Book Review: Our Final Warning Six Degrees of Climate Emergency
by Mark Lynas
By Susanna Guarino, MS, LMHC, Rochester NY
This book provides a nuanced understanding of what exactly we may be facing with each additional degree of warming. Lynas breaks it down chapter by chapter, all the way up to 6 degrees, which not surprisingly would be a total catastrophe- there’s some evidence that runaway warming at 6 degrees could make the entire earth uninhabitable, a planet with zero life, like Mars or Venus.
Given the news that we’ve already reached the 1.5 degree threshold, and are likely to make it to 2 degrees, those first two chapters of the book are especially riveting, in the can’t-look-away-train wreck type of way that makes you sick to your stomach. Readers are probably familiar with the consequences he speaks of, including the increased prevalence of bizarre and extreme weather, increased flooding, increased dangerous heat events, and the increased bleaching of corals. At 2 degrees, he writes that we will face the disappearance of Arctic sea ice, and worldwide drought. Famine may follow, at least for the world’s poorest.
Lynas cites a lot of research and details to back all of this up, so the narrative sometimes feels bogged down in the details. He certainly makes a case, though he’s probably preaching to the choir. The later chapters are basically speculative nonfiction, since we don’t know for sure what would happen with that much warming, though scientists have made smart guesses. The future could be bleak; or it could be better.
The future definitely could be better, and the scary extremes of higher degrees of warming avoided, if people and governments would actually take the actions required to save everything. Lynas doesn’t spend much time in the book talking about what that needs to look like, but if you take seriously the message he’s preaching, you may feel extra motivated to do something soon. Although one concern I have about this book is that all these depressing facts could actually feel demotivating. In some ways, reading it is like embarking on 268 pages of doom-scrolling. Even the cover image, of a shadowy figure standing in front of a giant fire, screams “the end is nigh.” But we’re not doomed yet, although we could be in the future. As the title proclaims, we’ve been given a “final warning.” We have to act fast.