The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

by Flannery, Tim

• ISBN13: 9780802165022
• ISBN10: 0802165028
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-01
• Publisher: Pgw

Summary

Sometime this century the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all other natural factors. If nothing is done, the twenty-first century will see global warming that could lead to conditions the planet has not seen in forty million years. With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are now reaching a global climatic tipping point.

Author Biography

Tim Flannery is director of the South Australian Museum and professor at the University of Adelaide

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xvii
Map	p. xviii
The Slow Awakening	p. 1
Gaia's Tools
Gaia	p. 11
The Great Aerial Ocean	p. 19
The Gaseous Greenhouse	p. 27
The Sages and the Onion Skin	p. 36
Time's Gateways	p. 45
Born in the Deep Freeze	p. 54
Making the Long Summer	p. 63
Digging Up the Dead	p. 69
One in Ten Thousand
The Unraveling World	p. 83
Peril at the Poles	p. 95
2050: The Great Stumpy Reef?	p. 104
A Warning from the Golden Toad	p. 114
Liquid Gold: Changes in Rainfall	p. 123
An Energetic Onion Skin	p. 135
Playing at Canute	p. 142
The Science of Prediction
Model Worlds	p. 153
The Commitment and Approaching Extreme Danger	p. 166
Leveling the Mountains	p. 171
How Can They Keep on Moving?	p. 178
Boiling the Abyss	p. 184
The Pack of Jokers	p. 189
Civilization: Out with a Whimper?	p. 203
People in Greenhouses
A Close-Run Thing	p. 213
The Road to Kyoto	p. 222
Cost, Cost, Cost	p. 232
People in Greenhouses Shouldn't Tell Lies	p. 239
Engineering Solutions?	p. 249
Last Steps on the Stairway to Heaven?	p. 258
The Solution
Bright as Sunlight, Light as Wind	p. 267
Nuclear Lazarus?	p. 272
Of Hybrids, Minicats, and Contrails	p. 279
The Last Act of God?	p. 284
2084: The Carbon Dictatorship?	p. 290
Time's Up	p. 296
Over to You	p. 302
Postscript	p. 307
Afterword	p. 308
Climate Change Checklist	p. 316
Green Power	p. 317
Acknowledgments	p. 318
Illustrations	p. 319
Notes	p. 320
Index	p. 344
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