With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change
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Product Description
Fred Pearce has been writing about climate change for twenty years, and the more he learns, the worse things look. As Pearce began researching this book, numerous scientists sought him out to recount their findings and fears: where once they were concerned about gradual climate change, many now worry that we will soon be experiencing abrupt change resulting from triggering tipping points. With Speed and Violence is the most up-to-date and readable book yet about the constantly accumulating evidence for global warming and the dramatic effects it may unleash.
"[Pearce's] grasp of [scientists'] work is exceptional. What's more, he has a talent for explaining science in terms understandable to the nonscientist . . . This enjoyable read was difficult to put down."
—Library Journal, starred review
"If you want to quickly get up to date on climate change and its consequences, I recommend With Speed and Violence. If you can read only one book on climate change, this is it."
—Lester Brown, president, Earth Policy Institute
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
So much interesting material
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Comment:
There is so much material in this well written, concise book that there is some danger it can overwhelm you. Pearce has a gift for conveying understanding without technical language, and is always interesting, so you will not get bogged down if you do not get overwhelmed. You do not even need much of a scientific background. I had to review carbon cycle (Wikipedia was great), but that is very atypical of Pearce's effort.
The point of the book is that climate in the past has changed dramatically over decades, or less, and while we know a lot, there is so much uncertainty in our climate modeling, and so many factors at play, that the "consensus" projections are conservative, almost best case scenarios. So far we have been lucky since carbon dioxide levels are at record highs, at least for the last 55 million years, and we sure would not want to be living in the climate of 55 million years ago when a "sudden" release of methane caused widespread species extinctions. Ice is melting faster than originally expected, as scientists discover new mechanisms which are likely to accelerate this melt, even if worldwide temperatures rise no faster than expected. In fact, one of the things that impressed me is that AVERAGE worldwide temperature need not change that much for there to be catastrophic side effects: major changes in ocean levels of course, but also major continental changes in weather conditions, including long term drought, and almost ice age cooling in large parts of the northern hemisphere while the tropical and southern hemispheres are getting warmer.
The instigator of climate change in the past, before the man made increase in carbon dioxide levels, has been the sun. In the first billion years of earth's existence, the sun emitted half the solar radiation it does today, and 500 million years ago it was 10% less. There are regular cycles of changes in the amount of solar energy reaching the earth due to cyclic changes in earth's orbit and tilt. Recently, another cycle averaging about 1500 years has been discovered, traceable to cycles in the amount of solar radiation emitted. The variability in solar energy reaching earth during these various cycles is not that great in itself, it is the feedback mechanisms which vastly exaggerate the effects: earth's climate is a very unstable system
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Summary:
best as of summer 2008
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Comment:
Best book I have read on Global Warming (so far: as of summer 2008) and I have read more than a few good ones. This is the most up to date, comprehensive review of every significant aspect of global warming for the general public that I have read. All that you need to know and well organized review of a very complicated subject. This is where I would begin. It emphasizes the abrupt changes that are likely to occur in all weather predictions. Does NOT cover the intricacies of computer modeling. It does NOT cover the findings from the 4th IPCC but it covers the ground up to that point thoroughly. Pearce is the environmental writer for New Scientist and I would go to his articles for the latest since the publication of this book. My only qualms is that for a book of this quality the publisher should pull out all stops for the next edition and include graphs and maps and an annotated bibliography for those wishing to do further study without necessarily going to the original sources. I expect this could become the standard reference for high school and college intro courses.
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Summary:
"Timberrrrr!"
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Comment:
With Speed and Violence: why Scientists Fear Tipping Points In Climate Change
By Fred Pearce
July 13, 2008
Mr Pearce works for New Scientist and has published several books on this subject including Turning Up The Heat way back in 1989. Here he looks at all the Doomsday scenarios out there, the ones we have all heard about: Gulf Stream shutting down, Greenland melting suddenly, the Amazon drying up, etc.
To his credit has been around a while and knows the players -- Hansen, Broeker, et. al. This gives him access where others might not get it. He has also been around scientists long enough to develop their trait of hedging their conclusions with a lot of maybes, possiblies, this suggests.
To his discredit he has abandoned most of the restraints here. Maybe (heh) he feels he has to in order to make his point, that he has to scare us into action. This reveals his reason for writing the book. He is not here to teach us but to get us on board, to prod us into action. His final chapter is his list of things we must do:
Adopt efficient appliances;
Improve automotive efficiency;
Increase use of public transport;
Effect a 50-fold increase in wind;
A 50-fold increase in biofuels;
A global program of insulating our buildings;
Cover an area the size of New Jersey with solar panels;
Effect a 4-fold increase in our use of natural gas for generating electricity;
Capture and store 1,600 gW-worth of carbon;
Halt deforestation;
Double nuclear power capacity;
Increase low-till/no-till agriculture times 10.
The few changes I would make to this list are to the nuclear part (bad idea for now) and the New Jersey part (why not just go ahead and cover New Jersey itself?) The rest make good sense in general terms. If we all use less we will experience an increase in efficiency which will give us room to grow without fouling our own nest. Our individual bills will go down, too.
One big problem I have with his text is his consistent conversion of square meters to square feet. The measurements are taken in the metric system and values of, say, solar output are quantified in terms of watts per square meter. Every time a square meter comes up, he writes it as 10.8 square feet. Is this because New Scientist is a British magazine? Then why not use BTU per square foot? It is because no one measures it that way. Moreover, a watt is a metric unit, one joule per second. A calorie will raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree centigrade; a BTU will raise the temperature of 1 pound of water 1 degree Fahrenheit. Thus, watt per square foot is a hybrid unit, like combining Greek and Latin into a phrase -- it just isn't done. His fear of writing the word "meter" in a book for the English-speaking world is misplaced. It makes him look silly and besides makes it more difficult for the reader, with his obscure "watts per 10.8 square feet".
Another lesser problem is the hyperbolic language. I don't need or want to be scared. I am a practicing atmospheric scientist so I actually prefer the kind of understatement I find in the journals. They leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusion, they don't tell you what to think about what you've just read. I am not the typical audience.
Nonetheless I side with Carl Sandburg: we should take it easy on "that old anvil, the people." We The People are tossed this way and that by the experts, all wanting some kind of action on our part. "If you knew what I know, you'd feel like I do," seems to be behind the idea that "the public must be educated on this." For me, our ignorance outweighs our knowledge on this subject by about 10 to 1.
We are just starting to probe the truth. Let's wait until the facts are a little better-established before we go around saying the sky is falling. I'm not talking about where the carbon came from or how to decrease it. I'm talking about the climate. Yes, the carbon is there and, yes, we should reduce it simply for efficiency's sake. Waste is bad, this seems obvious to my engineering brain.
But I can guarantee that climate change will be neither speedy nor violent. Weather can be observed but climate had to be invented, sort of like motherhood and fatherhood. By definition climate is a long-term matter. You can't say it has changed until a long period of time has passed. Currently we use 30-year normals updated every 10 years. This is not speedy. Climate is never violent. Is an average temperature of 75F "violent?" How is an average annual rainfall of 35 inches "violent?" See what I'm saying? Climate is a statistical concept.
Rather, it is the weather that is often speedy and violent. This blending of weather and climate is becoming a real problem. They are not the same! This brings me to my final point. Any meteorologist knows all about models. Our models are vital for our business. Note I said "models" in plural. I consult half a dozen synoptic-scale models, a few regional- or meso-scale models as well as different conceptual models every day. Ordinarily they do not agree. One says the storm will go left, the other right. One calls for intensification, the other weakening. Every model has its weakenesses and biases.
One thing we all learn in this trade is not to "jump on it." If a model has something interesting on Day 6, just note it for now, there is plenty of time to wait and see if it is still there tomorrow for Day 5. When it gets to Day 3 we can start to mention it and adjust our probabilities, slowly at first, just nudge them in the right direction. The climate modelers need to learn this. Every graduate student seemingly has his own model these days and when he tweeks an interesting result, publishes. Soon it is in the news and the public is set up for another whipsaw when it turns out not to be true. This is called "yo-yoing" in our forecasts and we avoid it by being conservative.
A model is just a model. What good does it do to know that temperatures world-wide will increase by 3.5F? This is a meaningless statistic. What is needed is a plausible physical mechanism whereby that statistic is turned into actual weather on the ground. Here is an example: let the air temperature over the Gulf Stream in my front yard increase by 3.5F. Now what? Well, since e-sub-s has increased, relative saturation will decrease and net evaporation from the water surface will increase. This will tend to cool the surface waters to the new wet-bulb temperature, which has increased by maybe half the total amount, say 1.75F. So we have the air 3.5 warmer and the sea surface 1.75 warmer -- the air has warmed more than the sea surface. Therefore static stability in the column has increased over the water and hence we would expect to see less cloudiness at sea by day. At night when the air cools a little, stability will decrease and cloudiness will increase. All this is exactly as observed today. The cloud fraction is small over the sea during the day and is a maximum around surise when we also experience a slight but noticeable peak in our hourly rainfall. So my simple model predicts sunnier days with more sunrise showers, along with a temperature increase that is strongly moderated by the nearby water mass -- not 3.5F but 1.75F. Why does no one talk in this straightforward way? Where is the violence here?
These connections are mostly missing in the climate models. We need to know more before we can say what it means.
Enough! Read more on the topic, educate yourself, decide for yourself what is right and good. Take no one's word. The climate experts are guessing when it comes to the weather.
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Summary:
Welcome to the anthropocene--prepare to be surprised
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Comment:
According to Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen, sometime in last two centuries the Earth left the relatively benign holocene and plunged into the uncharted waters of the anthropocene. "A single species is in charge of the planet," writes science journalist Fred Pearce, "altering its features almost at will."
While dyed-in-the-wool climate change skeptics such as columnist George Will continue to deny that Earth's climate and biological support systems are changing in response to human impacts such as surging greenhouse gases, deforestation, and ocean acidification, Pearce leapfrogs beyond them, and even beyond many mainstream climate scientists to detail the many ways in which Earth's systems are being pushed to the brink of tipping points, any one of which could have massive, irreversible impacts.
Among those tipping points:
Vanishing arctic ice. Instead of reflecting most of the sun's energy back into space, increasing areas of water will absorb the heat, potentially creating a runaway warming at Earth's high latitudes.
Ice sheets in Greenland and in the antarctic. As scientists learn more about how rapidly surface meltwater can cascade down to lubricate the beds of glaciers, massive loss of ice cover and massive sea level rises appear more likely.
Deforestation changes one of Earth's major carbon sinks to an enormous carbon source.
Enormous amounts of greenhouse gases that have been locked up in permafrost are starting to bubble out, creating another vicious cycle.
The same could easily happen with the vast quantitites of extremely potent greenhouse gas methane that until now has been locked up in heat-sensitive seabed deposits.
The ocean conveyer belt that distributes heat from the tropics could be overwhelmed by an influx of fresh water from increased rainfall and melting ice, and stall, bringing northern Europe's relatively benign climate to an abrupt end.
What is predictable, Pearce argues, is that human activities have pushed Earth's climate system from the relatively stable and predictable holocene to the precipice of a new, unstable, rapidly changing, and unpredictable epoch.
If governments, businesses and individuals are having a hard time coming to grips with the kind of gradual warming, slow sea-level rises, and somewhat increased climate variability predicted by mainstream climatogists, represented by the IPCC, what can we expect if we need to respond to the threat or reality of vast and sudden climate changes?
If you agree that forewarned is forearmed, please read this book, and soon!
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Summary:
Express Train to Doom?
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Comment:
Recommended reading for every adult and teen. I can't stress strongly enough that this should be read along with "Under a Green Sky" and "Hell and High Water." These books are partly about climate change and the effect of human activities. Even if we act now, the "express train" to a climate hostile to human life takes a long time to slow and may soon be unable to reverse. Unfortunately, "politics as usual" generally lack a sense of urgency. Too little may truly be too late ....
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