Book Review : Humanity on a Tightrope

Title : Humanity on a Tightrope ( thoughts on empathy, family and big changes for a viable future)

Authors : Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein

ISBN : 978-1-4422-0648-9

Through 'Humanity on a Tightrope', two award winning authors - Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein undertake the task of bringing a unique perspective to the global problems that our species is facing - the tightrope that we need to walk from humanity's past to the future. They begin by enumerating the endless troubles we need to deal with and much more gruesome future that is in store for us if nothing is modified - the increasing natural imbalance, climate changes, unmanageable human population and the impact of these in the form of - depleting natural resources, many species becoming endangered, terrorism, insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and much more. We have reached a point where 'our species is endangering its own life-support system and the infrastructure of the rest of the world.'

The well analyzed study of the fundamental problems of homo sapiens due to premature birth patterns and the reasons for the formation of family setup are very neatly presented. This tendency of humans forms the basis of how and why we consider just a few members of the species as part of our family. The stern definitions of 'us' and 'them' based on every possible reasons be it color, class, caste, religion, country led to many horrific times in the history of our species. But now in order to bridge the gap between 'us' and 'them', the 'family' entity needs to be redefined making it more open, broader and generalized. The feelings of empathy and semblance is to be cultivated and are extremely important in order to avert the collapsing civilization. It is high time that we educate ourselves with the basics of empathy that we have lost while being focused on catering to our individual needs. We all need to renew our knowledge of this one indispensable trait which can help all of us in thinking about our common life-planet.

This compact writing is based on science, information and knowledge and the two authors have analyzed the same in such a brilliant manner so as to present the whole intelligence in a palatable, chewable and digestible form. It is very thought provoking, sincere attempt by the authors towards building a global family. The lectures are very well supported by appropriate case studies and anecdotes from the past to further the points that are to be made. They have made use of the findings from varied fields and streams such as evolution, biology, anthropology, psychology and sociology, to name just a few. However, at some points the explanation of situations seemed a little inadequate while on some occasions the findings felt repetitive which could have been intentional to reiterate the same point from different perspectives.

Book Review : Climate of Uncertainty

Title : Climate of Uncertainty
Author : William Stewart
ISBN : 978-0-9767291-6-7
Publisher : Ocean Publishing
XPosted on : BookPleasures

A book by William Stewart on global warming and changing weather conditions of our Earth, aiming to 'inform and not persuade'. The ongoing debate is presented in a capsule form and the issues which are being confronted by the humanity and all forms of life on earth.

The first part of the book talks about global warming, the conflicting views and the limitations of climate science, which is still in its infancy. The unresolved climatic challenges assume much more serious form given the fact that there are many secrets of nature and the ways things get manifested in our deeply connected environment that nothing could be decided about the course of action with perfect certainty. There is a brief mention of the presence of some unknown non-anthropogenic causes in the climate which have the capability to influence the environment to a great extent, some of which are - The degree of tilt of the earth on its axis, Earth's 'not the perfect circular motion' around sun and more sunspot activity making sun more active.

However, there is broad acceptance of the fact that we are heading towards much warmer future times and data and statistics prove that this is happening because of human meddling in the self-balancing capability of the planet. Human tampering in the form of accelerated release of GHGs - Greenhouse gases (mainly water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nirtous oxide and ozone) in the environment is much more than the levels that could be naturally absorbed by the nature through carbon sinks - like planktons in oceans and the rainforests.

The consequences of the increase in greenhouse gases are becoming visible in the form of more volcanic activities, aggressive ocean oscillations - providing more fuel for hurricanes, competing effects of greater cloud cover and reduced ice cover, greater temperature disparities - which will result in more rain and wind in some locations and less in others, changes in the pattern of migration of different species - modifying the ecological balance of the region from where they migrate and also the region to where they migrate.

These problems of global magnitude require global solutions. After having introduced the concepts and phenomena surrounding global warming, William Stewart moves on to bring the issues - social and political, that are impediments in the road to finding a solution

In the second part, the author talks about - the Peak Oil, which he calls as the 'evil twin' of global warming. Oil - which is the lifeblood of modern civilization and thanks to the excessive abuse of this natural resource by humans, we are about to face the depletion of the same not very far away in future. The depletion of these supplies will impact the emission levels of carbon even more significantly. This is because, in the absence of oil, we will eventually turn to higher carbon generating unconventional options like crude oil, oil shale and coal liquefication.

So given the situation, as the author puts it, we are left with following two options:
1 : Either use the unconventional means like coal and heavy crude as substitutes of oil and natural gas and put the Earth through devastating effects of global warming.
2 : Or get prepared for civil unrest of unforeseen magnitude as a result of dearth of energy - more people fighting for limited resources.

There are some sustainable technologies which are being researched by the think tank of our planet in an attempt to look for the substitutes of natural oil and gas : wind, geothermal, solar, clean coal, nuclear , tidal, wave and hydropower. But none of these come without their own baggage of issues which are unresolved and hence no dependable solution is in sight yet. That is the reason we are still continuing with the cutting of the same branch on which we are sitting.

Each of these energy substitutes have been very concisely presented in the book and how they can be used and how and what percentage of power is already being generated through these and also what downsides they bring with them.

But having seen and understood all this, a big question still looms large - have we already rolled our earth down the road to being a Venus or a Mars!!

In spite of the presence of plethora of books in this space, 'Climate of Uncertainty' does manage to bring its point sincerely in a comprehensive and readable fashion to make the common man understand the perils of changing climates. The scientific jargon and data are necessary but only for a limited group that uses the same for analysis and deductions. For the masses, the data goes unregistered, the processed form is what they look for and that is what 'Climate of Uncertainty' intends to provide.

An effort to bring a balanced assessment of the debate which is otherwise dominated by the extremes. And being a lawyer, William Stewart beautifully plays with words and phrases to stay clear of falling into any of the groups.

However, there could have been a little mention of some of the proposals that are being discussed in

• taking out the already present GHGs from the environment
• reducing the degree of heat from the sun

Book Review : Climate of Extremes

XPosted on BookPleasures

Title : Climate of Extremes : Global Warming Science The Don't Want You to Know
Author : Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling Jr.
Publisher : Cato Institute
ISBN : 978-1-935308-17-1

Climate of Extremes : Global Warming Science They Don't Want You to Know, brings to fore the facts and revelations about the most debatable topic of our times. When all possible media channels are invariably inundated with news on global warming and increasing earth's surface temperatures, here is a book which strives to bring sanity and correct perspective into this whole discussion.

First and foremost the attention has been drawn to the basic issues -
*How much of the earth's surface has warmed
*How much of that warming is caused by the human activity and
*Can the human activity and present temperatures be used as an indicator to project future warming and estimate its effects.

Looking into details about the global warming and the hype about everything related to this topic, the authors - Michaels and Balling state the unadulterated and unbiased truth first - our planet is definitely warming up and there is no denying the fact that nothing would qualify to change this global trend of increasing temperature. Longer summer heat waves owing to the increase in the greenhouse gas levels would be there for us to witness in the times to come. The temperature variation between upper and lower layers of the atmosphere shows the presence of greenhouse gases which trap the radiation close to the surface and emit it back hence warming the lower layer more than the upper one. Carbon dioxide , water vapor molecules and methane are supreme contributors of greenhouse gases.

Besides these greenhouse gases already making their presence felt, colossal amounts of such gases are in store to be released in the atmosphere soon. One typical case is that of - Permafrost. Permafrost is more like a time bomb which is gradually reaching its stage of explosion eventually putting our planet into a more vicious warmer cycle.

The book very objectively presents all these facts and phenomena and then moves on to discuss the huge chasm between what the reality is and what is presented to the public globally.

In very clear terms and backed by data and statistics, the authors reject the observations that global warming will mean sky rocketing death rates. Instead, with some relatively simple adaptive measures, death rates could go down significantly and that has been the case when the heat wave which took 35000 lives in France in 2003 saw its repeat occurrence after a few years again.

There is no rationality behind the news in making global warming the only reason for many climatic changes happening in the planet. Mother Nature also has her own way of expression which is evident in some of these phenomena:

*If the changes in the ice content in Arctic are observed scientifically, they reveal that much of this has been triggered by non-human induced climate variations.

*Kilimanjaro glacier which is nearing its extinction, reached its current state mainly because of its geometry than anything else.

*Droughts have been a natural part of the climate of Pacific Southwest and whether the future is warmer or not, they are going to be there.

*Forest fires in CA are blamed on warming of surface, which is very debatable. Data reveal that the burned area in the last 20 years has not increased. Tree rings in that region affirm that fire frequency for the last 500 years has been the result of natural ocean climate cycles and not global warming.

*Global warming is conveniently made responsible for the increasing number of powerful hurricanes hitting Florida but there is a contrary view which states that besides surface temperatures, some other factors like wind shear and jet streams, affecting this phenomenon cannot simply be ignored.

The authors have highlighted various factors which have contributed significantly in ruling out the possibility of rational thinking based on facts alone and having a balanced discussion on this topic :

*Unreliability of some of the methods of observing the climate makes it a humungous task to differentiate the part showing real climatic trends from the results of observational difficulties.

*The politicization of the climate science reduces the possibility to having free exchange of data and information.

*Media obsessed with the mantra - "Bad news sells" fabricate some of the facts so that the news item looks more gory and fetches more eye balls.

*Scientific journals prejudiced for "positive" results do not feel the need of responsibly reporting the findings of 'no relationship' between hypothesized variables too.

*Politicians turned climatologists (having no training in climate science) have been instrumental in broadcasting some untested facts which makes the whole matter even more complicated and the future looks extremely perilous. The science Washington lobby is not helping the matters either.

*Publication bias and exaggerated reporting assist in putting the final nails in the coffin of climate science being a fact based science only.

The book successfully presents the clear picture and very courageously talks about the actual issues and the impediments in the path of having a free discussion and sensible decision making on global warming. The observations made throughout the book are very well supported by the graphs and pictures wherever necessary showing the amount of research that has gone into bringing this end product for the readers.

Could have been made a complete package by extending the study to include the climatic conditions and trends observed in other parts of the planet like Atlantic ocean, Indian ocean and the continents other than North America.