Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry about Global Warming
Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn’t Worry about Global Warming – Review
Out of curiosity, I just checked the Cato Institute’s annual report, and indeed Chevron, Exxon, Amoco, Unocal, and the American Petroleum Institute were among its sponsors the year this book was originally published.
Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future
Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future – Review
As a geologist primarily specializing in earth surface processes, I widely read Ward’s book with dismay. He weaves a story from numerous different sources about past climatic changes and about the climate change bringing place at this moment. I have quickly followed the climate change story for 20 years; I previously taught historical geology with its mass extinctions; and I can find no fault or exaggeration in the picture painted by Ward. His citations are impeccable and the inferences described from them are reasonable. Click to continue »
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
Overall, this is a noble book with a provocative and strong thesis. But, as function of his argument, Keys often refers to Mesoamerican populations dropping victim to “infectious diseases.” From what I understand, prior to the “Columbian Exchange” they didn’t have any — at least, nothing major (smallpox, chicken pox, measles, plague, etc.) since such diseases also evolved in the viral shares of domestic animal populations (smallpox, chicken pox, etc.) or come from bacterial pools on other continents (plague). Crosby, McNeill, and others have successfully argued that the Arctic movements of the peoples who would become the Native Americans previously served as a disease “filter,” preventing pathogens from illegally entering the American continent — with the result that, when the Columbian Exchanage did occur, the local populations had no immunity to individual herd diseases, and subsequently died in great numbers. Click to continue »
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
In Catastrophe, author David Keys makes a strong case for abrupt climate change having occurred in the early 6th century, an abrupt dip in worldwide temperatures that would have had massive long-term consequences for civilisations all over the globe. Results could have originally included the slowly weakening of the Byzantines, the downfall of Teotihuacan and the expansion of Islam. This is a interesting book, and the author’s discovery of a great volcano as the culprit is highly plausible. Click to continue »
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather – Review
I ordered this book after simply reading other peoples reviews. Something in particular I was currently looking for was information about clouds (types/formations, significance). This book has exactly the information I was constantly looking for (and more); comprehensive information about clouds – possibly including hunderds of pictures – allow me to identify and name the various cloud types. Click to continue »
Greenhouse: The 200 Year Story of Global Warming
Greenhouse: The 200 Year Story of Global Warming – Review
I have only stopped only reading Gale’s book, and I say that with much sadness, because I have enjoyed it so much I didn’t want it to finish. I work in the area of climate change, so I make to my business to keep up-to-date. Gale is certainly accurate. His chronological approach is also quite delightful – if only other historians had such an simple touch. Click to continue »
Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed
Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed – Review
We all think that history goes ahead, that we are constantly learning and rapidly growing better, and therefore that we know much more than our parents and grandparents. But there is nothing unique or different about the individual race in the past 60 years, no matter how much we pretend otherwise. Click to continue »
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth – Review
Nobel prize winner Al Gore gives a sequel to “Earth in the Balance”, but this time more in the position of an undercover reporter rather than politician. The book is full of charts, graphs, and before and after pictures that document the results of population growth and industrialization on the environment. For us to understand why this is not simply a cyclical trend in the weather we must recognize that the earth’s individual population has grown from 1 billion to over 6.5 billion in two hundred years and that we have simply exposed our environment to mass industrialization and its closely associated pollutants in the past 150 years. The book graphically points to these effects with color pictures (as strongly opposed to the sparse black and fair pictures in Earth in the Balance)that explain glacial recession, falling sea ice, expanding deserts, drying lakes and seas, and mass cutting of forests. Click to continue »
Droughts, Food and Culture: Ecological Change and Food Security in Africa’s Later Prehistory
Droughts, Food and Culture: Ecological Change and Food Security in Africa’s Later Prehistory – Review
Implications with current climate events (periodic droughts in Africa) and their impacts on food security are evident. Interactions amongst climate changes, development of food making systems, development of public organization involving mass movements in examination of less harsh environment, development of culture, art and technology are all intertwined and extremely complicated. The parts of this significant volume scatter a fair transaction of the myth that relates to these socio-evolutionary topics.’ M. Kassas, University of Cairo Giza 12613 Egypt
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability
Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability – Review
I’m no expert on ecological matters. In fact, I quickly grew up being one of those rabidly anti-granola people and I’m especially attached to my SUV. However, I’m eventually coming around and quickly becoming more aware of the need for ecological sustainability and more importantly, the value of energy independence as a policy initiative. The other reviewers have already posted fairly detailed opinions, but here is my two cents worth. Click to continue »