Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
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ISBN13: 9781426203855Condition: NEWNotes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Possibly the most graphic treatment of global warming that has yet been published, Six Degrees is what readers of Al Gore's best-selling An Inconvenient Truth or Ross Gelbspan's Boiling Point will turn to next. Written by the acclaimed author of High Tide, this highly relevant and compelling book uses accessible journalistic prose to distill what environmental scientists portend about the consequences of human pollution for the next hundred years.
In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report projecting average global surface temperatures to rise between 1.4 degrees and 5.8 degrees Celsius (roughly 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. Based on this forecast, author Mark Lynas outlines what to expect from a warming world, degree by degree. At 1 degree Celsius, most coral reefs and many mountain glaciers will be lost. A 3-degree rise would spell the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, disappearance of Greenland's ice sheet, and the creation of deserts across the Midwestern United States and southern Africa. A 6-degree increase would eliminate most life on Earth, including much of humanity.
Based on authoritative scientific articles, the latest computer models, and information about past warm events in Earth history, Six Degrees promises to be an eye-opening warning that humanity will ignore at its peril.
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
Move over, dinosaurs, here come the Humans
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Comment:
4.5 stars. I really liked the approach of this book: six main chapters, each describing what might happen with each additional one-degree increase in global temperature. Yes, the book is a bit alarmist, but that's not entirely inappropriate; there is a great deal about which we should be alarmed. Is this heavy science? No. Is it a wee bit jumbled at times? Yes. Still, this is a very accessable interesting read. It seems to support my long-held suspicion that there's really nothing we can do to prevent dramatic climate change in the very near future. At best, we can mitigate it a little bit. (Depressing, I know...)
I would have really liked to have seen some maps showing projected sea-level rises, desertification, etc. That would have been a nice touch.
Recommended.
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Summary:
Oh Dear!
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Comment:
Oh Dear!
Unquestionably Mark Lynas's 'Six Degrees' ranks amongst the ten worst books I have ever read.
Constructed as a supposed account of how average global temperature increases will impact the planet, and derived from information primarily provided by the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, Six Degrees reads more like a novel loaded with emotive adjectives than a book that accuratley projects the global climatic conditions of the future.
Each of the six chapters applies random accounts of 'one study' by 'such and such' suggesting that...The whole book is a random collection of random studies examining random locations across the planet.
Lynas, a journalist, has made a very poor attempt at science. He has correctly stated that climate models are limited by their own operative capacity - but he has based the whole book on climate models! He fails to acknowledge that human understanding of the climate system is limited and therefore so is our ability to predict possible impacts of climate change.
The book is loaded with contradictions, scientific flaws, and baseless arguments. Pick any page and soon enough you will find something undeniably incorrect in his prophecies, facts or data. And how he managed to write such an account using the IPCC without quoting their emissions scenarios is just absurd (although he does apply scientists research to a small table he supposedly constructed himself in the last chapter).
Like the random dribble (I have trouble beleiving it was even published)he has given us, I have chosen a few random pages for analysis:
Chapter 1: Any scientist is knowledgable of Milkanovitch cycles and varying solar output.
He quotes an article he read in Nature (well done Lynas) of the disapperance of frogs. Apparently frog disappearances are attributed to fungal bodies weakening their amphibious skin layers, not rising temperatures.
Typically pessimistic he fails to acknowledge the benefits of global warming - new industries / extensive farmlands opening / new fisheries and new oil reserves for exploitation.
He raves on about CO2 emitting nations being the causative factor forcing inhabitants of low island states to migrate. Perhaps identifying how to account for emissions (ie per capita / historic / volume / producer or end user) might be a little constructive.
Chapter 2:
Chapter 2 is an emotive rant about possible climatic scenrios - rain / storms / drought / yet he provides no reference to government bodies today addressing possible adaptation, mitigation or geo-engineering solutions.
He also describes in detail about the future impacts in Lima, Peru (probably in response to the holiday he took there as a student), yet he fails to acknowledge the current and politically infectious drought in La Paz, Bolivia, which is directly the result of climate change, and only next door?
Chapter 3: Oh Dear, it just gets worse!
Will Pakistan become a failed state? A failed state is defined as a nation that cannot yield economic decline whilst adopting the policies that initially caused the economic collapse.
Hmmm, what does that make Pakistan? oh! a failed state - Oh dear!
And I do love, quote, "The resentment felt by Muslims towards Westerners will be tame by comparison." (compared to that felt by climate migrants). Most people living in modern day Islam love Western lifestyles.
Chapter 4: Things really start warming up!
A few things any reader should know...China still has 400 million peasants ( a peasant is a peron who lives on less than US$2 per day).
The Younger Dryas event saw average global temperatures drop 11 degrees C in ten years - so what we are experiencing today is not the fastest rate of global climate change experienced in history!
Peak oil will not happen!!! Lynas states himself that more than one quarter of todays known reserves are thought to exist under the artic circle, and tapping is (thankfully) being inaugurated there today.
Chapter 5: The book just gets funnier - if the author had bothered to do his homework instead of visiting the local library and writing summarized accounts of journal articles - he might already know that desertification is already happening in the Amazon / that one third of the landmass of China is already desert / and has he ever heard of the Nubian aquifer under Northern Africa???
Furthermore, pinpointing climate change as the sole driver of political unrest in Sudan is funny! What about the Christian south and the Muslim north Lynas?
Food riots may be the result of climate change - but they never get a mention. Hmmmmm.
Chapter 6: Humour yourself!!!!
Lynas is not qualified to write on such a topic. Quoting talented researchers and authors including Jared Diamond and James Lovelock is an insult to such reverred thinkers. (I'm not convinced Lynas understands Lovelock's Gaia theory).
Definitely not worth the paper it is printed on. The hardcover of Mark Lynas's Six Degrees comes with an inscription on the front, "Please Recycle This Book." My advice is recycle it before you start to read it. My copy went straight to the bin.
Peter Walker
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Summary:
Deserves more attention, especially from economists
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Comment:
Lynas' is the best book I've seen on climate change. The chapters are organized very simply by what humanity would probably see with one degree of warming, two degrees of warming, etc. This makes the argument very easy to follow.
This book has had far less attention than it deserves. The level of concern in most media outlets is simply not commensurate with the level of risk. Rome is burning, while the U.S. government throws fuel on the fire by bailing out dinosaur automobile companies and banks who bet big on further expansion of suburban sprawl. Major authors in mainstream publications, such as Fareed Zakaria at Newsweek magazine, are still producing optimistic predictions that almost ignore the possiblity of climate change (for example, see Zakaria's book The Post-American World). Note that a sustainable economy doesn't necessarily mean a low quality of life. For more on this, try The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.
If Lynas' book has a fault, it would be that it doesn't mention some of the simplest and cheapest ways of reducing carbon emissions. For example, the car-centered transportation system of the U.S. depends fundamentally on the availability of free parking. Most U.S. localities have regulations requiring huge numbers of parking spots; this amounts to a subsidy for cars that runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Eliminating such rules and other regulations that discriminate in favor of automobiles would have a huge effect. Take a look at Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.
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Summary:
Horrible, and Reasons Why
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Comment:
Before I begin, this book was "interesting", that is the highlight of the positives...
This book was written more for those that fear what they cannot control (recycling will barely put a damper on anything, even though I do it myself and insist all friends and family do for moral reasons). There is a trend of liberals that have, for lack of better terms, graduated from the beatnik niche of evening coffee house goers. The same "graduates" like to latch onto doom and fear, a more 'adult' parallel of 'emo' music, and silently scream to each other "we're all going to die, we're evil and deserve it." I'm not sure what wave of what generation this started in, but with technology it has advanced and become more widespread. I just wish people could learn to think for themselves.
The concept is simple, and similar to cult behavior. Latch onto something (supposedly) horrific, instill that fear in others, gain their following (and bottomless wallet for your products and donations), get rich, and leave your sheep behind.
Anyone worth their weight in salt knows the BS side of something, and the factual side of something, and is willing to share that with others. When something is completely one-sided, it begins to bring in the simpletons than need something to worry about, and scares off free-minded individuals.
How does this relate to the book? It is long winded, but I try to bring up a point: the author slams case after statistic after theoretical horror of what our "future" holds, but never steps back to say "take the flip-side into consideration and exaggerated measures used to draw attention and come to your own conclusion."
WAIT...wasn't this book printed on paper and not just given as a card with a coupon to download the PDF? Oh the hypocrisy!
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Summary:
Makes the Point that Prevention of Warming is Necessary for our Survival
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Comment:
Six Degrees does a great job at simply laying out what each degree of warming will do to our planet, and therefore to us. Mark Lynas is able to explain the effects of warming in an authoritative way because it's based on what the earth has already done in the past, with a warmer climate at various times eons ago. Although many think a warmer planet may not be a bad thing (too many cold winters in Buffalo?), this book is able to show that unless you are some exotic form of tropical algae, a warming world would be disastrous for you and human civilization.
The author describes why the hotter planet would be a bad thing. I know a lot of climate change skeptics correctly point out that in the past, the planet was a lot hotter than it is now, so what's the big deal? The reason why global warming is bad is because our entire ability to grow food has evolved only in the past 10,000 years - the most stable climate the planet has seen in millions of years, and even very small temperature increases of just 2, 3, or 4 degrees (Celsius) would wreak absolute havoc on our ability to grow enough food to feed the world. Imagine the conflicts of a modern Somalia magnified to every country in the world - not a pleasant thought.
The author probably does a better job of describing what even small temperature increases would do to us - wreaking havoc on food production, rising sea levels, etc., than actually making the case that humans are definitely creating a warmer world through all our fossil fuel combustion (showing that the warming is not part of a natural cycle). For more basic science on how we are warming the planet, I'd recommend The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart.
If this book doesn't scare you into taking global warming seriously, probably nothing will. In some ways, I'm not that happy about reading this book, because it points me to the frightening conclusion that given the inevitable time lag between knowing and acting, our human race is in for some very unpleasant times ahead for the next few hundred years; all because we did nothing to slow down global warming.
However, it's better to know the truth than believe a big lie, at least we can mitigate some of the worst changes if we have the political and personal will to do so, which will give us more time to adapt to a hotter, drier world with less arable growing land, and flooded low coastal areas.
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