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

Wallace S. Broecker (Author), Robert Kunzig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite efforts at producing clean energy, mankind is going to continue burning coal and oil, say environmental sciences professor Broecker and science writer Kunzig. The pair offers a history of the scientific enquiry that solidified global warming theory, tracing the story from the 19th century through the 1957 dawn of the modern era of greenhouse studies when Americans Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss determined that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide was increasing and predicted the world's climate would be affected. Reducing emissions that cause global warming is commendable, the authors contend, but is too little too late. Their solution? Bury the stuff: extract CO2 from the atmosphere then pack it into deep ocean aquifers or within layers of volcanic basalt. They envisage 80 million small collectors each scrubbing a ton of CO2 daily from the world's atmosphere to balance what is produced by burning coal and oil. In a best-case scenario, these efforts will also stop the acceleration of global warming. Prototypes have already been constructed, but even the authors admit that trying to see that far into the future is crazy. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Framed around the life and career of author Broecker, one of the earliest voices on global warming, this history of the climate crisis reads like a series of mini scientific biographies as the authors travel around the world and across centuries illuminating the lives of those who sought answers to climate mysteries. From glacial studies in the early-nineteenth-century Swiss Alps to the work of Serbian Milutin Milankovic, who calculated orbital cycles while in a World War I Austrian prison, Fixing Climate highlights the research of dozens of men who followed their own natural curiosity into areas not actively studied by their contemporaries. Anyone interested in environmental science, even at the most basic levels, will be intrigued by the wealth of climate history covered and the manner in which Broecker and Kunzig make personal stories from 200 years ago as relevant and fascinating as those from last year. The title is unfortunately misleading, as it does not hint at the brilliant eccentrics portrayed within. There is far more here than just another academic discussion on climate change; fascinating stuff. --Colleen Mondor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; First Edition edition (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080904501X
• ISBN-13: 978-0809045013
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,038,676 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poking the Beast, June 3, 2008

By 

R. Strasser (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It (Hardcover)

Combine one coauthor who is the world's leading expert on climate change with a skilled science journalist and you get a riveting biography of Wallace S. Broecker that reads like a National Book Award novel. The science is a bonus, but, more than that - it is, I think, the definitive book on the subject of climate change.

One of the world's greatest living geoscientists, Wally Broecker, weaves an historical chronicle of earth's natural cycles with the modern history of humans that are, according to the Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University, poking the beast by combining mass use of fossil fuels with massive deforestation on earth. And Broecker warns that global society is at a crossroads where massive instability in climate, sea levels and survival of species threatens future generations.

If the geological past is prologue, Fixing Climate may be presient unless we pay attention to the author's solutions to tame the beast.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Captivating and honest, August 2, 2009

By 

OtisDaMan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It (Paperback)

This is a thin book and a fast read for anyone with prior knowledge concerning Wally Broecker and climate science. For the rest of us, it is well worth the small effort required to embark on a fascinating journey through the geologic ages of much of North America and the Earth. It is expected that most people who have paid attention to news or science articles on climate change would have seen Keeling's CO2 (carbon dioxide) curve, which is inexorably increasing over time. Far fewer people would know of Keeling's son and his O2 (oxygen) curve, which is decreasing over time. Well, both are shown here, and furthermore, a simple but accurate explanation is given of how scientists know what proportion of human emissions of CO2 is absorbed by plants, absorbed by the oceans, and left lingering in the atmosphere.

As the reader progresses through the book, an interesting picture emerges of what it was like to be a scientist in the middle of the 20th century. The resourcefulness of the young climate scientists is deftly conveyed to the reader, and it is clear that they were primarily curiosity-driven. It certainly wasn't about grants or recognition as some people have impugned, it was the resolution of puzzles that drove the early climate scientists like Wally Broecker and his colleagues, in their work to uncover evidence about past climate changes. Indeed, Wally Broecker's strong belief was that understanding our current climate system required an understanding of past climate.

The biggest puzzle that Wally is famous for identifying and communicating is that of the global conveyor belt - the transfer of heat by thermohaline currents - of which the gulf stream is a part. His insight was to pose the question of whether the conveyor belt may be disrupted, and what would be the consequences. The shutting down of the gulf stream, for instance, would trigger a drop in temperature across western Europe, leading to harsh winters and miserable summers. It sounds improbable but the global warming currently underway might sufficiently alter the salinity (indirectly) and temperature of the surface waters crucial to the conveyor's operation, that it shuts down and consequently induces freezing winters in western Europe and elsewhere.

Aside from the first dozen or so pages which felt a bit clunky, the book hits its stride early on. I would recommend this to anyone with an enquiring mind - and especially to people who are still somewhat sceptical about the notion of humans affecting climate. You don't need to be a scientist to enjoy the unfolding story within.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good science, unusually reasonable "sociology", June 5, 2008

By 

G. Stelzenmuller - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat--and How to Counter It (Hardcover)

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.