Research

How to Think About Our Children's Children

April 27, 2022

Book Review | Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, Daniel Sherrell

 

The subject of Warmth, written by a 26-year-old as a letter to his unborn child, is the climate crisis. But the climate crisis is never referred to by name. Instead, it is called “The Problem.” And though The Problem animates the book, Warmth is also a memoir—a book about memory, justice, and the future.

 Author: Teresa Ghilarducci

Sherrell describes the villains of the climate crisis in Arendtian terms of the banality of evil. One of these villains is Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Donald Trump. By cutting prosecutions under the nation's landmark environmental laws, the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972, by 50 percent and 70 percent, respectively, Pruitt is destroying the world with quotidian bureaucratic decisions. Pruitt is just one of Warmth’s cast of characters, which also includes several of Sherrell’s friends, his unborn baby (who may or may not ever be conceived), a salamander, and you—the reader.

Read the full review here.