Living in California
taught me how wildfires can cause widespread destruction. But it took
Vaillant’s Fire Weather to show me how climate-worsened wildfires can
unravel the world as we know it.
The book reads like a thriller. It recounts
the catastrophic wildfire that obliterated Fort McMurray in 2016 in Canada.
That fire generated its own weather systems, caused billions in losses, and
forced tens of thousands of people to flee.
Valiant shows how fire is the very
element that makes modern society possible, but it also has the power to
destroy it. The book provides a cautionary tale of what life in the “pyrocene”
will entail.
***AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*** *Longlisted for the BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION*
'Astounding on every page. John Vaillant is one of the great poetic chroniclers of the natural world' David Wallace-Wells
'No book feels timelier than John Vaillant's Fire Weather . . . an adrenaline-soaked nightmare that is impossible to put down' Cal Flyn, The Times
A gripping account of this century's most intense urban fire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between humanity and fire's fierce energy.
In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada's oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned…
I love books full of forgotten history,
and Barry's Rising Tide is no exception.
Ittells the
story of the worst flood to ever hit the United States. However, it's also
about so much more. It's a story about men with great hubris who tried to tame
the river and failed—one of whom went on to become President.
The book also
highlights the devastation brought by natural hazards to communities on the
margins, showing how pre-existing racial and economic inequalities amplified
the worst consequences of the flood. And though Rising Tide covers a
disaster that occurred almost a century ago, it contains lessons applicable
today.
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award.
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of almost one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of African Americans north, and transformed American society and politics forever.
The flood brought with it a human storm: white and black collided, honor…
The
Geography of Riskgets to the heart of why the harm from climate-worsened disasters
continues to grow: communities keep building in places destined to burn and
flood.
Through first-hand accounts, Gaul exposes how decisions made long ago
can trap people in homes and places that are unsafe. Gaul’s investigative
reporting confirms what I learned in my years as a policymaker at the White
House—that the best-intentioned choices can increase risk exposure
exponentially.
The book lays bare how public policy all too often provides perverse
incentives to encourage people to live on America’s coastlines despite the
great cost to human safety and the economy.
This century has seen the costliest hurricanes in U.S. history―but who bears the brunt of these monster storms?
Consider this: Five of the most expensive hurricanes in history have made landfall since 2005: Katrina ($160 billion), Ike ($40 billion), Sandy ($72 billion), Harvey ($125 billion), and Maria ($90 billion). With more property than ever in harm’s way, and the planet and oceans warming dangerously, it won’t be long before we see a $250 billion hurricane. Why? Because Americans have built $3 trillion worth of property in some of the riskiest places on earth: barrier islands and coastal floodplains. And they…
The Fight for Climate After COVID-19draws on the COVID-19
experience to bring home the need to ramp up resilience rapidly and effectively
on a global scale.
A pandemic, like climate change, acts as a threat
multiplier, increasing vulnerability to harm, economic impoverishment, and
social system breakdown. Alice C. Hill exposes parallels between the
underutilized measures that governments should have taken to contain
COVID-19—such as early action, cross-border planning, and bolstering emergency
preparation—and the steps leaders can take now to mitigate climate change
impacts.
The Fight for Climate After
COVID-19 reveals that, just as our society transformed itself to meet the
challenge of coronavirus, so too will we need to adapt our thinking and
policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change.
