With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change

by Fred Pearce

Book Overview

Nature is fragile, environmentalists often tell us. But the lesson of this book is that it is not so. The truth is far more worrying. Nature is strong and packs a serious counterpunch . . . Global warming will very probably unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will not be gradual. The history of our planet's climate shows that it does not do gradual change. Under pressure, whether from sunspots or orbital wobbles or the depredations of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807085774
• ISBN13: 9780807085776
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

It's getting warm in here -- really

A very thorough primer and review of history, current consensus, and disagreements on climate change. I thought the author took a very balanced view, being careful to include dissenting opinions on various aspects of cimate change. The chilling conclsion, though, is that disagreements among climate scientists are on the level of which machanisms are most important, which ones take the lead and which follow, and the magnitude of expected change. The is no real disagreement on the fact that the earth's climate is changing rapidly, that there are tipping points which when crossed will produce irrevocable and drastic changes in climete, and that man made pollution is a major contributor to this change.

Setting the pace

Once, climate was seen like a sedate matron, ambling along at a measured pace. According to Fred Pearce, the climate is more like a drunk, lurching from one place to another in sporadic, unpredictable lunges. Rapid climate change was once considered a local phenomenon. Older, unprepared civilisations in one region staggered under shifts of weather, collapsing in the heat, but easily replaced by more efficient neighbours. Research has shown, argues Pearce, that the entire globe is interconnected through complex patterns. Even the starting points of climate changes are hidden in the mists of time. Until today. Now it's the byproducts of our society that are prompting the changes. How drastic these may be and where the changes will be most severe is the subject of this excellent, if very frightening account. Fred Pearce has been in the climate investigation reporting business for nearly twenty years. He knows the players and he understands their work. His intimate knowledge of their views and the science behind those outlooks provide a sound foundation for his summation of how climate change is occurring. And it is occurring, he argues. It's happening so fast that he can confidently assert that this is the last eneration that will enjoy anything like climate stability. That lurching drunk is more powerful and less predictable than previously imagined. With his long experience to buttress his presentation, Pearce covers all the bases. Moving from polar ice through ocean currents to wind patterns, he provides a thorough examination of the issues and the people studying them. The eminent Wally Broecker, who proposed the Great Ocean Conveyor circulating polar water around the globe is carefully described. Pearce doesn't want to invoke Broecker's ire over a mis-statement. Lonnie Thompson, who has likely spent more time above 6000 metres altitude than any other lowlander alive, offers his critique of Broecker's model as the initiator of climate change. These men are the elder statesmen of climate investigation. The journalist has met them all, but he also introduces us to the newcomers in the field. Peter deMenocal is continuing the work of Gerard Bond on solar pulses of energy, while Mike Mann's "hockey stick" graph of temperature increase updated Charles Keeling's earlier records on carbon dioxide increase rates. In a few cases, the later worker has almost eclipsed his forbear as Milutin Milankovich is the name associated with relating climate with Earth's orbital shifts instead of that of James Croll, the crofter's son who worked that out in the late 19th Century. New minds, asking new questions and probing with modern instruments, have produced fresh viewpoints on climate change. The most significant pattern among those views is that major climate change is in the offing. It will be likely very soon and very abrupt. Warming air and warming seas are providing lubricant for the ice caps in Greenland and the Antartic. Will these ice mountains soon sli