1 Subnature: Architecture's Other Environments, by David Gissen, Princeton Architecture Press, 2009. Reviewed by Christian Hubert and Ioanna Theocharopoulou; published in the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Journal, London, 2012 A deep fear of social and environmental collapse runs through much contemporary writing about the human impact on the Earth and its consequences. A mixture of prophecy and scientific projection informs narratives for the near future. These range from journalist Mark Lynas’s Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (2007), James Lovelock’s increasing strident warnings about the wrath of Gaia (his latest Gaia book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can, 2009), climate scientist Jim Hansen’s predictions in the Storms of our Grandchildren (2009), to Alan Weisman’s post- apocalyptic visions of A World without Us (2007), passing along the way through Jared Diamond’s studies of Collapse (2005), Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe (2006), the sober economic analysis of the Stern Review on climate change (2006), and the serial updates of Lester Brown’s “Plan B.” 1 No matter whether nature is personified as a vengeful goddess or as an implacable force utterly indifferent to the fate of humanity (as in “nature does not give bailouts”) a pervasive sense that human societies are living on borrowed time informs this strain of writing, which grapples with catastrophes ranging from the Pacific Tsunami to the constant work it requires to keep urban systems 1 The original Plan B was published in 2003, the most recent, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, was published in 2009 by the Earth Policy Institute, Washington DC. See also the latest publication from Lester Brown’s “Worldwatch Institute, ”World on the Edge, (2011).