This “ambitious [and] delightful” (The New York Times) work of literary nonfiction interweaves the science and history of the powerful refrigerant (and dangerous greenhouse gas) Freon with a haunting meditation on how to live meaningfully and morally in a rapidly heating world.
In After Cooling, Eric Dean Wilson braids together air-conditioning history, climate science, road trips, and philosophy to tell the story of the birth, life, and afterlife of Freon, the refrigerant that ripped a hole larger than the continental United States in the ozone layer. As he traces the refrigerant’s life span from its invention in the 1920s—when it was hailed as a miracle of scientific progress—to efforts in the 1980s to ban the chemical (and the resulting political backlash), Wilson finds himself on a journey through the American heartland, trailing a man who buys up old tanks of Freon stockpiled in attics and basements to destroy what remains of the chemical before it can do further harm.
Wilson is at heart an essayist, looking far and wide to tease out what particular forces in American culture—in capitalism, in systemic racism, in our values—combined to lead us into the Freon crisis and then out. “Meticulously researched and engagingly written” (Amitav Ghosh), this “knockout debut” (New York Journal of Books) offers a rare glimpse of environmental hope, suggesting that maybe the vast and terrifying problem of global warming is not beyond our grasp to face.
eBook - ePub
After Cooling
On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort
- 480 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prelude: This Business of Destruction
- Chapter I: Before Freon: On the Trouble with Personal Comfort
- Chapter II: The Age of Freon: On the Continuous Uncertainty of Safety
- Chapter III: After Freon: On the Myth of the Closed System
- Postlude: What Weâre After
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Notes
- Index
- Copyright
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Yes, you can access After Cooling by Eric Dean Wilson in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Global Warming & Climate Change. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.