Global Warming: The Threat of Earth's Changing Climate [Paperback]

Laurence Pringle (Author)

Book Description

Grade Level: P and up

Global warming is perhaps the most prominent and urgent environmental issue of the past decade, continuing to make front-page headlines. Award-winning science and nature writer Laurence Pringle describes the cause of this worldwide trend, exploring its past, present, and potential future damage to our climate, ecology, and economy. He also offers solutions that may help avert a global disaster. With over 30 color photographs and an extensive glossary, here is an authoritative look at a timely topic that all children and adults must face—and soon.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-A thoroughly updated reworking of Pringle's 1991 title (Arcade; o.p.). New discussions include information on nuclear power, the carbon cycle, coastal lands lost to rising sea levels, the perils of cement making, the effect of El Ni-o, and the dangers of aerosols. The author also covers measures that have been taken to slow the warming of the Earth's atmosphere. Clear, full-color photos showing smog, flooding, human misery, and some beautiful landscapes will grab readers' attention. Large, colorful maps and diagrams are also included. Unfortunately, the list for further reading includes articles that are above the level of this book's audience. Despite this minor flaw, this is an important and useful title.

Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-8. This well-illustrated, slightly oversize book introduces global warming with sophisticated material best suited to upper-elementary- and middle-schoolers. The dramatic, eye-catching cover will attract kids with its picture of a blazing sun and an ominous red haze filling the sky over a vulnerable Earth. Inside, chapters sprinkled with good-quality color photos briefly describe what causes global warming, the signs that it's occurring, the difficulties in predicting climatic shifts, industries' lobbying against research and ways that nations can lower Earth's greenhouse gases. The text is extremely straightforward, even dry, and information is repeated in some places. But this offers students a solid, factual overview of the subject, with plenty of material and an extensive glossary to support reports. The selection of mostly adult further readings seems aimed at teachers rather than kids. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587172283
• ISBN-13: 978-1587172281
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,941,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Light on Facts, January 18, 2008

By 

Joel M. Kauffman (Berwyn, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Global Warming: The Threat of Earth's Changing Climate (Paperback)

The purpose of this book is to scare children about global warming. On the back cover: "Global Warming Can Lead to Global Disaster" is not intended to do anything else. Author Pringle would have been equally accurate to write: "Global Cooling Can Lead to Global Disaster".

The text begins with a call to act now to halt global warming. Some history since the Ice Ages is given. The insularity of the author is shown by his comment (p6): "...the year-round climate on the north side of a house...is cooler than the south side, where more sunlight falls." There was no qualification that this works in the northern hemisphere only and away from the equator. Why mislead children?

Chapter 3 on the greenhouse effect leads off with misinformation, namely, that nitrogen makes up 79% of the atmosphere and oxygen 20%. No mention of 1.5% water vapor and 1% argon. The explanation (p10) and diagram of the greenhouse effect does not explain how heat absorbed by the atmosphere results in a warmer surface, including oceans, on Earth. On p12 one of the common fables is presented -- that for 420,000 years the CO2 level in air was under 325 ppm, and paralleled the temperature. This is grossly wrong as shown by 90,000 direct chemical assays of air for CO2 by dozens of Chemists from 1812-1965, showing higher levels than NOW at least 3 times. See: Beck, E.-G. (2007). 180 Years of Atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods, Energy & Environment, 18(2), 259-282. And these levels did NOT parallel temperature, but Followed rises and falls. Thus the graph on p34 is seriously in error.
Cement making does NOT release carbon atoms from carbonate rocks (p13, 33), but CO2. Its concentration in air is not likely to reach 600 ppm by 2050; 500 ppm is a better guess. The contribution of methane to warming is exaggerated by omission of its tiny concentration, as is also true for nitrous oxide and CFCs. A better explanation of variable ozone concentrations over the poles is Earth's magnetic lines of force leading micrometeorites toward the pole where they catalyze the normal decomposition of ozone into oxygen. The pie chart on p16 ignores water vapor.

The retreat of glaciers is dramatized without the evidence that non-Alps glaciers stopped receding in 1975. See: Oerlemans, J. (2005). Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records. Science, 308, 675-677. The "awful" warming caused an 11-day increase in growing season (p19). Why is this bad? A certain butterfly species moved north 100 miles. Is that bad? Possibility of further sea level rise was presented as a horrifying certainty (p25). The 1990s were "honored" for having the most floods, storms, etc., but the 1940s actually did. See: Michaels, P. J., Meltdown, 2004. Deaths from excessive heat (p30) were not balanced by tales of more deaths from excessive cold. Common scares about the spread of insect-borne diseases (p31) are not backed by facts.

Computer modeling of clouds was said to include the effects of clouds since 1989 (p21). This is greatly disputed by Prof. Richard K. Lindzen of M. I. T. and others. The UN's IPCC is given great credibility, but whole books have been written to show bias at the IPCC. See: Michaels, P. J., Ed. (2004). Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global warming. Lanham, MD:Rowan & Littlefield. The straw man that fossil fuel industries have tried to show that global warming is a myth (p34) somehow missed the point that CO2 emissions are uncorrelated with warming (see above). Finally the warmer's standard propaganda ploy is used: repeat the phrase "greenhouse gases" over and over, but then push the Kyoto treaty and other means of limiting emissions of ONE gas: CO2, even though it is responsible for 2-20% of any warming, ignoring water vapor. See: Singer SF, Avery DT (2008). Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years. Lanham, MD: Roman and Little field.

Alternate energy sources are given the standard treatment. Nuclear is said to be too costly and dangerous, while wind, water and solar are pushed (p40). "In 1996, 2,000 economists, including 4 Nobel Prize winners, signed a statement that the benefits of of action on global warming [entirely cutting CO2 emissions] outweigh the costs. Since when are economists scientists or engineers? In 1998 20,000 degree-holding scientists and engineers signed a statement that humans have not caused global warming. See: [...] under petition project.

Finally, after sporadic lip service to climate reality, there is a call for supporting the Kyoto Protocol for CO2 emissions reductions (p42) because there "...is no longer a choice..." according to "...the best information available.." For an antidote to such nonsense see: [...]

My advice is to keep this nightmare of scares away from your children.

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Global Warming, February 16, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Global Warming: The Threat of Earth's Changing Climate (Paperback)

This book is about what is happening on our world. Global warming can lead to global disaster. Discover how this worldwide warming trend beagan, what problems it is causing, and how it can be reversed.This book talkes about how each day earth is geting warmer and that humans are warming earth's atmosphere by their every day activities.As a result,the polar ice is melting, and the sea level are racing nearly about two feet in this century. Warming climates are also causing more frequentand violent thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes.These effects of climate changes will almost certainly increase and accelerate. The author examines the causes of this worldwide warming trend, from the burning of the heattrapping gases into the atmosphere to the destruction of forests. Scientists explore the present and future damage to the world's climate, ecology, and economy. Scientists offer parctical solutions that could avert a global disaster of our own making.
BY:Wendy B.

4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good emotion, but light on facts, December 30, 2006

By 

Cal Tech Professor "Rocket Scientist" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Global Warming: The Threat of Earth's Changing Climate (Paperback)

While I was looking for a critical analysis of the dicussion regarding global warming, this book rather presents one side and ignores half of the evidence regarding the phenomina. This book is poorly researched, weak arguments, but high on emotion.