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Dr. Heidi Cullen, one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, offers a new way of viewing the climate-change phenomenon, not as some future event but as something happening right now in our own backyard. In this groundbreaking, provocative work, Dr. Cullen combines the latest scientific research with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the globe.
From the Central Valley of California, where coming droughts will jeopardize the entire state's water supply, to New York City, whose infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to even a relatively weak Category 3 hurricane, to Greenland, where warmer temperatures will give access to mineral wealth buried beneath ice sheets for millennia, Cullen illustrates how, if left unabated, climate change will transform every corner of the world by midcentury—and no two regions will be affected in quite the same way.
List of Maps xi
Introduction xiii
Part I Your Weather Is Your Climate
1 Climate and Weather Together 3
2 Seeing Climate Change in Our Past 12
3 The Science of Prediction 31
4 Extreme Weather Autopsies and the Forty-Year Forecast 50
Part II The Weather of the Future
5 The Sahel, Africa 63
6 The Great Barrier Reef, Australia 89
7 Central Valley, California 115
8 The Arctic, Part One: Inuit Nunaat, Canada 149
9 The Arctic, Part Two: Greenland 173
10 Dhaka, Bangladesh 197
11 New York, New York 227
Epilogue: The Trillionth Ton 261
Appendix 1 United States Climate Change Almanac 273
Appendix 2 New York Statistics 297
Appendix 3 The World's Most Vulnerable Places 299
Notes 303
Acknowledgments 313
Index 317
bob_derwood
Posted June 24, 2012
Cullen’s book makes the case that climate prediction over the next century is just as dependable as weather prediction over the next ten days. We can forecast a river’s flood stage several days in advance and can take appropriate measures to mitigate the damage. Likewise, we know what global warming will do to various vulnerable places, like Bangladesh, and we can begin to take steps now that will ease the human misery that is likely to ensue.
Each chapter studies a different vulnerable place: the Central Valley of California, the Arctic, the Sahel, the Great Barrier Reef, and New York City. She interviews some of the experts in the field and makes some fanciful predictions for some future years.
The book has two main shortcomings, shared by other similar books:
• She assumes that resources can and will be allocated in the best interests of all humanity, when simply getting from here to that point is the greatest obstacle of all.
• The biggest problem of global warming is NOT that extreme weather will be more likely, or even that sea level will rise. It is instead the possibility that a runaway greenhouse effect will result in a planet utterly unsuited to human civilization.
Nevertheless, books like this one should be read by as many people as possible. The narrow focus on a few danger spots will educate people about the many effects of global warming and may serve as a wake-up call for future policy-makers.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 11, 2012
This is a good novel but it is very one sided and negative. It looks only at worst case scenarios and is hopeless. Not a bad read but go into it knowing that according to this author we are doomed.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.AceBitbucket
Posted August 12, 2011
Excellent discussion of the practical aspects of global warming. Using specific locations and examining the consequences of climate change is more engaging than model discussions.
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Posted August 3, 2011
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Posted August 6, 2011
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Overview
Dr. Heidi Cullen, one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, offers a new way of viewing the climate-change phenomenon, not as some future event but as something happening right now in our own backyard. In this groundbreaking, provocative work, Dr. Cullen combines the latest scientific research with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the globe.
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