The contribution of this book seems to be the focus on adaptation. Of course we need to prevent climate change to whatever extent we can, but that extent is limited. Climate change is already underway and will continue for decades, no matter how we act in the future.

The posture of the book is prescriptive. It is about what we ought to do. Hertsgaard describes many different projects around the world, e.g. the work in the Netherlands to prevent sea level rise from destroying their country. These exemplary projects then point the way we need to follow.

Here we are some 14 years later. It's not like nothing has happened. Electric cars, electric bicycles, electric lawnmowers, etc. Wind turbines are all over the place, as are solar panels. It looks like CO2 emissions per capita in the USA have dropped maybe 15% since 2010. That is a significant decrease! On the other hand, climate denialism is as rampant as ever. The planetary response to environmental stresses seems to be violence and authoritarianism as much as anything helpful.

Here's a next step of analysis that Hertsgaard didn't really take up. We will adapt to climate change. Mostly far too late, but still. But... how will we adapt? This descent into violence shows that a lot of our adaptation will be stupid and ugly. From a climate perspective though, the key question is: will our adaptation promote mitigation or conflict with it. For humans to solve a problem in a way that makes the problem worse.... we are certainly capable of digging ourselves into pits like that. Can we avoid it? ( )

I skimmed the other reviews and it seems the main complaint with the book is that it is bleak and depressing and this is, apparently, the author's fault. I wish I could say I were shocked to see such blatant evidence that we as a culture now feel ourselves entitled not only to the pursuit of happiness in a really big house with a bunch of oversized televisions and closets full of crap we never use, but entitled also to books that will describe to us a catastrophe that could end human civilization and render the planet unfit for human habitation in an uplifting and hopeful manner. That's incredible. Sorry to say, buttercups, but as anyone with even the slightest modicum of a background in climate change will tell you, if this book has one major flaw (and it does), it is that it is too optimistic.

It's over-optimism rests primarily on the lack of analysis of where the solutions he presents will actually take us. Are they enough? He never says. He is a journalist by training, not a scientist, so he goes after the story (which he does with aplomb). As a result, I was left holding a grab-bag of potential policies to address climate change and absolutely no idea if that grab-bag would, if implemented universally beginning tomorrow, possibly be enough. I suspect they wouldn't.

(Yep, that's not optimism, but I've read dozens of books on climate change and at least a hundred articles and research papers and I've worked in the environmental field for a long time now, so this is based on something more than an innate propensity towards doom and gloom. Which, by the way, I don't have.)

That said, the material is comprehensive, engaging, well-written, fairly thorough, global in scope, and as a parent I appreciated the focus on his young daughter. I share his motivation with my work and writing and activism so I know all too well what he writes of when he writes of his fear and rage over his daughter's future. So I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone with a basic to moderate understanding of climate change; anyone who is already well-versed in the subject will likely find it repetitive rather than illuminating. On a scientific basis I found Andrew Weaver's book better (he's one of the world's leading climatologists; look up Keeping Our Cool if interested) but Hot is still worthwhile.

If, on the other hand, you think books about climate change should be chipper and upbeat so you can feel good about your and your born & unborn children's prospects, might I recommend giving up and going back to Harlequin novels. ( )

just skimmed the beginning of this book before it was due - the beginning might be all that is needed for the naysayers about what we are doing to ourselves with our dependence on oil, gas and coal and the fact that depending on our age either we or our immediate families will feel the impact. Oh if only we could get big oil to use all of the lobby money for alternate energy rather than supporting them and increasing their profits. ( )

There's a LOT of meat here, a lot of very important information. It's presented in a fairly dense format and is not terribly well-written. From a journalistic standpoint, it's well-done, but it's too dense for a book, in my opinion.

This book also tips into the bathetic on more than one occasion as Hertsgaard talks about fatherhood and the fact that his own personal, perfect, adorable princess of a child will be dealing with climate change. And though he does admit that there are other children in the world, one gets the sense that he doesn't find them nearly as important as his own princess. And, sure, we all feel that way to some degree, but journalistic integrity demands we at least try to suppress it a little whilst reporting on a topic we are trying to present as universal.

I'm perhaps focusing on the negatives so I can avoid talking about the primary message of this book, which seems to be that we are screwed as a planet. Deeply, irremediably screwed. Unless we all wake up by noon tomorrow and change our ways- and somehow I'm doubting that the corporations who now own my country are going to be cooperating with that.

Hertsgaard offers some crumbs of hope, but they are merely crumbs. I can't imagine my grandchildren's world, but life seems to be heading back towards "nasty, brutish and short" in a big hurry.

So: 4 stars for content, 3 for writing and 1 for sentimentality. Averaged out. ( )

An intensely troubling view of the future, and a survey of what damage has already been done. A vital book for understanding our future. ( )