The Weather Makers

The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change (2005) is a book by Tim Flannery.

The book received critical acclaim, and won the major prize at the 2006 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.

Description

The book includes 36 short essays predicting the consequences of global warming. The book reviews evidence of historical climate change and attempts to compare this with the current era. The book argues that if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to increase at current rates, the resulting climate change will cause mass species extinctions. The book also asserts that global temperatures have already risen enough to cause the annual monsoon rains in the Sahel region of Africa to diminish, causing droughts and desertification. This in turn, according to Flannery, has caused the conflict in the Darfur region through competition for disappearing resources. Further consequences, argued in the book, include increasing hurricane intensity, and decline in the health of coral reefs.

The final third of the book discusses proposed solutions. Flannery advocates individual action as well as international and governmental actions. He argues that a few industries such as the coal industry, currently responsible for 40% of the energy consumed in the U.S., remain opponents of needed action. The book retraces the evidence that the administration, motivated by coal-industry donations to the Republican party, undermines political action by omitting mention of climate change from government documents. The book cites evidence against the argument that conservation is bad for economies.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/