John Beaton

Using the Fort McMurray fire as its ignition point, this book builds out our past to show how, blindsided by vested interests and consciously misled by the fossil fuel industry, we have ignored 100 years of climate science and brought ourselves to the point where Earth's atmosphere has changed radically and perhaps irreversibly, and is now on an infandous trendline (too horrible to describe). It then looks at the present and near future and shows that those same forces keep trying to make things worse, and fast. There are signs of pushback but it's a stretch to read much real hope into them. A sobering book that makes you want to buy an electric car right now, stop believing that because you're old you'll escape, fear greatly for your children and grandchildren, and feel white-hot rage at the "drill, baby, drill" brigade. Wonderfully written, gripping, solidly researched, important, depressing, and needed. Thank you, John Vaillant.