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A review by ajb24
The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World by Jeff Goodell
5.0
This book doesn't make me feel particularly optimistic about the future, but I did learn a lot and I admire all the research that went into writing this book. The last few pages that describe what a half-underwater abandoned city looks like brought back distinct memories of this one show I used to watch (I forget what it's called but I think it was on the Discovery Channel) where they envisioned and explored what an abandoned modern city would look like through CGI models (so, like, what would happen to skyscrapers and how would nature overtake it 100 years after humans have died out, stuff like that). That's not super relevant, but the memory was just so vivid after reading the last few passages of the book that I had to mention it.
A quote that really stuck out to me was on page 154 when he was explaining a complex proposal on how to save the Lower Manhattan coastline. He writes:
I think the "we will have to live differently in the future" was so powerful to me because it's something I imagine all the time- a world drastically different from what we know now, where social structures and geopolitical arrangements and everything else we take for granted is nonexistent (haha thanks dystopian novels). ANYway, I think that quote makes all these imaginary scenarios I invent in my head become more "real" in the sense that it's possible. And almost more than possible, it will happen. So that's scary.
I mean, another quote that stands out to me is actually one of the featured reviews on the back of the book by Jennifer Senior. She says the book is "a powerful reminder that we can bury our heads in the sand about climate change for only so long before the sand itself disappears". That haunts me because it echoes the "we'll have to live differently in the future" sentiment and uh...yeah. We're all doomed that's my consensus.
A quote that really stuck out to me was on page 154 when he was explaining a complex proposal on how to save the Lower Manhattan coastline. He writes:
Projects like this are nuanced and complex and expensive, making them difficult to sell as a quick fix. And they require people to acknowledge that the world is changing fast and that they will have to live differently in the future"
I think the "we will have to live differently in the future" was so powerful to me because it's something I imagine all the time- a world drastically different from what we know now, where social structures and geopolitical arrangements and everything else we take for granted is nonexistent (haha thanks dystopian novels). ANYway, I think that quote makes all these imaginary scenarios I invent in my head become more "real" in the sense that it's possible. And almost more than possible, it will happen. So that's scary.
I mean, another quote that stands out to me is actually one of the featured reviews on the back of the book by Jennifer Senior. She says the book is "a powerful reminder that we can bury our heads in the sand about climate change for only so long before the sand itself disappears". That haunts me because it echoes the "we'll have to live differently in the future" sentiment and uh...yeah. We're all doomed that's my consensus.