Uncertain About Global Warming? Read "The Weather Makers."
Written: May 08 '06 (Updated Apr 16 '08)
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Pros: Straightforward approach, addresses naysayers, easy to read layman's language...
Cons: Won't be read by the people who need it...
The Bottom Line: Essential Reading about Global Warming.
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| JediKermit's Full Review: The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climat... |
This review is part of Pambo's Earth Day Writeoff--to get more ideas about how to get Green, read more reviews gathered here: http://www.epinions.com/user-pambo
I believe in global warming. My dad thinks it's part of a larger cycle of climate change, and that human impact on the climate is minimal. Over the last few years, we've been seeing more and more warnings from scientists, and seeing less and less action from the Bush administration. Whether the government's efforts to sweep global warming under the rug are motivated by greed or fear, it seems like they're like the Little Dutch Boy, trying to plug a hole in the dyke with his finger...it won't be long before we all see the effects of our greenhouse gases on the global climate.
Tim Flannery, an Australian scientist and explorer who's been researching the effects of climate change in pockets of Australia and New Guinea, and has taken it upon himself to warn us about our future. "The Weather Makers" was published last year, and I finally got around to reading it last week. It's a page-turner, and although I was good at science in high school, this puts the science of global warming into language that everyone can understand.
The book is divided into five sections:
Part 1 Gaia's Tools
The first eighty or so pages explain how the Earth's various systems should work. These include the oxygen cycle, carbon cycle, and the cyclical climate change that's been happening for billions of years. Flannery takes a cue from other scientists and authors and explains the idea of "Gaia," or that Earth can be compared to one great organism. The various systems and cycles are similar to our own cardiopulmonary system, nervous and digestive systems. This sets up a lot of the concepts and vocabulary that Flannery will use in the rest of the book.
Part 2 One in Ten Thousand
This is where Flannery begins to present evidence that something isn't right with recent global environmental history. Ranging from the arctic, where polar bears are losing their cubs in unprecedented numbers, to the Antarctic where grasses are growing and the number of Emperor Penguins has dropped 25% in the last thirty years, we see that something is...wrong. Flannery also uses the Great Barrier Reef, tropical rain forests, and the loss of amphibian species as markers that we're going through a "Magic Gate" of extinction...the numbers of animal and plant species disappearing worldwide is reaching an irreversible point--where other species dependent on the disappearing species will inevitably follow. Warming oceans kill the plankton and krill, which feed fish, which feed seals, which feed polar bears...so even if we save some polar bears in zoos, it will be impossible to reintroduce them into the wild, because everything else in the food chain has become extinct or moved to other regions of the globe.
Part 3 The Science of Prediction
Here Flannery disposes of the naysayers who say that computer prediction models are meaningless; he explains the idea of computer climate modeling in detail (the one part of the book where I think he goes too far into the jargon of climatology), and then uses different examples from different institutions and governments to illustrate his point. The models include both regional and global predictions of how much the climate will need to change to have catastrophic consequences--and the answer isn't much. Although the rate of change seems gradual, it's enough to wipe species out, change the geopolitical world as we know it, and make life harder for billions of the human inhabitants of the globe. Polar bears are one thing...people are another.
Part 4 People in Greenhouses
This relatively brief section details attempts at legislated change so far, especially the Kyoto protocols, which both the U.S. and Australia, two of the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases, refused to sign. We see the progress made in some other countries (most notably Japan and Great Britain) as a result of their adoption of the more stringent Kyoto rules about pollution. Is it financially feasible to change? Flannery, and millions of residents of other countries, seem to think so.
Part 5 The Solution
This is a frightening and sometimes depressing book. But Flannery ends with a somewhat optimistic look at what can be done. What can we do to effect change now? Is it too late now, and when will it be too late? He gives data from some studies about countries that have cut back on their emissions, and does offer some hope for our future. He seems to believe that the greatest hope right now is to look more to solar and wind power...and uses several European countries as models. Switching to use more sun and wind than coal to generate electricity is even more important than coming up with new means of transportation, but Flannery is encouraged by recent developments like hybrid cars that will maintain our current way of life without too much interruption. Some ideas, like returning to sailing vessels instead of engine-powered cargo ships, seem far-fetched...but the strictest adoption of Gaia-saving policies would do just that.
What kind of world do you want to live in? What kind of world do you want your grandchildren to live in? These are the questions that Flannery wants us to contemplate, and answer with him--and he gives us his answers. Some of his ideas seem to go too far, but on the whole, he seems to be a pretty level-headed guy. There's enough humor and good pacing here to keep the book readable, and enough science to give the book substance. If you've got questions about global warming--if you're skeptical like my old man, or a skittish believer like me, you owe it to yourself to read "The Weather Makers." Hopefully it will change our world.
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING:
http://www.fightglobalwarming.com
http://www.stopglobalwarming.org
http://www.climatefriendly.com
Recommended:
Yes
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