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Disappointing, and a bit silly, but my displeasure is at least partially a fault of my own expectations. Based on the title I was expecting a reasoned argument to convince the reader that humanity's demise is imminent. But Lewis somehow fulfills the promise of the title in a totally different (and imo far less interesting) way. He's not here to convince us of his premise, he's here with his premise as a given, and to explain how we arrived at the premise through a review of millions of years of evolution. It's far more a work of history than of sociology or political science, and had I known it I probably would not have read it (i.e. I already know how we got here, and a lot of what Lewis relates strikes me as banal).

Despite having a much less compelling scope than I wanted, and despite being haphazardly organized and/or argued (if you can even call it an argument), there were some interesting passages and takeaways. E.g. he puts an interesting spin on human intelligence, pointing out that our technology, contrary to being a sign of our superior intelligence, was virtually inevitable given the vast number of humans that have existed in history. He also points out that our brains have been diminishing in size and our intelligence likely compares unfavorably to our hunter/gatherer ancestors, who were both more ambulatory and more manipulative with respect to their immediate environment. The book also has interest as a memoir, with him relating his experience in various U.S. governmental departments relating to the environment, and how all of those offices end up complicit in the ongoing degradation of our planet. His experience with the Pando aspen grove in Idaho was especially memorable.

That about ends the positives. As the book goes on you realize he has a probably unhealthy level of romanticization of the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, e.g. on p. 153 by explicitly blaming our current state of affairs on the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago. What he never addresses at all is the resulting implication that we should therefore seek to return to hunter/gatherer behavior. He doesn't really seem to believe that, instead just ignoring it, so it becomes harder to take him seriously as the book goes on. His perspective is not wholly coherent. Another, admittedly more petty piece of incoherence is that after spending a lot of time preaching how animals are just as intelligent and soulful as humans, he admits that one of his favorite pastimes is the torture of animals (i.e. fly-fishing).

There are a couple more major problems that end up being the undoing of the book, even had I been interested in the less-interesting scope. One is his treatment of "overpopulation," which again he presents as a given without actually trying to justify his assertion or grapple with any of its implications. He has a 5-page section on it, but not to prove it's true (which I've read many different perspectives on and find to be a pretty controversial debate), but rather to cite it as just one more reason humanity has screwed up. Nowhere does he acknowledge that such an argument can often lead to eugenicist fascism. His treatment of this highly controversial topic in the most superficial manner is probably the strongest evidence that this book is not really a serious political treatise, it is more a manifesto. And he is not a serious political thinker (i.e. not in any way Marxist), he is a liberal activist. This was already evident, fwiw, by his earlier, ridiculous equation of Mao and Stalin with Attila the Hun and Hitler.

Most damning though is the very end when he presents his actual timeline for human extinction, which is embarrassingly soon. With no supporting evidence or data whatsoever, he literally sets the over/under at 2055, meaning he thinks there's a 50% chance we're all extinct by then. In 30 years.

In doing so, in another sign of incoherence, he seems to completely discard the things he himself has earlier told us about the incredibly long timeline of extinction events, pointing out that the dinosaurs went extinct over thousands of years, and that this current "6th Extinction" event has been going on for tens of thousands of years. But yep, it'll all apparently be wrapped up in the next generation. What timing for all of us!

But seriously, if he had made any effort to support this assertion with anything approaching scientific rigor I would not be mocking him. I don't even need graphs or too many numbers, just present even a short, reasoned argument. What he has given us instead (he even partially admits) is a personal screed against the profession and the bureaucracy that has scorned him. He might be right, but unfortunately he has not presented anything that should convince any rational person of it. In that sense this is a somewhat pathetic effort, and I do feel bad for him. I also appreciate his work as a contrarian in the U.S. government agencies that are ostensibly responsible for stewarding the environment.

FWIW, I agree that we are in biological and civilizational collapse. I do not think it's a given that humanity will go extinct, but I think a mass die-off is likely. Humanity didn't go extinct during the last ice age and it would take a lot for them to go extinct during this. Where I differ most drastically with Lewis is in this uncertainty of total v. partial extinction. I was hoping he would present some compelling evidence for his position on it, but he absolutely did not. Where I also differ with him is in my understanding on the timeline for collapse. The Roman Empire took hundreds of years to collapse. Our collapse started about 20 years ago (I have it pegged to 9/11/01). We are very much in the middle of collapse right now, but it is not a sudden thing, it takes decades or even centuries. Based on this understanding, I find it laughable when someone tells me, completely unsupported by any data, that we will be literally extinct in 30 years. It's preposterous, and I wish Lewis had workshopped this idea with a couple of more rigorous scientists before his final draft.

Overall I don't think I'd strongly recommend this to anyone. It's not boring, especially if you haven't done a lot of thinking/reading on the subject, but neither is there much novel here. Even the people who don't know a lot of the stuff he says should probably start elsewhere in their education, with someone who can provide a more coherent and well-reasoned argument. Here are some places I'd recommend starting before this:

Climate Leviathan
The Solutions Are Already Here
Green Illusions
Post-Scarcity Anarchism
Small Is Beautiful
The Dawn of Everything
Endgame, Vol. 1 (& Vol. 2)
A Sand County Almanac
The Monkey Wrench Gang
The Overstory