Climate change book starts well, then goes WAY off the rails

This is an expanded version of my Goodreads review of "Nomad Century" by Gaia Vince.

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World by Gaia Vince
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

An interesting book. No, a disappointing book, with a mixed 4/1.5 star rating.

First, Vince is rightly “hardheaded” that we’re likely to hit 4C by 2100, then reminds us that this is overall global temperature, including the slower-rising ocean temperature. Land temps will surely be higher yet.

From there, it’s into a long history of migration. Next comes a list of benefits of immigration, as noted by international development organizations, etc. Some might be overstated, but not bad overall. But, hold on to that to near the bottom of this.

Then, after an earlier basic discussion, comes info on details of climate change and how it’s going to force migration out of tropical and near tropical areas, and the reasons why — desertification, floods, extreme weather events, and unliveable wet-bulb temperatures.

Then, the clunkers. NO, not clunkers. Just downhill, first mildly, then badly.

Clunker? She talks about how climate change will allow more development of northern latitudes, noting it’s already allowing for more oil exploration in and near Greenland. True. Russia’s already eyeballing massive new offshore in its Arctic. Shell and others may revisit the Alaskan Arctic.

We CAN’T HAVE THAT!!!! And, she nowhere says that.

Then there’s the issue of modern migration necessitating entire new cities. If these are all Westernized cities, there’s more climate-change-inducing energy expenditure. (She even talks about the possibility of building cities in Antarctica.) And, there’s the techno-optimism about how easily this will be done. There’s also the techno-optimism that the economic boosts of relatively small-scale immigration today would come even close to translating to mass migration.

She also has little discussion of climate denialism and minimalism, which is prevalent across the developed world, not just the US. Ditto for climate action minimalism, which is prevalent across the neoliberal “consensus” of non-deniers in the developed world.

Disconnects like this make this a weird book.

But, here, we go from clunkers to straight downhill.

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse.

She assumes that we can somehow, within just decades, make the global migration much easier when she notes that, in the “developing” world, the rural to urban migration there is fraught and problematic.

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse.

From there, it’s on to meat replacement. She doesn’t discuss how much energy it takes to make a veggie burger, nor ask if this will scale up. (She also doesn’t note that veggie burgers are higher in sodium than actual meat, and otherwise not totally the bee’s knees on being healthier.) She then goes to lab meat, and assumes, laughably given its many push-back dates, that it’s going to be commercially in play by 2025 or so. I quote: “The next generation of lab-grown meats will reach mass market later this decade.” Having read plenty about delayed launches, and also knowing the humongous amounts of energy it will require to go commercial, I laugh.

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse.

Next, she calls for an expansion of nuclear fusion. She doesn’t talk about long-term waste. She doesn’t talk about how France, with a top-down national government, used a mix of bullying and bribes to foist that issue on rural eastern France. Nor does she ask about more and more difficulty in mining and refining uranium ore.

But wait. The techno-optimism gets worse.

She believes the British government’s claim to have fusion plants by 2040 and even says, I quote, “The first fusion reactors could start entering grids by 2030.”

Sadly, this techno-optimism would be standard for the modern West, Gang Green type environmentalists, etc. It's no wonder that a Bill McKibben burbles in his blurb. And, that reference to the modern West is the whole point.

For the reality, it's more like this is a version of climate colonialism combined with tech-neoliberalism. For more on that, we go to Nathan J. Robinson's Current Affairs and a piece on just that issue, climate colonialism, by Jag Bhalla. It's a long read, but, the first half-dozen grafs will get you the basics. By 2050, IPCC models and other issues envision none of the Global South catching up with today's Global North on standards of living. To tie to this book? If migration boosts developed nations precisely because those better able to move do so, what about the left behind? Gaia Vince nowhere addresses issues like that. Nor does she discuss the equivalent of reparations for climate colonialism. Assuming many rural migrants in the developing world cannot get themselves moved to the developed world, what is the developed world going to do to help them in their home countries? Again, not discussed.

As for the benefits of migration? There's been many more destructive migrations. Like Europeans coming to the "New World." Or, when more directly done at the point of a spear or the barrel of a gun, invasive war. She mentions Genghis Khan and how a fair chunk of today's world is his progeny. She never talks about how he destroyed thriving civilizations of China, various states of Central Asia and Kievan Rus.

We’re at the point of either willful ignorance or self-delusion, and I grokked the last 30 pages before the conclusion.

It’s no wonder a neoliberal environmentalist like Bill McKibben favorably blurbs this book.

And, now, the mixed rating should be clearer. It’s 4.5 for the climate honesty, 4 for the migration impact honesty, and 1.5 for everything else. Scratch that; I combined the first and second into a single 4-star rating, as while it’s “nice” that she’s that firm on 4C, she’s far from alone. This will get a 2.5 at the StoryGraph, but couldn't go to 3 here.

And, with that, I’ll offer a “recommend against” further reading of Gaia Vince. And, how she got to a position like news editor of Nature, I have no idea.


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