MAGNIFICENT, poetic, passionate: all words from the cover of this book. All true. And yet, this is also yesterday鈥檚 book. Zoologist Tim Flannery is one of Australia鈥檚 most f锚ted science writers, and he has produced a magisterial overview of the development of climate change as an issue for wildlife and the future of human civilisation. But most of this book could have been written five, even 10 years ago. The exception is a short chapter called 鈥淧ack of jokers鈥�, in which he warns that climate change may not happen in the smooth manner envisaged by climate models, but in huge and violent jumps. This new story 鈥� of lethal feedbacks in the ice caps, the oceans, the carbon cycle, perhaps in the stratosphere too 鈥� is left largely untold. This may be the best of the old books on climate change. Sadly, it is not the first of the new.
The Weather Makers: The history and future impact of climate change
Penguin/Atlantic Monthly
