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The impact on climate from 200 years of
industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but
did humankind's active involvement in climate change really
begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed?
William Ruddiman's provocative new book argues that humans
have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years
-- as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture.
The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will
spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming
on greenhouse gas levels, thousands of years before the
industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than
if natural climate cycles had prevailed -- quite possibly
forestalling a new ice age.
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum is
the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human
interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us though
three broad stages of human history: when nature was in
control; when humans began to take control, discovering
agriculture and affecting climate through CO2 and methane
emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on
climate change. Along the way he raises the fascinating
possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations,
also affected reforestation and thus climate -- as suggested
by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics occurred.
The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing
the impact of special interest money on the global warming
debate.
Eminently readable and far-reaching in argument,
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum shows us that even
as civilization developed, we were already changing the
climate in which we lived.
William F. Ruddiman is the author of
Earth's Climate: Past & Future, and has published
many articles in Scientific American, Nature,
and Science as well as various scientific journals.
He recently retired as Professor of Environmental Sciences
at the University of Virginia, following many years as a
Doherty Senior Research Scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory of Columbia University.
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