This is the book the world has been waiting for--and needing--for decades.At last, a book that sets out, for the general public, the irrefutable evidence that climate change is already happening, and we need to become very serious about it--fast.
Of the doomsday clocks ticking toward midnight, climate change is the most fearful. To learn what is known, one cannot do better than read Tim Flannery's eloquent and authoritative account in The Weather Makers.Understanding is the first step toward salvation.
With The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery, himself a creative scientist, adds a blend of poetical writing and historical perspective to an amazingly clear and comprehensive tour of the complex climate-change world. He starts in early Earth history and brings us to the present predicament--and names names of who is primarily responsible--us, especially via careless management, crass consumerism, corporate greed, political corruption, and media indifference. This is a beautifully written guide for anyone interested in the increasingly serious climate-change problem to learn what is going on.
Until The Weather Makers, nobody since Bill McKibben had told the tale of what this global-warming beast will be like as it awakens. Super hurri canes are understood as omens as Flannery weaves the science, politics, and the economics together in a tale as frightening as it must have been when Hitler was marching across Europe. When he writes, 'there has been little reason for our blindness, except perhaps for an unwillingness to look such horror in the face and say,“You are my creation,” ' I believe he will inspire us to destroy this creation before it destroys us.
FOREWORD xvii
MAP xviii
THE SLOW AWAKENING
PART I
GAIA'S TOOLS
GAIA 11
THE GREAT AERIAL OCEAN 19
THE GASEOUS GREENHOUSE 27
THE SAGES AND THE ONION SKIN 36
TIME'S GATEWAYS 45
BORN IN THE DEEP FREEZE 54
MAKING THE LONG SUMMER 63
DIGGING UP THE DEAD 69
PART 2
ONE IN TEN THOUSAND
THE UNRAVELING WORLD 83
PERIL AT THE POLES 95
2050: THE GREAT STUMPY REEF? 104
A WARNING FROM THE GOLDEN TOAD 114
AN ENERGETIC ONION SKIN 135
PLAYING AT CANUTE 142
PART 3
THE SCIENCE OF PREDICTION
MODEL WORLDS 153
THE COMMITMENT AND
APPROACHING EXTREME DANGER 166
LEVELING THE MOUNTAINS 171
HOW CAN THEY KEEP ON MOVING? 178
BOILING THE ABYSS 184
THE PACK OF JOKERS 189
CIVILIZATION:
OUT WITH A WHIMPER? 203
PART 4
PEOPLE IN GREENHOUSES
A CLOSE-RUN THING 213
THE ROAD TO KYOTO 222
COST, COST, COST 232
PEOPLE IN GREENHOUSES
SHOULDN'T TELL LIES 239
ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS? 249
LAST STEPS ON THE
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN? 258
PART 5
THE SOLUTION
BRIGHT AS SUNLIGHT,
LIGHT AS WIND 267
NUCLEAR LAZARUS? 272
OF HYBRIDS, MINICATS, AND
CONTRAILS 279
THE LAST ACT OF GOD? 284
2084: THE CARBON DICTATORSHIP? 290
TIME'S UP 296
OVER TO YOU 302
POSTSCRIPT 307
AFTERWORD 308
CLIMATE CHANGE CHECKLIST 316
GREEN POWER 317
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 318
ILLUSTRATIONS 319
NOTES 320
INDEX 344
