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The headlines are all too familiar: the greenhouse effect, acid
rain, global warming, holes in the ozone layer, the decimation of the rain forests,
the deaths of species. For a long time we were not sure how seriously to take
these banner warnings of planetary trouble. Now we know. The evidence is in.
The Next One Hundred Years details this evidence -- and
the research of scientists who have been investigating it -- that makes it clear
the dangers are real, are upon us now, and must be addressed in an unprecedented
worldwide effort before it is too late. Rich in lucid
explanations and in vivid, extraordinary interviews with these scientists as they
track changes from the bottom of the sea to the stratosphere and across the globe's
expanse, Jonathan Weiner's detailed, accessible analysis of the state of our Earth
today and during the next century is science writing at its best. Weiner
not only describes the steadily increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
he helps us understand how this increase, and that of other rare gases, works
like a global greenhouse to raise the temperature of the Earth. Readers will follow
the obsessive research of geochemist Charles David Keeling, who has spent a lifetime
pursuing a single mission: measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They
will learn why what seemed to be the most useful and reliable of chemical compounds,
the clorofluorcarbons developed in a General Motors laboratory in 1930 -- the
substances that cool our refrigerators and air conditioners, propel our spray
cans, and make the polyurethane containers that keep our take-out fast foods warm
-- have turned out to pack a lethal punch. CFCs are responsible for the widening
holes in the ozone layer that protects human beings from ultaviolet radiation.
The assaults on the Earth are multiple, and not all of them
are blazoned in the headlines. Thus, we tend not to connect the enormous increases
in the world's population with the greenhouse effect, yet the air into which human
beings exhale, the wildernesses they tame and settle, the rain forests they raze
for timber, the cattle they graze, and the rice they cultivate all have potent
effects on the ecological balance. And sophisticated measurement techniques can
now document these changes with greater and greater precision. By drilling into
ice so deep it holds air frozen inside glaciers tens of thousands of years ago,
scientists can even tell us how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere in prehistoric
times. This book makes it appallingly clear that if we
do not change course now by altering a vast array of human activities, human beings
themselves are on the way to becoming an endangered species. But The Next One
Hundred Years is not a litany of doomsaying. There are ways to effect such
change, and Weiner analyzes not only what is happening but what we can do about
it. In the tradition of Silent Spring, this informed
and passionate book is essential reading for all who care about the fate of the
Earth -- and a prescription for action before it is too late. Jonathan
Weiner is a noted science writer and the author of the bestselling Planet
Earth. |
