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The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations
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The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations
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by Eugene Linden
Sales Rank: 19104
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List Price: $15.00
$5.49
At Amazon
on 10-8-2008
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Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster June 26, 2007
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0684863537
ASIN: B000YTJHUG
Product Dimensions:
9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
Linden, who has been writing about the environment for 20 years (The Future in Plain Sight), is angry that, despite compelling scientific consensus, American politicians aren't facing up to the climate change that is upon us, and he's frustrated that the public isn't forcing them to do so. Such slowpoke acceptance of an inevitability, Linden argues in this articulate polemic, is rooted in the fact that "it has been our good fortune to prosper during one of the most benign climate periods"—but one that, if past worldwide weather cycles do portend the future, is fast coming to an end, with severe cultural and political consequences. Linden draws his conclusion from millennia of historical evidence, including the relatively recent Little Ice Age, starting in the 14th century, that wiped out Norse settlers in Greenland; more recently, a fierce El Niño in 1876–1878 precipitated droughts that killed millions, and another in 1997– 1998—the most powerful ever recorded and a "taste of things to come"—cost the world economy $100 billion. Several chapters explaining the science of climate change will be hard going for lay readers, but the author's passion for the world to comprehend a coming catastrophe helps propel his alarming narrative. B&w illus. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Environmental journalist Linden considers how adaptable human societies are to alterations in weather. He offers several examples of societies that drastically deteriorated, such as Greenland's Norse settlements in 1350, Central America's Mayan civilization around 950, modern Syria's Akkadian Empire circa 2200 B.C.E., as well as other casualties. Traditional archaeology, Linden reports, has had to incorporate the very vibrant field of paleoclimatology, whose means for determining past climates (ice cores, ocean sediments, oxygen isotope ratios, etc.) Linden crisply summarizes. He also rescues scholars' debates from the esoteric by embedding them in research about contemporary climate and its major factors, such as solar energy, the earth's axial tilt and orbit, the drift of the continents, and the distribution of heat by the ocean and atmosphere. Relatively restrained in tone, and consequently more persuasive by its sobriety, Linden's presentation of scientists' theories on historical climate change will provoke readers concerned about the implications of global warming for modern civilization. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations
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