Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the novel as "a tour-de-force guaranteed to startle the most blasé SF buff." [3] Magazine stories [ edit ] Bill McGuire, Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards, explains the science behind the climate crisis and for the first time presents a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in; a world that we catch only glimpses of in today's blistering heatwaves, calamitous wildfires and ruinous floods and droughts. Bleak though it is, the picture is one we must all face up to, if only to spur genuine action – even at this late stage – to stop a harrowing future becoming a truly cataclysmic one. All-time heat records have been set all over the world,” Jason Samenow, Independent, UK, 5 July 2018 is on pace to be the 4th-hottest year on record,” Eric Levenson, Brandon Miller, CNN, July 28, 2018 and plants have developed into the dominant “Kingdom” on Earth. *** Side note: I wanted to just say “species” rather then "Kingdom" but then I was sure some science “troll nerd” with an overactive sense of self would take issue with my review for using improper jargon, forcing me to call him an Asshat and posting his picture all over goodreads....

Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide - Softcover - AbeBooks Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide - Softcover - AbeBooks

Long aeons in Earth's future, an Age of Plants has risen. Dangerous, carnivorous plants are everywhere - some species are even mobile hunters! The remaining humans are a dwarfed, shrunken species. With greatly reduced intelligence and a simple, tribal lifestyle, they struggle to stay alive long enough to maintain their population. The characters I liked most from the outset either died off or were MIA for all or most of the remainder of the book, like the too few insects, such as the bee-creature on the book cover, seen here: Traversers – Giant spider-like vegetables, they spin webs that stretch between the Earth and Moon, and a few have travelled to nearby stars. Their ten-thousand year infancy is now spent on the Moon, away from the worst of the parasitic tigerflies (their only enemies). When mature they live on the solar radiation in space, returning to the Earth to feed and mate, and the Moon to bud. It was the Glasgow COP26 climate conference in November 2021 that set me thinking along these lines. Attending the event was a frustrating business. All the talk was of staying this side of 1.5°C, when it was perfectly apparent that this wasn’t going to happen. To have any chance, emissions would need to fall by 50 percent or so by 2030, and although possible in theory, in the real world there was no sign of adequate action being taken. The corollary of this is that we will need to adapt to that degree of climate breakdown that is inevitable, while – at the same – time, slashing emissions as rapidly as possible, to prevent things being even worse. Earth has not experienced such a hothouse state — characterized by the absence of continental glaciers and sea-level over 100-meters higher — since the Cretaceous period, 100-million years ago. At that time, atmospheric CO 2 had reached 2000 parts-per-million (ppm) and average temperatures had reached 11°C warmer than the 20th century average. We’re now at about 410 ppm CO 2, and 1°C warmer than the 20th century average. Meanwhile, in spite of good intentions, we have not slowed our carbon emissions.

Need Help?

I liked that passage. However, I would have liked it even more if I could actually form in my head a clear shape of those things. Those weren't even among the weirdest names, by the way. According to Hothouse Earth, humanity has added 2.4 trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. This is a sobering figure. McGuire says that the last time CO2 levels were as high as now was during the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO), around 15 million years ago. During this time, temperatures were 2-4C higher than now, and sea level was 20m higher than today. A warning perhaps of what’s to come? They find themselves at the terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides. To their horror, they realise they are being carried over it. After a long journey, the seed stops near the top of a mountain, which is tall enough to still be lit by the low sun. There, Yattmur gives birth to Gren's child; Gren, increasingly taken over by the morel, wants the baby to host it as well. They meet the Sharp-furs, tribal baboons who use speech, and then they are approached by the Sodal Ye, a highly-evolved fish, and his three human servants. In return for food, the Sodal Ye thinks of a way to remove the morel from Gren's head by coaxing it into a bowl.

Hothouse Earth - Rex Weyler - Greenpeace International Hothouse Earth - Rex Weyler - Greenpeace International

Is that high praise? Yes. Do I see why one of the short stories that made up this novel won the Hugo in '62? Yes. Can I imagine that during the 5 year time that Frank Herbert was writing Dune, he got inspired while reading the magazines these stories were published? Yes. The world was fantastic, spanning from spiderwebs that spanned between the earth and the moon, twilight zones where wolfmen roam, trees that shoot fire, and fishmen that rise up from the waters to preach about civilization and the coming nova of our sun. Too cool. J. Garrett on economic growth and carbon emissions: “Coupled evolution of economy and atmosphere,” Earth System Dynamics, 2012; “Are there basic physical constraints on future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide?,” Climate Change, 2011. Springer and pdf; “Long-run evolution of the global economy,” Earth System Dynamics. Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire, was published as climate breakdown became impossible to ignore. The book arrived during the summer that the UK experienced its hottest day on record. Europe, the US and the Middle East have roasted in relentless heatwaves. Drought and wildfires reigned supreme, and this is just a taste of the future.Literally. Also - the earth doesn't spin on it's axis anymore is tidally attached to the sun so that one half is perpetual day and the other perpetual night. Also, there are HUUUUGE spiders that spin webs between earth and the moon. o_O I kid you not. The best part about the novel are the descriptions, the author is so wildly imaginative when he writes about different life forms. You almost feel like you’re watching a really great nature documentary. There is originally in this story. The feeling of life growing fanatically in the final days of a dying sun- it’s there. A beautifully heart-wrenching graphic-novel adaptation of actor and activist Takei’s ( Lions and Tigers and Bears, 2013, etc.) childhood experience of incarceration in a World War II camp for Japanese Americans.