Childress, Amy

English

University of New Mexico

Volume 59 
Issue 2 Summer 2019 
Summer 2019 
Earth at Risk by Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana 
Amy Childress 
University of New Mexico 
Recommended Citation 
Amy Childress, Earth at Risk by Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana, 59 Nat. Resources J. 367 (2019). 
Available at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nrj/vol59/iss2/15 
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UNM Digital Repository. It has 
been accepted for inclusion in Natural Resources Journal by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For 
more information, please contact amywinter@unm.edu, lsloane@salud.unm.edu, sarahrk@unm.edu. 
 367 
BOOK REVIEW 
Earth at Risk by Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana (Columbia University Press, 
376 pages: 2017) 
Earth at Risk provides gripping illustrations of climate change impacts 
around the world to demonstrate the importance of understanding future threats and 
preventing global disaster. Written in 2018, Earth at Risk provides a current analysis 
of climate change issues including biodiversity erosion, water and soil scarcity, 
energy (alternative and otherwise), and sustainability. Despite dense material 
towards the end of the book and a somewhat confusing layout, the authors make 
complicated climate change theories palatable to the general public with a coherent 
explanation of the scientific method and its applications, articulate social and 
political analysis, and clearly demonstrative anecdotes. Earth at Risk thus delves into 
the heart of climate change issues and breaks each concept down into bite-sized bits 
to emphasize the importance of each element and its serious impact in climate 
change. 
The first half of the book provides an overview of the erosion of biological 
diversity, water and soil scarcity, fossil fuels, and alternative energies. The authors 
begin broadly, discussing the dangers of the trend of declining biological diversity. 
There are several threats that contribute to the erosion of diversity, such as the 
destruction of natural habitats and to voluntary (or involuntary) introduction of alien 
species. The authors then move on to discuss the political, social, and socio-
economic impacts of water and soil scarcity. This is a topic rife with political and 
socio-economic factors, despite water being proclaimed a human right. The book 
then examines energy production and its harmful effects on the earth. The authors 
discuss each fossil fuel independently, a novel way of approaching the issue of fossil 
fuels. Because coal, natural gas, and oil have different production methods, costs, 
and climate impacts, it is important to distinguish them and their impacts. The 
authors then discuss alternative energy sources individually, evaluating the current 
challenges and future projections of success in each alternative energy sector. 
The second half of the book bounces between scientific, historical, and 
political analyses of climate change, beginning with a historical perspective in the 
United States in 1978. 
The authors then move on to discuss the scientific method, providing 
readers with a background on how the scientific method developed and how it can 
be used to evaluate the effects of climate change. In the following section, the authors 
advocate a balance of science and nature to address the issues discussed in the 
previous chapters. The section focuses on approaches to transition from fossil fuels 
to alternative energies, including a maximization of energy savings, the innovation 
of solar cells, and the creative solutions for other alternative energy storage devices. 
The authors enhance these ideas by providing several examples of innovations that 
improve fuel efficiencies and alternative energy efficiencies. From there, the authors 
evaluate scientific uncertainty and fabricated uncertainties relating to climate change 
issues. The authors make sure to point out the difference between scientific 
uncertainties and uncertainties that are promulgated by parties adverse to the idea of 
368 NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL Vol. 59 
climate change. The authors are quick to point out that climate change deniers are 
influenced very intentionally, just like the Tobacco Strategy, a convincing anecdote. 
The final half of the book discusses the complicated social and political dynamics at 
play when attempting to construct policy to combat climate change. 
The consistent use of anecdotal explanations creates a scenario 
understandable to a layperson. The impact of the climate change becomes more 
focused and understandable through anecdotes rather than in being lost in overly-
intellectual scientific terms. This strategy makes the book more approachable and 
readily demonstrates the seriousness of the situation to a variety of readers. Using 
anecdotal explanations is also a longstanding tradition that oftentimes provides a 
bigger emotional impact than other methods of explanation and resonates better with 
a larger group of people. One particularly ominous example was the discussion of 
the decimation of the Amazon rain forest and the devastating future effects in the 
first chapter. The authors provide a brief historical background to demonstrate the 
quick effect that construction of roads and deforestation wrecked on the Amazon’s 
clearances since the 1960’s. The authors describe Brazil’s attempts to reduce 
deforestation, but also point out the dangers of the continuous regression of forest 
cover. Some dangers include wildfires due to the drier dry seasons, which would 
“spew out more than a decade’s worth of fossil fuel emissions” (Earth at Risk, p.24). 
The authors then go on to describe similar deforestation problems in other parts of 
the world, such as the Congo River Basin, and the rain forests of Southeast Asia. 
These examples provide in depth analysis of issues that readers may have heard of, 
but never learned about in detail. 
The explanation of the scientific method and the current approach to 
learning about climate change provides a convenient base for readers to understand 
scientific findings on the impact of climate change. The fifth chapter introduces the 
concept of the scientific method and provides a historical analysis to give context on 
how scientific discoveries have been made, especially in regard to climate change. 
This provides a background for the following chapters which deal with more dense 
scientific information. It is useful, especially for readers who may not have any 
background in climate change, to understand how science has evolved and what 
methods are used in researching. 
Overall, though, the layout of the book, though effective in its contents, is 
somewhat jolting and counter-intuitive to what readers may expect. It is interesting 
that the authors chose to place all of the denser scientific, political, and historical 
chapters at the end of the book. Perhaps the information would be more useful for 
readers to understand from the beginning and to a variety of readers to be able to use 
those educational tools to interpret the climate change arguments addressed in the 
remainder of the book. It seems almost disjointed to go from interesting, engaging 
climate change discussion to discussing the history of the scientific method and 
dense political and social analysis. The book, overall, would flow better if the 
sections discussing science served as a beginning framework to understand the 
anecdotes in the beginning more effectively. Additionally, if the dense material were 
more interspersed with the more relatable anecdotes the book may have been an 
easier read and more appealing to a wider group of readers. 
Despite its counter-intuitive, sometimes dense, layout, Earth at Risk 
provides understandable scenarios that convey the grave situation the planet is in. 
Summer 2019 BOOK REVIEW: EARTH AT RISK 369 
The authors use anecdotes to effectively demonstrate the devastation that climate 
change has wrecked on different aspects of biological diversity, habitation, and plant 
and wildlife. Using illustrations to make the effects of climate change more 
impactful, the authors create a text that is appealing and educational to a large 
demographic. 
Amy Childress 
J.D. Candidate 2020 
University of New Mexico 
 


Earth at Risk by Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana

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Earth at Risk by Claude Henry and Laurence Tubiana

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