalism as if from another planet: Suddenly everything that you already knew is tangible with a new clarity and urgency, with a bang it becomes clear when it is not The waning heat of these weeks, what it means to live in the age of disaster. "
  8. ↑ Rich, Losing Earth (hardcover). Retrieved July 10, 2019 .