On Bill McGuire’s new book Hothouse Earth

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August 30, 2022

What should be done when the Earth becomes a hothouse?
(part one)

by Joseph Green, Detroit Workers' Voice

Excerpts:

At one climate disaster follows another, more and more scientists and environmentalists have been concerned that unless serious action is taken immediately, there will be irreversible catastrophe. Thus two books have recently been written called “Hothouse Earth”. Last year there was Hothouse Earth: The climate crisis and the importance of carbon neutrality by Stephanie McPherson. And this year, there is Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide by Bill McGuire. His book differs from McPherson’s and most other environmental statements because it says that hothouse earth has already arrived; time’s up. and hothouse conditions are now inevitable no matter what we do; but what we can do is put some limits on how bad it will be. Or, to put in terms of events since the book was written, the horrible, tragic flood that is presently covering one-third of Pakistan is an example of the grim new normal which the whole world will face, and which we can no longer prevent. But what is still to be determined is whether Pakistan will still be there at the end of the century, and if so, what will it look like?

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His book dwells on explaining how the world has reached this situation, and it also says that changes will be needed in how we live. It warns against the complacent belief that last-minute, large-scale geoengineering will restore things to the milder weather of the past. It stresses that, although we have passed various tipping points, this doesn’t mean we can forget the need to radically cut greenhouse gas emissions, as some bounds have to be put on how hot the earth becomes.

But McGuire doesn’t consider how much more serious are the economic and political steps that have to be taken today than they would have been if serious action had started 30 years ago. If there is no change in what we need to demand be done, then what is the purpose of stressing that we are now living in hothouse Earth? Simply to hope that a more vivid description than what was said before will make a difference? That is not enough. There needs to be consideration of how extreme the changes in economics will have to be in order to withstand the future that we are facing, or to limit how bad things will get. There needs to be consideration of what demands should be put forward, who we can expect to take up these demands, and why the environmental movement itself is split on such things as whether to work hand-in-hand with the big corporations.

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... the fact that we have now reached the stage of hothouse earth means that the necessary political and economic changes are going to have to be done much faster and be more thorough-going than before. McGuire’s book has a lot of useful and important information about what’s happening to the environment, and it seeks to tell the truth about how serious the present situation already is, but it also illustrates the paralysis of much of the environmental movement about where to go from here. <>

Full text at https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-220830.html.