Book Description
Is something going on with the weather?
A record-setting heat wave that just won't release its
blistering grip. Balmy winter weeks followed by a sudden
crippling snowstorm. Torrential rainfalls of rising frequency
and force, deluging areas untouched by flood for decades. And
coast-to-coast, a virtually endless parade of dramatically
televised weather disasters--each seemingly more extreme than
the last.
Examining today's headline-making questions through the
authoritative lens of science and history, New York Times
science reporter William K. Stevens's The Change in the
Weather offers a definitive look at the science of
climatic change. He introduces us to the international
community of scientists leading the effort to determine
whether a new era of climate has already dawned, one in which
the extreme will become increasingly commonplace in an
ever-warming world. From the impact of our own behavior on
the delicate balance that keeps our climate hospitable to the
degree to which we're too late to do anything about it, the
answers and their implications could not be more profound.
How did we get here? How bad is it? How much worse will it
get? How dramatically will it change life as we know it, and
how quickly? The climate-science community's newfound
consensus--that the earth is indeed getting warmer, and human
activity is at least partially at fault--remains a topic of
fierce debate, and Stevens helps us understand both the
science and politics we'll need to know in the coming years.
Charting the "grand drama" that began with the
formation of the planet and its atmosphere billions of years
ago, Stevens reveals the patterns of extreme climate change
that have always characterized earth history. He explores the
inextricable link between the fate of humanity and the
climate--from the shaping of human evolution to the
devastation of entire civilizations--and our efforts to make
sense of these vast forces beyond our control. And he both
shows us these forces at work today, as manifested in melting
Alaskan glaciers or distressingly brown New England autumns,
and offers an informed speculative glimpse at what may be in
store for the end of our new century.
As we enter the third millennium amid unfounded predictions
of apocalyptic weather disaster, the very real debate about
our planet's fate rages on beneath the clamor. An armchair
scientist's guide to the science of climate--past, present,
and future--The Change in the Weather is an
eye-opening and authoritative exploration of today's world
and tomorrow's uncertainty.
