Author Guide · Climate Writing
Books Written by
“It is, I promise, worse than you think.” That was the first line of “The Uninhabitable Earth”, a cover story David Wallace-Wells, then deputy editor of New York magazine, published in July 2017. It became the most-read article in the magazine’s history, and many climate scientists objected to parts of it. Wallace-Wells, a New Yorker born in 1982 who had earlier been deputy editor of The Paris Review, expanded it into a book. The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming came out in February 2019 and opens with a sharper version of the same sentence. Since 2022 he has written a weekly climate newsletter for The New York Times. This guide covers his 1 key book, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 1 key book · 2019–2019 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
David Wallace-Wells has written one book: The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (2019), expanded from his 2017 New York magazine cover story. Start there; the article that began it, and the scientists’ arguments about it, explain why the book reads the way it does.
Where to Start with David Wallace-Wells
If you have never read him
→ The Uninhabitable Earth (2019) — his only book, on what warming at each degree could mean for human life.
If you read the 2017 article
→ The Uninhabitable Earth (2019) — the book is the longer, more heavily sourced version.
If you want the case for alarm about climate change
→ The Uninhabitable Earth (2019) — the book the climate debate argued over in 2019.
David Wallace-Wells’s Book
The Uninhabitable Earth
Wallace-Wells expands his 2017 New York magazine article into a survey of possible futures across a range of warming scenarios: heat, rising seas, fires, drought, famine, disease, floods and conflict, and what they could do to politics and culture. He argues the impacts will be catastrophic even with action, though he names solutions, including a carbon tax, a shift away from beef and dairy and public investment in green energy and carbon capture. Tim Duggan Books published it on 19 February 2019; the publisher bills it as a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and it was a Kirkus Best Book of 2019 and longlisted in 2020 for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. In Britain it appeared with the subtitle A Story of the Future.
How to Read David Wallace-Wells
There is one book, so the only question is what to read around it. It moves through the dangers one at a time, from heat and hunger to fires, floods and conflict, then turns to what warming could do to politics and culture.
Reading the July 2017 New York magazine article first shows where the book came from and what changed: the book is far longer, and it responds to a debate the article started among scientists about how alarming climate writing should be. His weekly New York Times newsletter, which he has written since 2022, carries the argument forward.
A reading path
1. “The Uninhabitable Earth”, New York magazine (2017)
2. The Uninhabitable Earth (2019)
3. His New York Times climate newsletter (since 2022)
The years · 1982–2022
Quick facts about David Wallace-Wells
- Known for
- Warning, in the most-read article in New York magazine’s history and in the book that grew out of it, that climate change could be far worse than most people assume.
- 1982
- Born in Inwood, Manhattan
- 2004
- Graduates in history from Brown
- 2022
- Joins The New York Times
- Born
- 1982, in the Inwood neighbourhood of Manhattan, New York City
- Education
- A year at the University of Chicago, then Brown University (history, 2004)
- Worked
- Deputy editor of The Paris Review; deputy editor and climate columnist at New York magazine
- Now
- Columnist at The New York Times since 2022, with a weekly newsletter and long-form essays
- Fellowship
- National Fellow at New America (2019)
- Recognition
- Kirkus Best Book of 2019; longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award (2020)
The red mark is 2019: The Uninhabitable Earth, his first and so far only book.
How David Wallace-Wells Writes: The Case for Alarm
Wallace-Wells is not a scientist; he came to climate as an editor and magazine writer, and he writes as a synthesiser of other people’s research. The Uninhabitable Earth works through possible futures across a range of temperature scenarios, one threat at a time. Farhad Manjoo, reviewing it in The New York Times, called it “meticulously documented”.
His tone is deliberate. The book opens “It is worse, much worse, than you think” and argues that complacency, not despair, is the bigger obstacle to action. That is the point critics push back on: some scientists and writers, Michael Mann among them, argue that this framing tips into doom, while The Economist wrote that some readers would find it alarmist, and that “He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”
He mostly writes about people rather than ecosystems, a choice the Irish Times reviewer John Gibbons criticised, and he spends as much time on politics, economics and culture as on physical science. His later New York Times work follows the same questions as the science and the politics have moved.
Frequently asked questions about David Wallace-Wells’s books
How many books has David Wallace-Wells written?
One: The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming (2019). His other work is journalism, for New York magazine and, since 2022, The New York Times.
What are David Wallace-Wells’s books in order?
There is one book so far, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019). It grew out of his July 2017 New York magazine cover story of the same name. The paperback followed in March 2020.
Where should I start with David Wallace-Wells?
With The Uninhabitable Earth, his only book. If you want something shorter first, read the 2017 New York magazine article it came from.
What is David Wallace-Wells’s most famous book?
The Uninhabitable Earth (2019). His publisher bills it as a No. 1 New York Times bestseller; it was a Kirkus Best Book of 2019 and longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.
Is The Uninhabitable Earth based on an article?
Yes. It expands “The Uninhabitable Earth”, his July 2017 cover story for New York magazine, which became the most-read article in the magazine’s history.
Why was The Uninhabitable Earth criticised?
Many climate scientists gave the 2017 article mixed to negative reviews. Reviewers for Climate Feedback said some statements misrepresented research, and Michael Mann and others called its description of Arctic methane emissions a factual error; Wallace-Wells later said he would not include the methane comments if he wrote it again. Others, including Kevin Drum and Emily Atkin, defended it. Mann later criticised the book too, in The New Climate War (2021), for what he called its “doomist” framing.
Does The Uninhabitable Earth offer solutions?
It is not mainly about solutions, but it names some: a carbon tax and the politics to phase out dirty energy quickly, changes to farming and a shift away from beef and dairy, and public investment in green energy and carbon capture.
Is The Uninhabitable Earth being adapted?
In January 2020 it was reported that the book would become an anthology series for HBO Max, with Adam McKay as executive producer and each episode about a danger of climate change.
Where does David Wallace-Wells write now?
At The New York Times, which hired him in March 2022 to write a weekly opinion newsletter and long-form essays, including for The New York Times Magazine. He also reported widely on the Covid-19 pandemic.
What should I read after The Uninhabitable Earth?
Other writers on climate and the natural world, such as Elizabeth Kolbert, Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein; see the related guides below.
Footnotes
- David Wallace-Wells — Wikipedia
- The Uninhabitable Earth (book) — Wikipedia
- The Uninhabitable Earth (article) — Wikipedia
- The Uninhabitable Earth — Penguin Random House
- Read a chapter from The Uninhabitable Earth — PBS NewsHour, 2019
- Tanner Lecture: David Wallace-Wells — University of Utah, 2023
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“It is worse, much worse, than you think.”
— David Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth (2019), the first line of the book
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations