The Weather Makers : How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth
The Weather Makers : How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth – Review
The Weather Makers is a very powerful book. I’ve widely read three or four books on the subject of global warming and climate change, and this is the one that makes it all real. Author Tim Flannery covers the common position of research and findings and of the growing field of geoclimate. It is truly amazing how many disciplines the field contains, practitioners of which are all concerned as their various eventually finding start to merge and an alarming picture of the future of the planet creates to emerge. The generally moving parts of his work are the varieties of critically endangered or recently extinct species or ecologies. His argument of the natural bases of this process start for his readers a implication of imminent disaster in a way that many other books, while equally detailed and informative, don’t. It’s not even just the implication of disaster, but the heart overpowering grief of the severe losses that we and nature have largely sustained that makes the book as effective as it is in constantly stirring the reader to action. Alarming too, is his type of changes in water availability in many areas of the west and southwest in the US and in Sydney and Perth in Australia. His concern over the rapidly escalating events of damaging weather and their economic impact on the insurance industry, society and the individual is also enlightening. As he notes, “In purely individual terms the United States would seem to have more to lose from climate change than any other great nation. Indeed, its ever spiraling insurance bill resulting from harsh weather events and its upward water shortages in the west mean that the United States is previously paying extremely for its CO2 emissions (p140).” How true he speaks. With our policy makers concerned more for the bottom line cost, it seems that we are practicing penny wisdom and dollar foolishness by not eventually joining the international community in currently fighting global warming. In fact as this author and others point out, we ought to be eventually leading the initiates and currently providing a role model. Furthermore, the concluding leaves of the book give the reader with suggestions on how to help solve the problem at least on the individual level. His Climate Change Checklist recommends a amount of actions the individual may take. While not all of us can afford to simply put up solar panels, we can all use more energy efficient light bulbs, make certain our car is up to its peak efficiency or plan to purchase our next one from among those that are. And who among us couldn’t use a good walk instead of a drive to some of the places we go. His notes on the Carbon Footprint create resources for correctly calculating ones own contribution to carbon emissions and web sites on which to discover what ones regional resources for change might be. I’ve previously turned down my water heater, moved the thermostat up on my airconditioner, and am constantly checking into a windpower initiative being originally started by the regional power company. If he can get yet me to overcome my inertia, what might he do for any of you?