No Immediate Danger, William T. Vollmann
No Immediate Danger, William T. Vollmann
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No Immediate Danger
Volume One of Carbon Ideologies

Author: William T. Vollmann

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 16 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/10/2018


Synopsis

In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age. Now, Vollmann turns to a topic that will define the generations to come—the factors and human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger, the first volume of Carbon Ideologies, by examining and quantifying the many causes of climate change, from industrial manufacturing and agricultural practices to fossil fuel extraction, economic demand for electric power, and the justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort. Turning to nuclear power first, Vollmann then recounts multiple visits that he made at significant personal risk over the course of seven years to the contaminated no-go zones and sad ghost towns of Fukushima, Japan, beginning shortly after the tsunami and reactor meltdowns of 2011. Equipped first only with a dosimeter and then with a scintillation counter, he measured radiation and interviewed tsunami victims, nuclear evacuees, anti-nuclear organizers, and pro-nuclear utility workers.

Featuring Vollmann's signature wide learning, sardonic wit, and encyclopedic research, No Immediate Danger builds up a powerful, sobering picture of the ongoing nightmare of Fukushima.

About William T. Vollmann

William T. Vollmann is the author of ten novels, including Whores for Gloria, The Royal Family, and Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories (including The Rainbow Stories and The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction), a memoir, and eight works of nonfiction, including Rising Up and Rising Down and Imperial, both of which were finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Christopher on April 10, 2018

This incredible, important book is a bracing read like no other. The book is framed as a long letter, written to future inhabitants of an over-heated Earth. "Carbon Ideologies" seeks to explain to future inhabitants of Earth why we, the people of today, persisted in emitting carbon into the atmosphe......more

Goodreads review by Jonfaith on August 13, 2018

Everyone is encouraging that I power on through the next volume. There is some haunting journalism here. There's also a great deal of scattered analysis and attendant hand wringing. My wife bought me both volumes for my birthday and they arrived while I was till on my sojourn at the resort. She read......more

Goodreads review by Maru on July 26, 2018

"...All too often...generalists who could look at overarching meanings and patterns (and therefore most thoughtfully consider where we are going and why) lacked proficiency in maths and science. Meanwhile, some of the scientists and mathematicians I met were naive, or worse yet, indifferent, concern......more

Goodreads review by MacWithBooksonMountains on May 02, 2024

This a very honest book about a variety of issues that stem from rampant, ever increasing energy needs. In style, this is partly written as a letter to the future inhabitants of a not so a livable world. For the author global warming is a given (for whom is it not by now… ) , for the various obvious......more

Goodreads review by James on June 07, 2018

I love Vollmann's writing, particularly the novels but also Rising Up and Rising Down, so I was disappointed in this, the first volume of a two volume work on the damage we are doing to our world with our energy production. The first 200 pages here, a "Primer" on the different energy schemes, was ex......more