A review by thomcat
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas
3.0
It will be interesting when we turn the COVID corner just what effect this last year has had on CO2 concentrations. I suspect it will prove we *can* contribute to improving our situation, and may convince people and governments to make further improvements. If they don't, we are screwed.
Not the planet, it will survive. It won't be a fun place to live, of course. The majority of species will be wiped out in a mass die-off that rivals the Permian extinction. The planet also won't sustain a population of 7 billion humans, either, and those deaths will be primarily by famine or war. Repeated natural disasters won't make life easy for those that do survive.
This was an interesting book, and was cited in another book I read more recently. The author surveyed a majority of papers modeling future climate and sorted those summaries into folders of 1-6 degrees of average temperature increase, making up the six primary chapters in this book. These studies are all documented in the extensive notes section, but were also all published before this book (2007). As such, some are out of date. The author doesn't necessarily summarize the papers, instead telling a story based on the results, from coral bleaching to loss of glaciers and sub-sea methane eruptions.
The conclusion of the book contains a brief discussion of some efforts to battle this, and is the most out of date. The one solid finding is that the best solution can be thought of as a pie chart, with various sized wedges representing different methods. Reducing CO2 emissions is just one wedge, and we have temporarily achieved that by working from home and limiting travel.
I added this book to my to-read pile a while back. Perhaps I should have skipped it and read the authors latest book (released April 2020) called [b:Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency|51471435|Our Final Warning Six Degrees of Climate Emergency|Mark Lynas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582063272l/51471435._SY75_.jpg|76135420]. Since we have already shot past the threshold for the 1 degree chapter, CO2 at 400 ppm, maybe it will be a little shorter.
Not the planet, it will survive. It won't be a fun place to live, of course. The majority of species will be wiped out in a mass die-off that rivals the Permian extinction. The planet also won't sustain a population of 7 billion humans, either, and those deaths will be primarily by famine or war. Repeated natural disasters won't make life easy for those that do survive.
This was an interesting book, and was cited in another book I read more recently. The author surveyed a majority of papers modeling future climate and sorted those summaries into folders of 1-6 degrees of average temperature increase, making up the six primary chapters in this book. These studies are all documented in the extensive notes section, but were also all published before this book (2007). As such, some are out of date. The author doesn't necessarily summarize the papers, instead telling a story based on the results, from coral bleaching to loss of glaciers and sub-sea methane eruptions.
The conclusion of the book contains a brief discussion of some efforts to battle this, and is the most out of date. The one solid finding is that the best solution can be thought of as a pie chart, with various sized wedges representing different methods. Reducing CO2 emissions is just one wedge, and we have temporarily achieved that by working from home and limiting travel.
I added this book to my to-read pile a while back. Perhaps I should have skipped it and read the authors latest book (released April 2020) called [b:Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency|51471435|Our Final Warning Six Degrees of Climate Emergency|Mark Lynas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1582063272l/51471435._SY75_.jpg|76135420]. Since we have already shot past the threshold for the 1 degree chapter, CO2 at 400 ppm, maybe it will be a little shorter.