A field guide to the greenhouse effect, "Global Warming Unchecked" focuses on the near-term changes in weather patterns we can watch for as signs of global warming. According to Harold W. Bernard, Jr., the headline-making weather events of the 1980s - droughts, heat waves, and exceptionally strong hurricanes were ominous harbingers of our climatic future. The weather patterns of the 1990s may offer compelling evidence that we have crossed the Rubicon of global warming. Far from simply offering unsubstantiated predictions, however, Bernard discusses in detail the reasons behind his forecasts. He addresses the whys and hows of global warming and describes, on a regional basis, the likely climatic, environmental, economic, and societal impacts of the greenhouse effect in the United States over the next half-century or so. "Global Warming Unchecked" warns of the converging crises of climate and energy in the United States. By working now to forestall one crisis, we can forestall the other, through the development of alternative energy sources - if the citizens of the U.S. have the courage and foresight to act. "Technology and science aren't the answer", Bernard admonishes - "People are".
BIOGRAPHY
H. W. "Buzz" Bernard is the author of five nonfiction books on weather and climate. Eyewall is his first novel. He's won numerous awards over the past decade as both a fiction and nonfiction writer.
He's a veteran meteorologist having spent 13 years as a senior meteorologist with The Weather Channel, and 33 years as a weather officer in the U. S. Air Force.
His background as a meteorologist informs Eyewall. He's had first-hand experience with hurricanes, having penetrated the eyewall of Hurricane Felix in 1995 with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters. The mission he went on wasn't nearly as exciting--or as terrifying--as the one described in Eyewall, but he did get an up-close and personal look at how the job is done. At The Weather Channel, he worked closely with some of the most highly regarded hurricane forecasters in the business.
Besides his trip with the Hurricane Hunters, he's flown air drops over the Arctic Ocean and Turkey, and was a weather officer aboard a Tactical Air Command airborne command post (C-135). Additionally, he's provided field support to forest fire fighting operations in the Pacific Northwest, spent a summer working on Alaska's arctic slope and served two tours in Vietnam. Various other jobs, both civilian and military, took him to Germany, Saudi Arabia and Panama.
He's a native Oregonian and attended the University of Washington in Seattle where he earned a degree in atmospheric science and also studied creative writing.
After leaving active duty with the Air Force, he spent twenty years in New England, but now lives in The New South. Along with his wife and a Shih Tzu named Stormy, he calls Roswell, Georgia, near Atlanta, home.
His Website can be found at www.buzzbernard.com.
