With Speed and Violence

by Pearce, Fred

• ISBN13: 9780807085776
• ISBN10: 0807085774
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-03-01
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

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

Author Biography

Fred Pearce is a former news editor at New Scientist. Currently that magazine's environment and development consultant, he has also written for Audubon, Popular Science, Time, the Boston Globe, and Natural History. His books include With Speed and Violence, When the Rivers Run Dry, Keepers of the Spring, Turning Up the Heat, and Deep Jungle. He lives in England.

Table of Contents

Chronology of Climate Change	p. xi
The Cast	p. xv
Preface to the Paperback Edition	p. xix
Preface: The Chimney	p. xxiii
Introduction	p. xxvii
Welcome to the Anthropocene
The Pioneers: The men who measured the planet's breath	p. 3
Turning Up the Heat: A skeptic's guide to climate change	p. 10
The Year: How the wild weather of 1998 broke all records	p. 18
The Anthropocene: A new name for a new geological era	p. 21
The Watchtower: Keeping climate vigil on an Arctic island	p. 26
Fault lines in the ice
Ninety Degrees North: Why melting knows no bounds in the far North	p. 35
On the Slippery Slope: Greenland is slumping into the ocean	p. 39
The Shelf: Down south, shattering ice uncorks the Antarctic	p. 46
The Mercer Legacy: An Achilles heel at the bottom of the world	p. 49
Rising Tides: Saying "toodle-oo" to Tuvalu	p. 55
Riding the carbon cycle
In The Jungle: Would we notice if the Amazon went up in smoke?	p. 63
Wildfires of Borneo: Climate in the mire from burning swamp	p. 68
Sink to Source: Why the carbon cycle is set for a U-turn	p. 71
The Doomsday Device: A lethal secret stirs in the permafrost	p. 77
The Acid Bath: What carbon dioxide does to the oceans	p. 86
The Winds of Change: Tsunamis, megafarts, and mountains of the deep	p. 90
Reflecting on warming
What's Watts?: Planet Earth's energy imbalance	p. 101
Clouds From Both Sides: Uncovering flaws in the climate models	p. 105
A Billion Fires: How brown haze could turn off the monsoon	p. 115
Hydroxyl Holiday: The day the planet's cleaner didn't show up for work	p. 120
Ice ages and solar pulses
Goldilocks and the Three Planets: Why Earth is "just right" for life	p. 127
The Big Freeze: How a wobble in our orbit triggered the ice ages	p. 132
The Ocean Conveyor: The real day after tomorrow	p. 141
An Arctic Flower: Clues to a climate switchback	p. 148
The Pulse: How the sun makes climate change	p. 155
Tropical heat
The Fall: The end of Africa's golden age	p. 167
Seesaw Across the Ocean: How the Sabara Desert greens the Amazon	p. 175
Tropical High: Why an ice man is rewriting climate history	p. 178
The Curse of Akkad: The strange revival of environmental determinism	p. 185
A Chunk of Coral: Probing the hidden life of El Nino	p. 188
Feeding Asia: What happens if the monsoon falters?	p. 194
At the millennium
The Heat Wave: The year Europe felt the heat of global warming	p. 201
The Hockey Stick: Why now really is different	p. 204
Hurricane Season: Raising the storm cones after Katrina	p. 210
Ozone Holes in the Greenhouse: Why millions face radiation threat	p. 217
Inevitable surprises
The Dance: The poles or the tropics? Who leads in the climatic dance?	p. 225
New Horizons: Feedbacks from the stratosphere	p. 229
Conclusion: Another Planet	p. 237
The Trillion-Ton Challenge	p. 241
Glossary	p. 253
Acknowledgments	p. 259
Notes on the References	p. 261
Index	p. 273
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