The Coming Storm: Extreme Weather and Our Terrifying Future
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- £7.49
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- £7.49
Publisher Description
New second edition of the classic, very readable book by Bob Reiss. Its original edition made the connection between man-made global climate change and extreme weather events before scientists would openly admit this would be the result. At the time its conclusions and predictions were controversial and astonishing. Now they are prescient and confirmed by nearly every reputable climatologist. Free of unnecessary scientific jargon and filled with the human and political dimensions of this story, this book reads like a mystery novel where you already know the terrifying outcome.
"The most readable and intelligent summary of global warming science and politics I have read ... a valiant effort to make people actually care about global warming." -- Bill McKibben in the New York Observer
Adding a new preface by the author, this edition brings back to life the compelling account of the link between climate and weather disasters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Don't be fooled by the similarity between the title of this new book by journalist Reiss and The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. The books have little in common beyond the broad conclusion that the increased atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, resulting from human activity, threatens to unleash extremes of weather and climate never seen on earth in the history of our species. Many have found that Bell and Strieber embraced both science and pseudo-science equally. In contrast, Reiss writes in the urgent yet reasoned voice of a person sounding an alarm while there is still time to act. Tracing both scientific and policy debates year by year from 1988 through 2000, he recounts the drama of deadly winter storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, killer heat waves, melting glaciers and thinning polar icecaps, while relating the parallel stories of scientists, politicians, lobbyists and industrialists and their clashing views in the face of mounting evidence and conflicting national interests. As Reiss describes it, the worst human disasters of this new century may result not only from storms in the geophysical climate but also from crises in the geopolitical one. It's time for the world to make plans if only we can agree what to plan for.
