What is the main message of Falter?

The main message of Falter is the urgent need to address the threats facing humanity, from climate change to AI, before it's too late.

How long does it take to read Falter?

The reading time for Falter varies, but it typically takes several hours. The Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is Falter a good book? Is it worth reading?

Falter is worth reading for its thought-provoking exploration of the challenges we face in the modern world. It offers valuable insights and raises important questions.

Who is the author of Falter?

The author of Falter is Bill McKibben.

Falter Summary of Key Ideas and Review | Bill McKibben

Name: Falter
Rating: 4.2 (68 reviews)
Author: Bill McKibben

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Learn about the looming threats to our species’ survival and what we can do about them.

Imagine, if you can, the sum total of human life on Earth – not just the individual people who compose it, but the organizations, institutions, enterprises, cultures and religions they create together. Then add the social, political, economic, cultural and religious activities through which they interact with each other and the world around them.

There’s no pre-established word for this unfathomably complicated web of people, groupings and interactions, but let’s call it the human game. Why a “game”? Well, like a group of children playing a game of tag, we, as a species, “play” the game of human life for its own sake. Ultimately, there’s no “point” to the game (at least from a non-religious standpoint). In the grand, cosmic scheme of things, the outcome doesn’t really matter; after all, the universe is indifferent as to whether our species survives, thrives or perishes.

But most of us are anything but indifferent. We want the game to keep going – indefinitely. And we also want it to keep going in a recognizably human way; for example, we don’t want our survival to come at the cost of our society turning into some dystopian nightmare. But, unfortunately, both of these objectives are currently in peril, and we have a very small window of time in which to prevent the human game from ending.

In these blinks, you’ll learn:

how global warming already presents an unprecedented threat to our species;
how artificial intelligence and genetic engineering represent further threats waiting in the wings; and
what we can do to address this terrifying trio of threats before it’s too late.

Key idea 1 of 9

The threat of global warming and environmental destruction is already here.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you already know that global warming and environmental destruction in general present a very real threat to the human game. But what you might not realize is the extent to which the threat isn’t something that lies in the future; it’s already here, in the present, damaging our world as we speak.

Let’s start with some sobering facts and statistics.

Twenty out of the past 30 years have been the hottest ever recorded. As a result of climate change, an entire third of the Earth’s landmass has already been significantly degraded in terms of its ability to support animal life.

At the same time, there have been continually declining trends in the Earth’s ability to provide the plant-based energy upon which that life ultimately depends for sustenance. And since 1970, the overall population of land-based animals has been cut in half.

Now, even if you’re somebody who couldn’t care less about the beauty of nature or the well-being of animals, these facts should be of deep concern to you, if only from a purely selfish standpoint. For instance, rising temperatures have already led to increased wildfires, droughts and lethal heat waves around the world.

And these problems can have huge ramifications for humanity.

In Syria, for example, one of those droughts caused economic instability that helped to spark the Syrian Civil War, which led to the mass migration of a million Syrian refugees to Europe. That, in turn, provoked the rise of extreme right wing political movements in many European countries, where certain segments of the “native” populations felt threatened by the arrival of so many “foreigners.”

Meanwhile, in the Earth’s oceans, the average water temperature has risen by up to one degree Fahrenheit in certain locations, such as the coastal waters of Texas.

That might not sound like much, but it was enough to increase the amount of water in the local atmosphere by about three to five percent. As a result, when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August 2017, it dumped 127 billion tons of rainwater onto the state – the worst rainstorm in US history.

With that amount of water, you could fill 26,000 stadiums. The water was so heavy that the city of Houston actually sank by a couple of centimeters.

Now, let that fact sink in for a moment – and then realize that it’s just a taste of things to come.

Key idea 2 of 9

In the worst-case scenario, global warming poses an existential threat to humanity and most life on Earth.

If the world’s temperatures continue to rise at their current projected rates, then by the end of the century, yada yada yada, blah blah blah – you’ve heard it all before, right?

Well, here’s something you might not have heard: if the Earth’s oceans keep getting warmer, they might get so hot by 2100 that the phytoplankton they contain won’t be able to engage properly in photosynthesis any longer. As a result, they’ll stop producing oxygen.

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Key idea 3 of 9

Even in the better-case scenarios, global warming still poses a serious threat to humanity.

On the current trajectory of global warming, we’re heading toward a near-term future in which the human game might not necessarily end, but in which the playing field will get much, much smaller. This is because the amount of habitable, arable land on Earth is set to shrink significantly in the coming decades.

Imagine we somehow manage to meet the global warming slow-down targets set by the Paris Agreement – the international pact that most countries on Earth made in 2016 to combat climate change. In this relatively rosy scenario, the average worldwide temperature would rise by “only” two degrees Celsius by 2050.

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Key idea 4 of 9

On our current trajectory, the societal consequences of climate change will be extremely disruptive and dangerous.

When a million refugees left war-torn Syria and migrated to Europe, political shockwaves were sent around the continent, fueling the rise of right wing extremism. Now, imagine taking the destabilizing effects of the climate change-fueled Syrian conflict and multiplying them by hundreds of times.

That’s one of the darker sides of the probable future we’re facing in the next few decades. By the year 2050, there could be between 200 million and one billion climate refugees, according to the International Organization for Migration.

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Key idea 5 of 9

Genetic engineering poses a second threat to the human game.

For a change of pace, let’s be optimistic for a moment and assume we find a way of weathering the literal and metaphorical storms created by climate change.

Now what? We’ve overcome the most daunting challenge that our species has ever faced. We’ve won the human game. Now we can collectively pop a gigantic bottle of champagne, right?

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Key idea 6 of 9

Artificial intelligence poses a third threat to the human game.

Let’s be optimistic one more time and now assume that we’re able to avoid the threat to humanity posed by genetic engineering. Is the coast clear now?

As you can probably guess by this point, the answer is no. There’s yet another boss awaiting us as we play out the human game – and this one also comes straight out of science fiction: artificial intelligence, or AI.

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Key idea 7 of 9

If you want to save our species from annihilation, don’t count on space travel.

So far, the outlook for humanity seems pretty bleak. But don’t worry, if things get too hot – literally or metaphorically – we can just blast off into outer space, right? Develop the requisite technology, leave our desiccated husk of a planet behind and go find a new Earth. Problem solved.

Well, maybe in science fiction books and movies, but in reality, space is probably not the final frontier, as Star Trek once put it. If anything, it’ll probably be our final graveyard.

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Key idea 8 of 9

There are some relatively simple, practical steps we can take to address the threats to the human game.

At this point, you’d be well within your rights to say, “All right, all right already. I get the point! Now stop with all of this doom and gloom, and just tell me what we can do about these problems!”

Well, there’s no panacea for the threats of global warming, AI or genetic engineering that we’ve covered in these blinks, but there are some relatively simple steps we can take to improve our odds of survival with each of them significantly.

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Key idea 9 of 9

Powerful people and corporations stand in the way of us doing anything about global warming, genetic engineering and AI.

You didn’t think you were coming to the end of these blinks about the human game without facing off against one final boss, did you? Well, here comes the ultimate nemesis – and plot twist: Guess who it is?

Ourselves.

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