Storms Of My Grandchildren [Paperback]

 

 

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The author, James Hansen, is one of the world's best known authorities on global climate change. I feel that because of this, "Storms......." is written as his form of mia culpa to society for his perceived failure to have the world systems successfully deal with this impending crisis. The failure is not on his part, however. While it lies primarily with the 'what is in it for me' political systems at large, the rest of the blame lies with us, the uninformed, lazy and uneducated public. It is much easier for us to tune into the latest Fox News anti-warming sound byte or to repeat the bumper-sticker mentality of the fringe 'scientists' who have sold their souls to Big-Oil and their coniving partners than it is to research the truth. Shame on us. And now our children and grandchildren must pay the price.

In this must read book, the author is a bit too repetitious and is overly concerned with some personal minutia, but the concepts, the long-term research that has been done and the frightening prognosis is well thought out and explicitly clear. The time, as Hansen states, to deal easily and inexpensively with this issue has long ago passed us by. While the tipping point is yet to be reached, it is lying very close to the horizon. As is suggested, it is time for us to do our postponed research, bombard our representatives with calls and emails and make the truth known. If we don't and this crisis is not averted, the storms of all of our grandchildren will be of great magnitude.

Hansen's book is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand Global Warming. He explains the role of CO2 and other Greenhouse gasses in GW and how close we are at this juncture to the Tipping Point from which there is no return.

The worst part of the recent book by NASA climatologist James Hansen is, undoubtedly, the subtitle. "The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity" ' really? That doesn't sound like the intrinsic, subdued style of Dr. Hansen. In my opinion, it simply alienates the very audience he's trying to reach: moderate, concerned non-scientists.

The inside of the book is much better. While he couldn't resist slipping in a good deal of hard science (and, in my opinion, these were the best parts), the real focus was on climate policy, and the relationship between science and policy. Hansen struggled with the prospect of becoming involved in policy discussions, but soon realized that he didn't want his grandchildren, years from now, to look back at his work and say, 'Opa understood what was happening, but he did not make it clear.'

Hansen is very good at distinguishing between his scientific work and his opinions on policy, and makes no secret of which he would rather spend time on. 'I prefer to just do science,' he writes in the introduction. 'It's more pleasant, especially when you are having some success in your investigations. If I must serve as a witness, I intend to testify and then get back to the laboratory, where I am comfortable. That is what I intend to do when this book is finished.'

Hansen's policy opinions centre on a cap-and-dividend system: a variant of a carbon tax, where revenue is divided evenly among citizens and returned to them. His argument for a carbon tax, rather than cap-and-trade, is compelling, and certainly convinced me. He also advocates the expansion of nuclear power (particularly 'fourth-generation' fast nuclear reactors), a moratorium on new coal-generated power plants, and drastically improved efficiency measures.

These recommendations are robust, backed up with lots of empirical data to argue why they would be our best bet to minimize climate change and secure a stable future for generations to come. Hansen is always careful to say when he is speaking as a scientist and when he is speaking as a citizen, and provides a fascinating discussion of the connection between these two roles. As Bill Blakemore from ABC television wrote in correspondence with Hansen, 'All communication is biased. What makes the difference between a propagandist on one side and a professional journalist or scientist on the other is not that the journalist or scientist 'set their biases aside' but that they are open about them and constantly putting them to the test, ready to change them.'

Despite all this, I love when Hansen puts on his scientist hat. The discussions of climate science in this book, particularly paleoclimate, were gripping. He explains our current knowledge of the climatic circumstances surrounding the Permian-Triassic extinction and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (usually referred to as the PETM). He explains why neither of these events is a suitable analogue for current climate change, as the current rate of introduction of the radiative forcing is faster than anything we can see in the paleoclimatic record.

Be prepared for some pretty terrifying facts about our planet's 'methane hydrate gun', and how it wasn't even fully loaded when it went off in the PETM. Also discussed is the dependence of climate sensitivity on forcing: the graph of these two variables is more or less a parabola, as climate sensitivity increases both in Snowball Earth conditions and in Runaway Greenhouse conditions. An extensive discussion of runaway greenhouse is provided, where the forcing occurs so quickly that negative feedbacks don't have a chance to act before the positive water vapour feedback gets out of control, the oceans boil, and the planet becomes too hot for liquid water to exist. For those who are interested in this scenario, Hansen argues that, if we're irresponsible about fossil fuels, it is quite possible for current climate change to reach this stage. For those who have less practice separating the scientific part of their brain from the emotional part, I suggest you skip this chapter.

I would recommend this book to everyone interested in climate change. James Hansen is such an important player in climate science, and has arguably contributed more to our knowledge of climate change than just about anyone. Whether it's for the science, for the policy discussions, or for his try at science fiction in the last chapter, it's well worth the cover price.

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5.0 out of 5 stars The most important book out there on climate change
Writer Robert Pool has defined a 'witness' as 'someone who believes he has information so important that he cannot keep silent. Read more

Published on April 23 2010 by sindark

5.0 out of 5 stars A very readable, personal account
Jim Hansen is one of the world's leading climate scientists, and as such he might be expected to write in a dry, technical manner.

Not so, however. Read more

Published on Jan 17 2010 by Guy Dauncey

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