RaveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Bill McKibben identifies three specific threats to humanity: climate change, bioengineering and artificial intelligence. I heartily recommend his analysis of all three. His points about the implications of tampering with the human germ line, and his images of a planet filled with nothing but paper clips thanks to rogue AI, have haunted me for weeks ... McKibben avoids the trap of battering us with lists of terrifying facts that leave us reeling and unable to take them in. He has a charming writing style – inclusive, funny, intelligent and lucid. And he is a delightful companion on the journey – so delightful in fact that the terrifying nuggets are slipped in like a stiletto knife, in and out before you even notice. He accomplishes this in part with information that is quirkily distinctive ... personalizes and humanizes the raw facts with moving details.
Nathaniel Rich
PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)... vividly told, through the eyes of many fascinating characters, and it is packed with valuable reminders of the chances we missed. (One gripe is that the book suffers from a lack of notes and references) ... The author memorably describes what happened when a group of \'policy gurus, deep thinkers, an industry scientist and an environmental activist\' met to draft proposals for new climate legislation ... Although Rich’s book identifies the 1980s as the decade we could have stopped climate change, there were plenty of missed opportunities in the 90s, too, some of which he crams into an afterword ... Rich’s list of solutions is comprehensive ... serves as a salient reminder that the polarization we have become accustomed to was not always thus, and it gives me hope that we can resuscitate that grand bargain, that virtuous realignment, now that all the actual solutions are there to be had.
