Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It...

Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It | Wallace S. Broecker, Robert Kunzig | Saving the Earth

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Fixing Climate: Wh...

	Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It Wallace S. Broecker, Robert Kunzig Hill and Wang, 2008 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Dealing with the Root Cause of Global Warming Calls for New Remedies, Says Expert

The product of a unique collaboration between a pioneering earth scientist and an award winning science writer, Fixing Climate takes an unconventional approach to the vitally important issue of global warming. Wallace S. Broecker, a longtime researcher at Columbia University?s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, warned about the possible consequences of global warming decades before the concept entered popular consciousness. Hooked on climate studies since his student days, he has learned, largely through his own findings, that climate changes?naturally, dramatically, and rarely benignly. He also knows from experience that when mankind pushes nature as we are currently doing by dumping some sixty to seventy million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day, climate will change even more dramatically and less benignly. As Broecker points out, if a well-meaning fairy godmother were to turn us all into energysaving paragons at the stroke of midnight tonight, the resulting reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide might lessen but could not turn aside the great warming tide now headed our way. There is, nonetheless, a glimmer of hope in the development of new technologies that are directed not only at the reduction of carbon dioxide output but also at its harmless disposal. Told by skilled science journalist Robert Kunzig, Fixing Climate is a timely and informative story that makes for riveting reading

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Another voice weighs in.

Before I talk a bit about why I really liked this book, let me first mention that the title is a bit misleading. The book does indeed cover CO2, but only gets around to ideas about fixing climate in the last few chapters, and even talks mostly about how difficult it would be while only offering a couple of solutions that would require huge and expensive projects.

As I was reading this book it struck me that this is yet again another book by, or in this case in cooperation with, a well-known and respected name in the field of climate science, or a related field that adds to the big picture on global warming. I fail to see how anyone who has read recent books by or about Peter Ward, James Hansen, Dennis Alley, and now Wallace Broecker can seriously dispute the basics about global warming. This is yet another book that gives comprehensive coverage to the honest, decades-long research that a respected scientist has been involved in. After reading this book, and many like it, it seems absolutely silly when the global warming skeptics claim that these men are only doing this for grant money, or to claim that the numbers do not bear out the theory of global warming. Men like Broecker have been compiling long and convincing lists of evidence for decades now, and it's pretty much unassailable. Of course, that being said, this is an honest book that admits to mistakes that have been made along the way as well as areas that are still unresolved.

This book, while being relatively short, seems like about three or four books rolled into one. It has a lot of biographical annecdotes about Broecker and other scientists. It has a lot of evidence gleaned from decades of research all around the globe. It also has more general coverage of the CO2 problem and what we might do about it. I have read many books on the topic of global warming over the past few years, and even though I'm well acquainted with the basic tennents of the theory as well as the evidence, I never tire of reading books like this because they always show the human side of the people involved, and introduce the lay reader to interesting locales and ways of investigating them.

This book is both optimistic and pessimistic. It is pessimistic in the sense that like many other books by experts on the topic, it basically concludes that it will probably be impossible to stop the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere under the current economic and political situation. However, it is optimistic in the sense that there are some rays of hope. Be it wealthy donors who are embracing the cause, or national efforts like the one in Iceland described at the end of this book, some powerful entities are starting to get on board. The basic conclusion this book leaves the reader with is that there is indisputable evidence that we are at risk for climate change, that we probably won't be able to stop the growth of CO2 emissions, and that our best hope is to pursue large projects to capture and sequester CO2.

If you are interested in global warming, you will probably want to read other books in addition to this one, but this is a very interesting book by a scientist who is often referred to, especially when it comes to things like ice cores, past climate, and ocean conveyors.

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Saving the Earth

Excellent book. A historical summary of what climate has done to the earth over thousands of years. Technical details presented in a very readable way. How we got to where we are today. Options as to what we can do to reverse the situation. We need to work fast !

Fixing Climate--a wake-up call

"Fixing Climate" is an eloquently written story of how a number of practical dedicated earth scientists painstakingly analyzed data which have confirmed the reality and urgency of our global warming problem. This is a startling wake-up call from knowledgeable pragmatic people--a "must read" for political decision-makers.

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Good science, unusually reasonable "sociology"

This good-hearted book does a decent job in considering the wishes and likes of actual people when presenting its case for climate change and actions recommended. Too many similar works rantishly view humans as Earth's destructive vermin, and "Fixing Climate" takes great pains in stating that people count, that their beliefs and opinions ultimately determine what will be done with our climate. Early on the author concedes that global warming is not humanity's worst problem, rather that human misery is much worse. If only he had used the more specific word "poverty" instead of the mushier "misery."

This well-arranged book presents its information in distinctly defined chapters, covering major areas currently discussed these days. The reader will find the information not only objectively given, but also roughly in agreement with other sources. The conclusions reached in "Fixing Climate," though, often differ even based on the same numbers. This, of course, is the basis of differing points of view.

Unfortunately, most of this book makes conclusions toward the pessimistic. As the end of the book nears, one senses that "Oh, what can we do, what can we do," direction rolling especially through the last chapter. Having said many things, many times about the goodness of science, the risks and hard work persons of science take all the time, and how much science has pulled us all through, one wonders why the author does not extend this same point of view much into the future in "Fixing Climate"? It is as if the scientists of his day were the only ones capable of creative thought. For example, the author spends much time on the topic of carbon sequestration, a technology which may or may not work, but the point is that there are a "semi-infinite" number of other new possible directions to be explored. Let the creative, hard-working technologists loose, and we will almost certainly pull through this situation too. But buy the book; it is well done, and refreshing to read.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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