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The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming
From Publishers Weekly In this great primer on arguably the most serious problem facing the world today, Walker (An Ocean of Air) and King, the U.K.'s chief science adviser, present in concise layman's language everything you wanted to know about global warming but were too depressed to ask. They explain how fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide, show how global warming is affecting individual species and changing entire ecosystems, predict how much more climate change we can afford before things become truly catastrophic, and consider economic and political solutions to the problem. They contend that we must rein in greenhouse gases in the next two decades if we want to leave a habitable planet for our grandchildren, and in order to do this, individuals must cut down on carbon emissions and at the same time pressure their governments to do the same by adopting low-carbon technologies such as geothermal, wind, solar and nuclear power. Entertaining as well as deadly serious, this lucid book, which includes an appendix that dispels many myths and misconceptions, explains in the clearest possible way why we should care about global warming and what we can do about it. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Al Gore, joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2007 and author of An Inconvenient Truth "In a world full of misinformation, THE HOT TOPIC is a beacon of clarity." Reader Reviews Far from being too alarmist, this book, like many others on this topic, does not go far enough in warning of the dangers of global warming. The problem appears to be that most authors are over-involved in particular areas of research, and have not seen the broadest view of the problem. Also, the available information is changing rapidly. I have done extensive research myself over the past six years, and had already concluded that the problem was more grave than generally known. My suspicions were confirmed when recent research by Russian Scientists found that the Methane Hydrates on the Arctic Ocean floor are already melting and releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. This, coupled with the methane production of warming tundra and melting permafrost areas, creates a vastly greater danger of rapid climate change, since a conservative estimate is that these Methane Hydrates contain well over 500 billion tons of Methane, which is twenty times worse than CO2 as a "greenhouse" gas. Therefore, while this book is useful as another analysis urging action, new work needs to be done to demonstrate clearly to people such as the author of the previous review that the situation is truly urgent, and that calls for immediate action to cool the planet are anything but alarmist. Comment (1) | | (Report this)
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