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The Flooded Earth: Our Future In A World Without Ice Caps (2010)

by Peter D. Ward(Favorite Author)

3.53 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0465009492 (ISBN13: 9780465009497)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Basic Books

review 1: This is the first book I've read on the effects of climate change, although I've read many articles in various periodicals and newspapers on the subject. I learned a great deal from Dr. Ward's book which dealt primarily with the effects of the rising level of the oceans and the effects of their increasing acidification. I found the research done on previous periods of warming presented in the book explained much that is just headline material in shorter articles. For example, anyone who has read anything on this subject has probably heard about the cessation of the movement of the Gulf Stream. Dr. Ward explains why this could happen, completely backed up with historical and scientific evidence. He also stresses the loss of prime agricultural land from the incursion of salt... more water into the soils near the coasts of various countries, and into the entire Central Valley of California through their irrigation system. I did appreciate that he addressed the numerous climate-change related problems caused by ever-increasing overpopulation. I don't see that enough in the popular press--quite the reverse. There is currently more handwringing about falling birth rates in some countries than exploding numbers of humans worldwide. One issue I would like to have seen the author at least mention with respect to the potential catastrophes he describes is the conflicts that will inevitably arise due to shortages of water, food, and habitable land. He postulates that the human race could be rendered extinct within the next few centuries if nothing is done about the increasing level of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. I think that we probably will have killed almost everyone off before that time when the inevitable conflicts escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. I recommend this book as a good place to start on this issue as it is a gripping read while being thoroughly researched. This is a topic which all humans avoid at their peril and the peril of their children and grandchildren.
review 2: Sometimes, the gulf between science and futurism is too wide. And sometimes, the backstory is too severe, too long and too much. The promise of this book (if we can call a vision of the earth under water a "promise") relies on an amazing amount of exposition, the science of what we're doing now, to fully dwell on the earth of the future - which are vigenettes of possible scenes from different points in the future and certainly not the thrust of the book. Not blaming the author here. Probably an editor, or more likely, a marketing department. In many ways, the book's title should have been Apocalypse Now. But that was taken. less

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