The Uninhabitable Earth

Katy Lederer at n+1:

“NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS,” the axiom has it. In the case of climate change reporting, the opposite holds. At least since the late 1980s, when the NASA scientist James Hansen testified to Congress about the looming threat of catastrophic anthropogenic warming, scary news of climate change has been systematically suppressed. The reasons for this have run the gamut from scientists’ deeply inculcated aversion to appearing emotional, to citizens’ feelings of political impotence, to the fossil fuel industry’s fears that their unimaginably lucrative business model might be even the slightest bit disturbed. From our houses to our food supply to the planes, trains, and automobiles we have long taken for granted, the world as we know it has been made possible by fossil fuels. Every single one of us, at least in the US, which is responsible for nearly a third of world-historical emissions, has a stake in not thinking too hard about the causes and trajectories of unchecked global warming.

more here.