Customer Reviews

CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge

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First, a little about my credentials: I have a PhD in atmospheric & oceanic sciences. While my expertise is not in climate, I certainly have a significant interest in the subject and am often asked by friends, family, and acquaintances about the physics of CO2 and global warming. Even with my familiarity of a lot of the scientific basis for climate change, I must say this book made a huge contribution to my understanding of the concepts involved.

Summary: this is one excellent little book. I found it to be really enjoyable reading about an extremely important topic. The author has made a very complex subject understandable to the non-scientific reader. If you are wondering how the global carbon cycle works, how carbon is related to carbon dioxide, and projections on energy usage and CO2 emissions in the future, I highly recommend it. I thought the few charts and graphs were excellent and appropriate.

CO2 Rising accompanied me on my Amtrak ride to Chicago for the holidays and I really enjoyed it! Although I learned a lot of new things, it was also a great refresher of the basics of physics and chemistry that many of us may have forgotten. I really appreciated the explanations of the varying phenomena that build up to a complete understanding of the C02 picture. Like when Volk describes how William Herschel first inferred the existence of infrared rays using a prism. These building block vignettes paint a clearer picture of all of the different elements that come together to create an understanding of greenhouse gases.

Very impressed with the imagery in the book; it is a really unique gift to be both scientist and artist and some of the descriptions [and connections] in CO2 Rising really attest to that combination. Especially Volk's Michener-esque descriptions of carbon cycling through time, making the weathering of limestone a beautiful experience with which to bookend his story.

Volk employs a really great writing device by naming the individual carbon atoms that appear in the book as "characters". It really highlights the difference between carbon sources and mixing, and the difference between molecules and atoms that would have been so much more confusing otherwise. It was also more fun to read about these characters' journeys through time in this way.

Volk reminds us all that there is not likely going to be a single development that frees us from the problem of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Especially in a world where the news media tends to look for those types of sensational, be-all and end-all solutions, we seem less excited [or even cognizant] as a people by the concept that many contributions from different fields [sequestration, efficiency, CO2-neutral technologies] can work together to have a great impact. At least this point [which Volk also tempers by calling for policy-motivated research efforts] allows us to feel empowered to act now.

I also appreciated the psychological connection Volk makes to illustrate the current carbon crimes committed by developed countries on those mostly-tropical, developing countries. Volk compares the current reaction to CO2 emissions with the hypothetical reaction to a country placing mirrors into outer space to cool the planet. It is a really interesting scenario to help the reader put into perspective the difference between acting on something directly to cause change, and acting remotely or indirectly.

All in all a great read that poses so many more great questions, but gives you a solid block of knowledge to stand on when thinking about CO2 and climate change. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the most serious environmental challenge of our time, and it is both accessible and academic.

If you want to understand the carbon cycle or communicate to a skeptic about why co2 is a growing problem, this is the book. The scope, breadth, & depth of Volk's knowledge and research are impressive. But to tell a captivating story, he invents carbon atom characters: Dave (for David Keeling, who first recorded the 'Keeling curve' of rising co2); and some carbon atoms newly released by burning fossil fuels, Coaleen, Oiliver and Methaniel; and Icille, long-trapped in a frozen air bubble. Volk describes their travels through the biosphere, correlating them with geological time, human cultural history, and current energy strategies.

The story-telling analogies are helpful in making complex systems clear and understandable. Volk goes on to explain potential individual and governmental responses to growing co2 levels. The book doesn't advocate any one technical fix, other than clear thinking and immediate large-scale action. The intent is that an informed public understanding of natural systems and balances could go a long way toward better policy and consumer decisions.

I was very impressed by CO2 Rising. Volk is a true "systems thinker" who skillfully blends biology, chemistry, physics, and other related disciplines into a coherent description of the carbon cycle and the impacts of burning fossil fuels. He also incorporates economics and other social sciences into the discussion about what to do about rising GHG emissions.

I highly recommend CO2 Rising to those seeking the scientific truth about how the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans is changing in recent decades. In particular, this book provides clear details about why the human impact can be so obvious, and significant, even when operating amidst a natural carbon cycle of tremendous scope.

"CO2 Rising" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Volk's book interview ran here as cover feature on December 5, 2008.

"CO2 Rising" is the one book climate crisis deniers do not want to read, because it lays out the data in detail, embedded in narrative and expressed clearly. You may or may not be charmed by the story of a carbon atom named Dave, but you will no longer have an excuse for denying the science behind the reality of a climate crisis caused by what humans have done and are doing in this industrial age so far.

"CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge" is an outstanding new book by Professer Tyler Volk of New York University. Unlike other works addressing climate policy and science, Professor Volk neither scares the reader with apocalyptic predictions nor loses the reader with esoterics. Instead, he fashions a creative way to communicate the complexities of climate change in an understandable, indeed enjoyable, cocktail of science and storytelling. Volk anthropmorphizes carbon atoms, which are the ultimate source of our climate predicament, by giving them human names. Dave (named for the famous climate scientist C. David Keeling who conducted the seminal temperature measurements so crucial to our understanding of climate change), Coalleen, Oiliver and Methanial are our heroes (or unwitting villains as the case may be!). We follow them through their adventures in the atmosphere, the deep ocean, a stalk of wheat that becomes a glass of beer and so on. While the book successfully relates this to real world scientific and policy considerations, we never stray too far from the story lines of the characters. The reader is never bored.

By giving us characters and an understandable context Professor Volk utilizes a pedagogical tool -- one with the sheer simplicity of Sesame Street -- to help those with less than full fluency of the nuances of climate change to understand this critical environmental challenge. In doing so, he peforms a great public service.

Of particular interest, is the discussion of the research conducted on air bubbles in the ice of Antarctica. Here, the reader is exposed to a compelling story of what ice cores tell us about the history of Earth's temperature. As a result, the picture of the warming climate of today comes into full relief.

While some material in the second half of the book, such as the discussion of the GIGA (Global Industrial Growth Automaton) to explain the rise in carbon emissions in the industrialized world, might require a more careful reading to fully understand its importance, virtually everything in the book is digestable by a general audience. Even so, for those readers with some background in the basic sciences and/or the policy debate surrounding climate change, the book will proceed more quickly.

CO2 Rising is not preachy. It does not advance any real agenda other than to explain the dramatic rise in temperature the Earth has experienced. As such, it is a refreshing addition to the literature on climate change. I recommend this book either as a text in environmental policy or science courses or simply as a popular read for anyone interested in climate change -- as CO2 Rising demonstrates, we all should be.

CO2 Rising can potentially reach a wide audience. Its ability to explain vital climate science and policy to so many is a hopeful thing. Now, there really is no excuse not to do something about climate change.

This is a decent primer on the complex and contentious subject of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), which is mostly caused, as Professor Volk's title suggests, by the carbon dioxide waste from burning fossil fuels. This would be a good book for someone wanting to get up to speed on the topic. It's short, reasonably thorough, and reasonably well-balanced. I learned a couple of new things, and I'm already well-informed re AGW. Noteworthy for the absence of the scare headlines typical of pop-sci works on AGW.

Where Volk's book falls down a bit is in his lack of examination of the science behind AGW, and how the headline scares are often based on spotty information, agenda-driven "political science", and plain old Bad Science. And his wrapup chapter on AGW remedies is a kitchen-sinkfull of all the proposals on the table -- good, bad, and ridiculous.

Still, it's probably the best-balanced current pop-science book on the topic. Cautiously recommended.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Arizona and New Mexico (USA)

This is really a 'don't miss' book about CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, oceans & crust. Clear evidence is given for the NEED to limit burning fossil fuels, but the author has little hope for any real progress on that in the USA or elsewhere. Consequently, his projections for continued rise in atmospheric CO2 are based on current trends (used more intelligently here than usual) & he mostly leaves it to the Reader to draw appropriate conclusions. At first that's a little frustrating, but (for me, at least) it led to more alert study of his text & a wholesome engagement of my own brain & judgement that moved me 'ahead' faster than passive acceptance could. The paperback isn't expensive (e.g. Amazon) & is packed with useful data & the judgments of a real expert. Even the playful use of carbon atoms with names effectively promotes one's grasp of the message, especially in the last pages, where the reader suddenly realizes that these atoms are immortal, but humanity not only isn't, but may be throwing away what future it might still have....