The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples by Tim Flannery BOOK REVIEW

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples by Tim Flannery

This story is centered around a meteor that impacted the earth 650,000,000 years ago on the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula with such devastating force that life on earth would be forever after altered. The age of the great dinosaurs was obliterated, but this was just one immediate catastrophic change. The good news was however that we the humans would then have the opportunity to materialize.

This fact-filled book amazingly takes you, the reader, on journey to the present day down the path of that aftermath. I loved the fascinating and very true story of how humans and particularity we got here.

EXCERPTS:

In one northern hemisphere group after another, whether in the depths of the Arctic Ocean (as plankton, snails or clams), or in the forests on the northern lands, the Arctic Circle was the only sure sanctuary from the devastation of Chicxulub.

North America, paradoxically, is also the global center of Creationism, whose dogmatic followers believe that the Earth was formed just 6000 years ago.

The sea itself began to circulate in a different way at this time, for differing saltiness in the various oceans began to drive currents that brought warm, salty water to the poles, only to see it cool and descend into the depths to be reheated at the equator.

The planet had become a true greenhouse world, whose warmth would open the continent's polar portals and allow massive immigration between North America and Eurasia. Such conditions have not been repeated in the 50 million years since, but industrial emissions may ensure that in coming centuries the world will again enter such a greenhouse.

By the time the pilgrims stepped ashore and began constructing their rude shelters at Patuxet in January 1621, Mexico City was an established and elegant European-style capital, its university seventy years old. Its cathedrals, markets and mansions were magnificent, and Mexican-Spanish influence had spread as far north as Florida and New Mexico.

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The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

In print for fifteen years and more pertinent than ever. 

This author has something imperative to say that MUST NOT be dismissed!

Excerpts:
Some idea of the power greenhouse gases have to influence temperature can be gained by examining other planets. The atmosphere of Venus is 98 percent CO2, and its surface temperature is 891°F. Should CO2 ever reach even 1 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, it would “all other things being equal” bring the surface temperature of the planet to boiling point.
Were it not for plants and algae, we would soon run out of oxygen and suffocate in CO2. Through photosynthesis (the process whereby plants create sugars using sunlight and water), plants take our waste CO2 and use it to make their own energy, in the process creating a waste stream of oxygen. It’s a neat and self-sustaining cycle that forms the basis of life on Earth. The volume of carbon circulating around our planet is enormous. Around a trillion tons of carbon are tied up in living things, while the amount buried underground is far, far greater. And for every molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere, there are fifty in the oceans.
Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal producer) led a campaign, informed apparently by his personal beliefs, that the earth’s atmosphere “is deficient in carbon dioxide” and that producing more would herald an age of eternal summer. In a move rather like the CEO of an arms manufacturer arguing that a nuclear war would be good for the planet, Western Fuels wanted to lead the charge in creating a world with atmospheric CO2 of around 1,000 parts per million.
A ten-year, peer-reviewed study by the IPCC commissioned by Bush senior and studies by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA. September 2002 the White House released the Environment Protection Agency’s annual report with the entire section dealing with climate change deleted.
Bush administration “desperately wanted to burn more coal... . Coal is our friend,” and that to do so they would scuttle Clean Air and Clean Water Act requirements. In this the administration has been as good as its word, for, as Shea quipped, it may be some time before the industry has another president like “Bush or Attila the Hun.”
The greatest damage was done by the Global Climate Coalition, an industry lobby group founded in 1989 by fifty oil, gas, coal, auto, and chemical corporations. During the eleven years of its existence the organization gave $60 million in political donations and spent millions more on propaganda. The stated purpose of the Global Climate Coalition was to “cast doubt on the theory of global warming.”
Some industries that oppose action on climate change use tactics reminiscent of those of asbestos and tobacco companies, who by constantly challenging and clouding the outcomes of research into the link between their products and cancer, succeeded in buying themselves a few more decades of fat profits.
Asbestos and cigarettes can kill individuals, but CO2 emissions threaten our planet.