Below are two climate change book reviews by me; I hope you find them as interesting as I did.
I’ve provided an Amazon link to one and a Book Depository link to another — because I’m not out to promote any particular online bookstore (although I tend to find the latter cheapest, and as to the former, well, I love my Kindle 3G DX [I'm reading Weinberg on it right now])… Oh, and for Australians, never go past the Booko website!
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Volk, T. (2008). CO2 Rising: The World’s Greatest Environmental Challenge. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. ISBN 978-0-262-22083-5.
Carbon atoms with personality. That’s the interesting literary device biochemist Tyler Volk uses to illustrate the fantastic convolutions that define the many and varied pathways of the carbon cycle. ‘CO2 Rising‘ tracks the fate of atoms ‘Dave’, ‘Coalleen’, ‘Oiliver’ and others, as they wend their waythrough the Earth’s crust, oceans, biosphere and atmosphere – indeed, all of the reservoirs of carbon on the planet.
In an entertaining way, the reader learns to appreciate the transience of some states of carbon (such as the brief moments an atom is bound up in a molecule of CO2 in a glass of beer, only to be later measured by the instruments of Dave Keeling on the peak of Mauna Loa), and the timelessness of others (such as the subterreanean lumps of coal and pools of oil, sequestering atoms for eons in dark geological vaults).
Understanding the dynamics of different carbon reservoirs is fundamental to appreciating the overarching premise of the book: most carbon is ‘out of action’ in limestones, ocean ooze or buried fossil fuels, for most of time. But as greater and greater quantities of ‘old carbon’ are unearthed to stoke the fires and cement kilns of modern industry, a long-balanced equilibria is disrupted. On a planetary scale, with global consequences.
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Impacts | 25 Comments »
