Category: Book reviews

A Short Introduction to Climate Change

Tony Eggleton’s A Short Introduction to Climate Change is an excellent account of climate science for the general reader. The author is a retired geology professor from the Australian National University. Two widely read climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter, are also retired Australian geology professors, but Eggleton is not of their ilk. He comes at the subject from a concern about climate change and a wish to explain to readers who are uncertain about the topic why there is reason for concern.

The book is grounded in the careful science which has contributed to our understanding of the danger in which we now stand. Eggleton has not worked in the field of climate, but recognises the authenticity of the findings of climatologists. His opening chapter, The Spirit of Enquiry, offers a clear account of the process by which science across all its fields advances. He highlights the fact that most climate science is done by groups, all of whom need to be confident of the reliability of their colleagues. He explains the rigorous process of peer reviewed papers and the comprehensive scrutiny from fellow scientists which follows their publication. He ponders the fact that some hypotheses are of the type that involves a choice between only two possibilities. If one is not true the other must be so. How will the theory of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels be viewed in 100 years from now? “Interpretations evolve, change and sometimes settle into accepted fact: the Sun is at the centre of the solar system, the continents have drifted and smoking does damage the lungs.”

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Ice, Mice and Men

Geoff Simmons and Gareth Morgan, with help from John McCrystal, have produced a book which one hopes will be read by many New Zealanders.  Ice, Mice and Men: The Issues Facing our Far South not only carries illuminating scientific information about the islands and seas to our south and the Antarctic continent beyond them, but it communicates it in a relaxed and engaging style which should ensure a wide general readership. The more people understand what is happening in this vital region the better, and it’s easy to see this book adding to their number.

The opening section explains why the region is important, breaking it into three zones: first, the subantarctic islands, “liferafts” of the Southern Ocean; second, the Southern Ocean itself, home to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and “the engine room of the global ocean and the world’s climate”; third, Antarctica, including the sea ice that surrounds it which helps drive the marine food chain and affects the transport of nutrients essential for marine life around the world. The section provides a detailed account of the function of the three zones not just in relation to each other but in crucial relation to the globe as a whole.

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Deep Water

We know that sea level rise is an inevitable consequence of the global warming that our continued burning of fossil fuels is causing. What we don’t know is how much to expect and how soon to expect it. Journalist Daniel Grossman in his Kindle Single Deep Water: As Polar Ice Melts, Scientists Debate How High Our Oceans Will Rise explores the momentous issue by looking at the work of three scientists who study the past history of elevated sea levels to get a better understanding of what is likely ahead for humanity. Grossman writes from a close acquaintance with climate science and his ability to distil the science in readily understandable form for the general reader is outstanding.

Paul Hearty, “talented and cantankerous”, is a geologist who has argued from his studies of inter-glacial periods that if the Earth warms by two degrees the huge glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica could substantially melt in a short space of time. His field work in the Bahamas and Bermuda, which he regards as a relatively stable region geologically, has led him to the conclusion that in the warm interglacial 400,000 years ago (Stage 11) sea level rose by as much as around 19 metres. Paleoclimatologist Maureen Raymo doesn’t share that view but it was Hearty she invited in 2009 to collaborate in field work with her in Western Australia seeking evidence of sea level rise in the Pliocene. Grossman travelled with them as journalist and gives a lively account of the expedition.

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Cold Cash, Cool Climate

I’m no entrepreneur, but I enjoyed reading energy scientist Jonathan Koomey’s book Cold Cash, Cool Climate: Science-Based Advice for Ecological Entrepreneurs. It’s comforting to be reminded that not everything in the mitigation of climate change depends on governments, that there is a lively creativity abroad in the entrepreneurial world which can take up the challenge without waiting on the interminable processes of governmental negotiation or the rigidities of big business.

Koomey makes much of this. He records that in his experience it is those who carry the entrepreneurial spirit who are most comfortable with rapid change and least tolerant of fossilised thinking.  “Their whole purpose in life is to intensify and encourage what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called ‘creative destruction’, and they are famously scornful of the phrase ‘it can’t be done’.” 

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Waking the Giant

It’s only if we fail to grasp the enormity of the threatened impacts of climate change on the global environment that we can scoff at the notion that even volcanic eruptions and earthquakes may be triggered as a consequence of our continuing to burn fossil fuels. Not that it’s an easy consequence to appreciate, but vulcanologist Bill McGuire’s latest book Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes explains it with patient clarity. His book is a fascinating read in its discussion of the past and an alarming one in its analysis of future likelihoods.

The book begins with a straightforward and sobering view of the catastrophe which looms if we continue to fail to act on emissions. The signs of climate change are everywhere apparent and the prospects for the future are bleak. McGuire acknowledges the difficulties of precise prediction of what that future might hold 50 or 100 years from now and suggests that looking back on the past may be the best way to gauge what lies ahead. The main focus of his book is on ways in which Earth’s crust has responded to dramatically changing climates, but he also considers, further back, times of high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide as possible pointers to what today’s increased greenhouse gases might forebode.

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