David Wallace-Wells is the author of the 2019 book The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. A journalist who published an essay called “The Uninhabitable Earth” to great acclaim in 2017, Wallace-Wells expanded the piece…
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Thomas Malthus
Thomas Malthus was an economist born in the 18th century who predicted that long-term economic growth would be impossible in the face of long-term population growth. Malthus suggested people should reproduce less in order to…
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Minor Characters
David Buckel
David Buckel was an environmental activist who, in 2018, committed a protest suicide by self-immolation in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in order to bring awareness to the climate crisis.
Guy McPherson
Guy McPherson is a controversial figure in American environmental science whose constant doomsday predictions are, according to David Wallace-Wells, a perfect example of the drawbacks of “climate nihilism” and “climate despair.”
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was a physicist known for Fermi’s paradox: the question of why, if the universe is so big, humanity has not yet been visited by (or been able to locate) any alien life.
Eric Garcetti
Eric Garcetti is the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles. First elected in 2013, Garcetti won his bid for reelection in 2017. During his tenure, Los Angeles and its surrounding areas have seen some of the worst wildfires on record.
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Tanner, Alexandra. "The Uninhabitable Earth Characters." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 5 Feb 2021. Web. 26 Mar 2025.
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