The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

by Tim Flannery

Overview

An international best seller embraced and endorsed by policy makers, scientists, writers and energy industry executives from around the world, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers contributed in bringing the topic of global warming to national prominence. For the first time, a scientist provided an accessible and comprehensive account of the history, current status, and future impact of climate change, writing what has been acclaimed by reviewers everywhere as the definitive book on global warming.
With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point. The Weather Makers is both an urgent warning and a call to arms, outlining the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Originally somewhat of a global warming skeptic, Tim Flannery spent several years researching the topic and offers a connect-the-dots approach for a reading public who has received patchy or misleading information on the subject. Pulling on his expertise as a scientist to discuss climate change from a historical perspective, Flannery also explains how climate change is interconnected across the planet.
This edition includes an new afterword by the author.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802142924
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	12/12/2006
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	450,739
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword     xvii
Map     xviii
The Slow Awakening     1
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
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
Liquid Gold: Changes in Rainfall     123
An Energetic Onion Skin     135
Playing at Canute     142
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
People in Greenhouses
A Close-Run Thing     213
The Road to Kyoto     222
Cost, Cost, Cost     232
People inGreenhouses Shouldn't Tell Lies     239
Engineering Solutions?     249
Last Steps on the Stairway to Heaven?     258
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

Editorial Reviews

“He makes sure that you will never again look at an electric-light switch in quite the same way. . . . Gives his material . . . [an] impassioned, fiery tone . . . He builds a galvanizing, intentionally polarizing case for the urgency of altering our patterns of energy use. . . . Detail-packed to the point of terrible fascination.” —Janet Maslin, New York Times



“At last, here is a clear and readable account of one of the most important but controversial issues facing everyone in the world today. If you are not already addicted to Tim Flannery's writing, discover him now: The Weather Makers is his best book yet.” —Jared Diamond, author of Collapse and Guns, Germs & Steel

From the Publisher

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, humans have become weather makers. As we fuel our activities, we create ozone-destroying chemicals and greenhouse gases that have altered global weather patterns and increased the potential for extreme weather events. Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers lays out not only a riveting history of how climate change has shaped our planet's evolution but a bracing scenario of catastrophes brewing in the future.

Mammologist and paleontologist Flannery (The Eternal Frontier), who in recent years has become well known for his controversial ideas on conservation, the environment and population control, presents a straightforward and powerfully written look at the connection between climate change and global warming. It's destined to become required reading following Hurricane Katrina as the focus shifts to the natural forces that may have produced such a devastating event. Much of the book's success is rooted in Flannery's succinct and fascinating insights into related topics, such as the differences between the terms greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change, and how the El Ni o cycle of extreme climatic events "had a profound re-organising effect on nature." But the heart of the book is Flannery's impassioned look at the earth's "colossal" carbon dioxide pollution problem and his argument for how we can shift from our current global reliance on fossil fuels to a hydrogen-based economy. Flannery consistently produces the hard goods related to his main message that our environmental behavior makes us all "weather makers" who "already possess all the tools required to avoid catastrophic climate change." Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A self-described skeptic of global warming, Flannery (The Eternal Frontier) took several years to research the issue himself. The result is this sobering look at climate change and our planet's future within the next few decades. Writing for ordinary readers, Flannery pulls no punches and details four possible outcomes that depend on how soon-or late-we can get serious about addressing global warming and take concrete steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. While grim, this book is not entirely hopeless. Flannery makes specific suggestions for action, such as investing in renewable power sources like solar, wind, and geothermal energy. Jared Diamond's Collapse offers a greater depth of historical perspective on how human actions on the enviroment lead to the collapse, or success, of societies. But Flannery's powerful warning is a quick-start guide that will inspire readers to make a difference by changing their environmental behaviors. An essential purchase for both academic and public libraries.-Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll. Lib., Kansas City, MO Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

An authoritative yet accessible presentation of the scientific evidence that climate change is happening; a clear delineation of what global warming has done and could do to life on our planet; and an urgent call for action. According to environmentalist and naturalist Flannery (The Eternal Frontier, 2001, etc.), human beings are the weather makers, and while there is still time to reduce the impact of global warming, failure of this generation to do so will lead to a climate-change-driven Dark Ages and the collapse of civilization. For the non-specialist, he deftly untangles the meanings of "greenhouse effect," "global warming" and "climate change" as he explains their connections and illustrates the importance of the atmosphere to earth's well-being. The present age, sometimes called the Anthropocene, or age of humanity, which began some 8,000 years ago, is, according to Flannery, showing signs of turning ugly. He documents the ecological changes that have already taken place in polar regions and on coral reefs, the species extinctions, altered rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and extreme weather events-all from temperature rises of only 0.63 of a degree, one-fifth to one-tenth of what is expected in this century. Turning to the political sphere, he examines the Montreal Protocol, which reduced emissions of CFCs, and the Kyoto Protocol, which attempts to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions but was not ratified by the United States or Australia. He looks at the role of government, scrutinizes the relationship between government and industry and charges that the fossil-fuel industry willfully misrepresents the dangers of climate change. Finally, Flannery discussesvarious power technologies-wind and solar, nuclear and hydrogen-that would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, and he conjectures about what their economic and social impact might be. His closing chapter spells out specific steps that individuals can take to substantially reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. A powerful and persuasive book, sure to provoke strong reaction.

Kirkus Reviews