No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies

About this book

The most honest book about climate change yet. The Atlantic The Infinite Jest of climate books. The Baffler A timely eye-opening book about climate change and energy generation that focuses on the consequences of nuclear power production from award-winning author William T. Vollmann In his nonfiction William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age from poverty to violence to the dark soul of American imperialism as it has played out on the U.S./Mexico border. 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 Vollmanns signature wide learning sardonic wit and encyclopedic research No Immediate Danger whose title co-opts the reassuring mantra of official Japanese energy experts builds up a powerful sobering picture of the ongoing nightmare of Fukushima.