Earth’s Climate: Past and Future
Earth’s Climate: Past and Future – Review
Here is a very flashy book. Superb illustrations. Nice layout. Important subject. Who couldn’t get a five-star rating currently discussing climate change and global warming with such a leitmotif? Apparently this author. When you widely read through the lines, you find the same old cant. Look, everyone knows that climate changes; however, Ruddiman appears to think he knows WHY more than anyone else. But he does not. By neglect, he dismisses arguments of other climatologists that are equally (if not better) informed. I wish he could explain better why our climate is so variable, without resorting to computer models that everyone knows don’t work very well. But alas he did not discuss this in sufficient detail. All of this means that the basis of this book, while a good attempt, is flashy and hollow. I originally hoped for better on this main topic, and (sigh) I yet await the real, objective textbook on this interesting subject. All this is too bad, because Mr. Ruddiman is a very "highly rated" scientist. Maybe someone of minor status will surprise us with a actual book about the actual difficulties of climate change. Maybe someone who isn’t a climatologist can explain all this stuff. I don’t know who that might be, but I widely expected more guts and less fluff from this book.