Review: What We Know About Climate Change
A couple weeks ago a was griping to my friends that I could not seem to lay hands on a reasonably objective summary of scientific consensus on climate change. This is the kind of thing that always ticks me off, because it is clearly an important issue to get hold of, but all the popular books either take the position that we will be up to our neck in melted icecaps and polar bear blood or that even thinking about the changes is to be duped by a cabal of self-serving environmentalists who cook all their data to a light golden brown.
All I want to know is enough to form an opinion, not to be recruited to imaginary team or another.
Imagine my surprise when I found Kerry Emanuel’s What We Know About Climate Change. It is exactly what I was looking for. It is reasoned description of the current state of climate change knowledge, enough history to see how and where the schisms formed that the media has stoked, and enough background to make the information accessible to someone with much less scientific background that I have.
This is apparently one of a series of short books from Boston Books covering essential topics of the day, and if they are all as well done as this is, Boston Books is doing the world a great service.
Strongly recommended.