Customer Reviews

High Tide: The Truth About Our Climate Crisis

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Mark Lynas traveled around the world to find tangible symptoms of global warming. He found them indeed, and some of them are truly heartbreaking. From the Pacific islanders who are preparing to abandon their island home, to the Alaskans in crazy, tilting houses over a foundation of melting permafrost, to the author's own flooding England, the stories hit home. It's hard to deny global warming after this.

But Lynas, like many environmental activists, falls flat on his solutions. For example, he says that because burning any more oil will worsen warming, "there should be a worldwide halt to the exploration and development of new oil, coal and gas reserves, because even existing reserves should never be burned as fuel." In his fear of warming, Lynas doesn't consider the immediate human suffering that such a rash course would create. It seems like he doesn't know--or doesn't care--how much our society relies on oil, not only for 90% of our transportation but for much of our food, pharmaecuticals, and other life-critical applications. For civilization to continue, we need a gradual, orderly draw-down from fossil fuels, not a crashing halt.

It might comfort Lynas to know that we'll have to get off oil anyway even without global warming, because cheap oil is fast running out. Those remaining reserves will be so much more difficult and expensive to pump than our oil today that we'll never even have a chance to use them up. And just as supply peaks, there's rising demand from China and India. $10 a gallon gas will get us off oil more quickly than fear of warming. But then our society will face other problems--including potential political collapse--that will make it all the more difficult to deal with warming. For more realistic talk on energy, I'd look to books on "peak oil" such as James Howard Kunstler's "The Long Emergency" or Richard Heinberg's "Power Down."

Lynas is just as naive in his approach to politics, assuming that if people--especially Americans, who emit most greenhouse gases--learn the facts, they'll all start thinking and acting like greenies. Yet we all know that the biggest barrier to stopping global warming is not lack of scientific knowlege or even popular awareness, but economic and political short-sightedness. The rich don't want to change their ways, and they'll use power, influence, and corruption to preserve their wealth, warming be damned. For a more nuanced look, try the Ehrlichs' "One with Nineveh." They talk about changes in government and business that will have to happen to save the earth, showing a much more complete understanding of the human-nature equation than does Lynas, who sees retreating glaciers more clearly than he sees expanding markets.

High Tide is amazing, not for predicting the future of the planet, but for telling you, in very personal terms, what is happening in the world today. I spent 14 years in and out of Alaska and became very well acquainted with the entire state, but have not returned since 1987. I was absolutely shocked at how our Northernmost state is suffering from the 10 (!) degree rise in temperature which is melting the permafrost. The resulting damage to homes, forests, native life, and other facets of an incredibly beautiful state deeply saddens me and gives me a strong urge to do something serious about global warming. This book really makes global warming upfront, real, and personal without preaching or supplying solutions. Things are simply reported the way they are without predjudice. I highly recommend it. Our politicians should be duct-taped to chairs and forced to read this book.

Once you have become thoroughly depressed by reading the state of the world in "High Tide", by all means obtain a copy of "Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming" by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn. That book gives an outlook on all of the alternative means of producing energy that have a zero or low carbon footprint. Good Reading.

Although many studies of climate change and its impact have been published, few count the human cost. Mark Lynas makes up for that oversight in this vividly presented account. As a journalist, he's unconstrained by the limitations of long-term data sets, political reaction to his personal findings or peer group pressure. He travels the globe, even to the point of last minute flight bookings, to observe conditions. His approach is to confront people and ask about their experiences with changing weather over the years. The method is direct, straightforward and revealing. What it demonstrates is more than startling, it's devastating.

While the scientists debate the temperature rise rate or the intensity of this or that storm, around the planet people are living through the conditions of warming climate. Tuvalu residents, on their miniscule island chain in mid-Pacific, are watching the land wash away. It isn't just that melting ice caps are raising sea levels and ruining crops. There are more frequent and more devastating storms occuring. In China, land is also moving, but the reason is the opposite - the rains have ceased and the land is dried and blowing away in fierce desert winds. The account of a lone woman, the last survivor of a village overwhelmed by drought, is more poignant [to me] than anything found in fiction. And the number of such stories is growing.

If a most gripping part of this book must be chosen, it is Lynas' tour of Peru and the Cordillera Blanca glaciers. His father, a geologist, had visited the area three decades before, camera in hand. Huge glaciers, akin to frozen waterfalls, fill the images. With those photos in his knapsack, Lynas trudges up the slopes, racked by Alititude Sickness, to record any changes. His expression at the sight cannot be repeated here, a signal of his shock - and ours at his comparative photographs. The glaciers are gone! Lynas takes us through a litany of rivers of ice that are withdrawing from long established limits. The withdrawal has a dual results - not enough snow is feeding their growth, and the meltwater is no longer available to nourish human populations. He asks: what will the citizens of Lima do when there is no more water to drink? Lynas avoids prediction of furture El Ninos' impact on these conditions. He's hardly blameable for that. Some observations on North America's depletion of the Ogalalla Aquifer, only partly attributable to overuse of fossil fuels, however, would have been useful.

It is fossil fuel consumption that stands charged, indeed declared guilty by Lynas, as the culprit in these events. The tumultuous clouds of auto exhausts are the major source of gases rising into our atmosphere, choking off proper heat exchange mechanisms. The contributions of the oil industry to politicians short circuits any political action to curb these emmissions. Hence, Tuvalu is being swept away, China is choking with dust and Lima, Peru will soon be seeking homes for its million citizens. But the United States, the world's greatest and most persistent polluter, decrys or subverts all efforts to quell the output of their millions of vehicles, while assiduously searching for more to burn.

Lynas is unequivical in his denunciations. At the same time, he invokes response from his readers to take action. Pollution increases can be curbed, he argues in his conclusion. It is you who must take the first steps. America, he stresses, must follow the lead of the European Union. Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is the first step - a committment to stop, then reduce emissions. "Contraction and convergence" policies must be implemented as a means of reducing emissions with a minimal impact on economies. The quest for new supplies of fossil fuels must cease and the funds used to promote alternative energy sources. Individual actions, amazingly easy small steps, must be taken and imparting to others the need follow your example spreads the message. "Don't be scared to speak out!", he warns. Who should read his warning message? Anyone who breathes - and wishes to continue breathing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

We live in a time of endless urgencies and endless busy-ness.
There are countless distractions and practically endless things to
entertain and amuse ourselves, countless ads, writings, etc., trying
to grab our attention for however long they can get it.

Thus it's extremely difficult to mobilize large groups of people
into taking action as a whole unless they are certain that it's
absolutely urgent, as we saw after 9-11.

"High Tide" is a very good book because it is a most interesting and
engaging travel guide, easy to read, and the author combines his mostly
pleasant commentary about his travels and the very diverse peoples he
interacts with in different parts of the world with serious, thoughtful
observations in those regions that "prove" what he and environmentalists
like him believe is coming: the imminent collapse of the environment, and
he leaves no doubt that much of the cause is human-induced global warming.
He also does a fine job of interspersing easy-to-understand statistics
from scientists and climatologists that almost always relate to what he
is seeing and analysing in his travels.

Before I wrote this review I chose not to double-check his statistics,
but his references appear very sound to me, and what adds credibility to
his claims is that he is able to interview top-level policy-makers,
politicians, and scientists. Thus while I have read that, for example, in
some areas glaciers are actually expanding, which he never mentions, I
noted many alarming trends, many new to me.

On p. 111 he writes that over 70% of the world's sandy shorelines
are retreating, then that 80-90% of the beaches are eroding. On p. 114
we read that 100 million people (in just 4 poor countries) are at risk
due to sea-level rising. In a most interesting chapter, "Red Clouds
In China," we learn that large areas of northern China are becoming
inhabitable due to drought and dust. On p. 231 he writes that 95% of
Alaska's glaciers are thinning, and the rate has doubled since the
mid-1990's! Finally, pp. 237-9 is a discussion of the impending water
crisis in places like Lima, Peru (where the author lived as a child).

Mr. Lynas also provides a very readable summary of the Kyoto
protocol and related issues related to enforcement of CO2 emissions
by participating and non-participating countries (like the US) in
the final chapter, "Feeling The Heat."

So clearly from the above, if you believe the statistics, we
do have an urgent crisis, and that's why I started my review by
showing that unless the public feels an urgency en masse', little
or nothing is going to be done. It is late in the election campaign
of 2004, and I read nothing in the mainstream media about what we
are going to do to change our ways, to improve the environment.
It seems that most people, at least in the US, are just thinking about
their survival, and that means business as usual, I am afraid. "High
Tide" actually affirms this: there are many people in "baking" Alaska
who want an increase in oil exploration there because they need the
subsidies from the oil companies. And that's why if you look at the
list of the author's recommendations (pp. 286-297), comments like
"stop all exploration and development of new oil, coal, and gas"
just don't "cut it," they are beyond anything even remotely possible,
unless, of course, there is a crisis that awakens people. Other
recommendations, like using flourescent light bulbs, are much more
reasonable. Yet I came away from the book feeling that asking people
to as if stop their busy lives to devote themselves to saving the
environment isn't realistic, and it's debatable that small numbers
of environmentalists can effect the kinds of changes the author claims
are desperately needed.

This might be a side issue, but I also wonder why environmentalists
like the author often don't mention vegetarianism (and animal rights) at
all. Surely the resources saved by producing less meat products, to say
nothing of the health and "spiritual" benefits, could contribute, if only
in a small way, to reducing the harm done by humanity to the planet. Frankly
I found the plethora of stories about eating, where the unquestioning
killing and consumption of animals was discussed very glibly, to be a
real "turn off," esp. given such concern about the earth, and I wonder about
the "karma" of people who consume animals with such impunity, though clearly
in some areas a vegetarian diet is not possible.

Mark Lynas is a person who has no idea about nature, science, and technology. But he has received a lot of money to travel. So he has traveled to various places and decided to become a kind of "concerned journalist".

The advantage is that you don't have to know science, history, or anything else to become a concerned journalist. If you get the money, everything is fine.

While he is not interested about the actual dynamics of weather and climate at various places, he is extremely interested in the "political applications" of the climate data. His book is full of various conspiratory theories involving the oil companies, the Bush administration, the Kyoto protocol, and other things.

He experiences a flood in Great Britain. (A lot of boring details about the train schedule and other things are included.) What is the reason? Climate change, of course. No, he is not interested in the actual statistical distribution of the floods.

Also, Alaska is too hot for him. It is, in fact, "baked". What is the reason? Climate change, silly.

There are several more anecdotes like that. The beauty of the islands in the Pacific ocean will disappear, he argues. And look at the red clouds in China and the hurricanes. Or the heat in Peru. All these things are caused by climate change, he writes.

Instead of a single rational idea or a piece of research, he offers you contacts to various soft eco-terrorist organizations. The number of people whose intellectual standards resemble those of Mr. Lynas will undoubtedly increase for years to come. And these people who know absolutely nothing but who want to influence absolutely everything will be flooding the market with similar books like this one.

I have to disagree with the other review posted for this book -- High Tide is not a scientific look at global warming but a journalistic coverage of what global warming is doing to our planet. I personally remember visiting Maine in 2001 and being told that the ocean no longer freezes in the same way it once did. Living in Los Angeles (where we've had virtually no winter for the last three years) and watching the weather channel's reports on the Midwest (where my sister lives, and where there seems to be much more severe weather than ever before), how can we doubt the severity of the problem? High Tide is an important read -- it will open your mind to global consequences and start conversations that need to be held. Highly recommended.

Two reviews below assert that glaciers are expanding. This is false. It is a myth spread by global warming denialists. For a refutation, see George Monbiot, "Junk Science," Guardian (May 10, 2005) at http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1480373,00.html.

This was an interesting read--a little behind the times--but still applicable today. I rec'd an A on my report on this subject!!! Apparently I chose wisely!

At last a book that gets beyond the scientific jargon, and focuses on the initial victims of climate change around the world: from Tuvaluans having to vacate their sinking island paradise and way of life, to the demise of glaciers that supply water for a huge portion of the world's population, to super cyclones wreaking havoc, to baking and sinking Alaska, to agricultural lands in China turning into a desert dust bowl, and so on. And if, as naysayers might claim, all this isn't caused by anthropogenic global warming, then we can only expect much worse in the future, a future that may entail mass extinctions from runaway global warming, once nature, having warmed to certain levels by human activity, starts releasing its tremendous amount of stored greenhouse gases. This should motivate everyone to turn off that light not in use, and reduce their greenhouse gases.

One of the best things I enjoyed about reading HIGH TIDE, I believe, was a remark author Mark Lynas made somewhere towards the end of this book. It's placement was entirely not the issue--perhaps even random, it was--but its content impressed upon me something vital and rather deeply, at that.

Lynas shared his initial concern over his lack of "complete scientific justification" for many of the things he was discussing with other professionals in the field. At certain points along his journey from enviro-curious to enviro-conscious, it caused him to question his overall motives, internalizing the criticisms he occasionally received from colleagues, friends, and family who began to perhaps think of him as something of a radical fundamentalist, environmentally-speaking.

Lynas told us how he felt slightly emasculated by some of the larger minds in the global environmental movement, and how if he were to take up the mantle of environmentalism, cleaner living, and self-limiting lifestyle techniques, thereby curbing his own contribution to the global carbon sink, how he'd potentially be branded by these same people a dilettante, a novice, a dabbler...even worse.

I'd have to admit that *this* was the line which clinched HIGH TIDE's premise for yours truly.

This--despite all of the fascinating accounts of Mark's globetrotting, his meanderings about the island nation of Tuvalu (itself sufficient, IMHO, for a whole book-length treatment on its own!), and his discoveries that the same Peruvian glacier which his father spied twenty years across a pristine high-altitude glacial lake had simply disappeared due to global warming--was the lone sentiment which I carted away with me from this read. It's the same one which I'll be sharing with my friends when they ask me what I've been reading of late.

It's hard not to admire Lynas, folks.

Global travel is tough on the sojourner. It doesn't matter who's footing the bill, m'kay, so let's just dismiss the commonly held belief that travel is amazing uf you're not the one paying for it. That's poppycock! These days, intercontinental travel is pure hell, and it's not been made any easier by the state of the world we live in...and I'm talking air travel, exclusively.

In essence, the person who does the travelling is forced to adjust to time zones, potential linguistic barriers, radical temperature shifts, lingering political effects, and in poor Mark's case, what can be best described as a "near-death experience."

In vivid detail, Mark describes how he ignored his own best advice regarding too rapid high-altitude ascent in the Andes, with thank goodness only remotely-disastrous consequences.

Mark spun around the globe, literally, spanning every hemisphere: north, south, east, and west. He bore the brunt of the climactic travails and the ravages of their overall toll on his own body, to deliver up this compelling piece of too-true non-fiction.

It does get depressing at a stage. Though not due to Mark's entertaining authorial style. It has more to do with the vagaries of of the Kyoto Protocol's acceptance (as in, what does it MEAN?), and what its various stipulations and evasive phraseologies will in fact, entail (concretely, in other words) when the time comes to implement things rigidly. And, like Lynas and other climatologists have long since been evangelizing--and they've already purchased jars of white talcum powder to mask just how blue in the face they really are from preaching to us the vital message--the reckoning is certainly coming.

In the British edition of the book, there's this great section toward the end where Mark is himself being interviewed about the latest developments *since* his publication of HIGH TIDE. In what could be best described as "I told you so," things indeed had tumbled precipitously since the 2004 publication year. We had Katrina in New Orleans, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, and restrictions on population flow between Tuvalu and New Zealand as part of those latter two countries' "special [population] arrangement."

SIX DEGREES, Mark's announced next book, will only be better, but only because it will be more vivid, more viseral, and more hard-hitting, as more and more people will identify with its descriptions...all because more people will have been directly affected by the things that Mark's been writing about all along.

Think of all he's seen, done, heard about, and learned in the interim--not to mention the "degree" to which he'd internalized the things he'd seen and heard during his travels. How much better he's improved, though the overall global prognosis has gotten terribly worse.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. But "looking forward" is too passive.

Like I said in the subject heading, this is certainly no primer, kids! For a first effort, it's challenged a heck of a lot of preconceived notions, and caused wide swathes of people to start talking. In this reviewer's hands, that's a heck of a lot more than I can say for some other people who don't walk the proverbial talk.

--ADM in Prague