Customer Reviews

Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World's Changing Weather

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Reid Bryson, a premier prof. at the premier climatology program wrote this for non-technical audiences in 1978. The "Global Warming" apostles need to go back to this book, because climate change is not just warming. Bryson connects the dots between regional climates in a global pattern, based on shifting jet streams. Warming in one location occurs simultaneously with cooling in another. Drought in one location occurs simultaneously with increased precip in another location. Since climate is ephemoral, the history of climates is read in ice cores, tree rings, plant and animal paleontology, written history, crop yield records, and parish birth and death records. A rigorous approach in any of these areas could only reach a small and specialized audience; the population ready for such an approach in all these fields doesn't exist. Climates of Hunger uses case studies drawn from the best rigorous climate science of the day; for less 'sketchiness', refer to the references. Bryson "wrote the book" in the 70s; public interest needs the depth of understanding beyond 'warming' now.

This is an excellent book that is a must read for those interested in the topic, as most should be. At his death in 2008 at 88, his colleagues here at UW Madison praised his work, but lamented that he never took an interest in looking at the recent climate data, and for that reason remained unconvinced of the seriousness of the current changes in the climate.

The book describes the otherwise relatively slow changes to localized weather (climate?) and it's impacts over time and the changes which it then forced upon life forms in that region. Most notable to me was his argument that the halcyon days of the mild predictable weather of the 20th century was in fact unusual, and that the norm was high variability. This raised the issue of loss of genetic variability of plants used in agriculture, and variability in life forms generally, which would cause significant problems when high variability returned as the norm.

The book was written over 30 years ago using data then known and much older and without the benefit much of today's genetics and biology knowledge, and without the benefit of the routine tools and instruments and measures available to climatologists, to say nothing about the vast computing resources available for modeling, that today exists.

A Climate Of Hunger Redux would be an interesting read also with the original data either confirmed or modified based on today's knowledge. Science has always progressed acquiring better and deeper knowledge, though that doesn't always happen to the scientists individually. Thomas Kuhn in The Nature of Scientific Revolutions remarks that sometimes the guardians of old ideas and positions must die off before the more correct scientific models can come to the fore.

Bryson is not the first, nor will he be the last of an old guard. The anti-climate change crowd, wedded as they are to at least 30 year old data that allows them the convenience maintaining their now unsupported world view, will also have to pass before the obvious finally becomes accepted.

The old saw of "You can't teach old dogs new tricks" has never been more accurate. As an Old Dog, I can attest to that.

As a student of Prof. Bryson in the '60s, I greatly appreciated his insight into both the constancy of climate change and the impact of human populations on macro climates. It is important in this day when so many have discovered climate change and think it is a recent phenomena that there is a voice, like Prof. Bryson's, to remind us that climate change has always been part of the planet. Bryson's view today is raised along with many paleoclimatologists against the voice of panic and those preaching the doom of the planet due to a modest increase in CO2 (no where near historic levels). Bryson's wisdom and decades of study is the voice of reason today and needs to be listened to.

This book is pretty good. It describes man's impact on climate with some case studies to back it up. Additionally, the book goes into attempting to reconstruct past climates through different methods.

Although some of the conclusions that were drawn could be considered sketchy, it's an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in climates, history, or global warming.