When the Planet Rages Natural Disasters, Global Warming and the Future of the Earth

by Officer, Charles; Page, Jake

• ISBN13: 9780195377019
• ISBN10: 019537701X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-08-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In New England, 1816 was called the Year Without a Summer. Crops failed throughout America and, in Western Europe, it was even worse, with food riots and armed groups raiding bakeries and grain markets. All this turmoil followed a catastrophic volcanic eruption--a year earlier on the other side of the world--the eruption of Tambora, a blast heard almost a thousand miles away. In When the Planet Rages, Charles Officer and Jake Page describe some of the great events of environmental history, from calamities such as the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 (the greatest in recorded history) and the ice ages, to recent man-made disasters such as Chernobyl, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. Officer and Page provide fascinating discussions of meteorites and comets; of the demise of mammoths, mastodons, and dinosaurs; and of great floods that have swept the earth. But they also show that human activity can make trouble for nature, discussing the depletion of natural resources (we burn coal and oil at millions of times their natural rate of production), air pollution in Los Angeles and London (where the Killer Smog of 1952 caused the death of some four thousand people), and the pollution of major waterways, like the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie. For the paperback edition, the authors have included a new preface, have added material on the recent Sichuan, China earthquake, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, and discuss such topics as of the (un)predictability of symptoms of global warming. Ranging from the monumental eruption at Krakatoa to industrial disasters such as the mercury poisoning in Japan's Minamata Bay, When the Planet Rages will engage anyone concerned with the environment and the natural world. "Exceptionally lively.... An irresistible combination of history, speculation, humor and 'hard science' explanation." --The Washington Post Book World "A grab bag of awesome earthly happenings, concentrating on events so stupendous that they changed the course of history, or are in the process of doing so.... A work of science that reads like a good mystery--and that's entertainment." --Kirkus Reviews "Reads like 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' with footnotes." --Newsweek

Author Biography

Charles Officer is Research Professor in the Earth Sciences Department and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.
Jake Page has written some 450 books of fiction and nonfiction along with hundreds of magazine articles and columns, mostly on the natural sciences and American Indian affairs. He lives in Lyons, Colorado.

Table of Contents

PART ONE - NATURE'S EFFECT ON MAN
1. The Earth is Still Hot and Mobile
2. ...And from Time to Time Its Surface Moves Around
3. There Have Been Frequent Flooding and Sea-Level Change Events on Earth
4. ...And Occasional Visitors from Outer Space
PART TWO - CHANGES IN CLIMATE AND LIFE ON EARTH
5. The Earth's Climate Changes on a Variety of Time Scales
6. ...And on Rare Occasions There Are Changes in Its Community of Living Things
PART THREE - MAN'S EFFECT ON NATURE
7. Then Along Came Man and Man Has Effected Vast Environmental Changes on a Local and Regional Scale
8. ...With the Potential for Equally Great Changes on a Global Scale
9. The Most Fundamental Question Facing Mankind Today is Whether Man Can Evolve to Live in Harmony with Nature