Global Warming: The Complete Briefing

Global warming and the resulting climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems facing the world community. Global Warming: the Complete Briefing is the most comprehensive guide available to the subject. A world-renowned expert, Sir John Houghton explores the scientific basis of global warming and the likely impacts of climate change on human society, before addressing the action that could be taken by governments, by industry and by individuals to mitigate the effects. The first edition received excellent reviews, and this completely updated new edition (taking account of the latest IPCC Assessments, and now including questions at the end of chapters) will prove to be the best briefing the student or interested general reader could wish for.

Customer Review: Fair, balanced, scientific, non-partisan, clear.

I have to take immediate issue with the [anonymous] reviews below that claim that this book doesn’t address the difference between natural climate cycling and anthropogenic climate change: that difference, in a nutshell, is PRECISELY what this book deals with. Those reviewers never read it, or failed completely to follow its line of reasoning. This is NOT a partisan, political, ideological book. It is simply a guided tour of the science of climate change, revised in 2004. It carefully parses the current research. Read the table of contents [you can click on it at the top of the page] and see that the book is organized around the following inevitable questions: Is climate changing? How much is it changing? How much of that change is caused by people? What are the likely effects, short- and long-term, of these changes? What can we do about it? In the case of climate change, despite all of the political complications that have accrued to what was originally science, these questions are PRECISELY the ones a thinking person needs to ask. To have a book structured around them, referring, as it does, to the best [scientific, independently-refereed] research is a gift. It seems that almost everybody today picks their position on climate change as part of an ideological package-deal: most American conservatives almost automatically disdain the science because the Bush White House and Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter disdain it. Most American progressives almost automatically embrace the NOTION of climate change without actually knowing the science, because Al Gore, et al, have told them to. Both positions, taken in ignorance of the science, are ideolgical and symptomatic of the worst party-line politics. I urge you to read the science. It will take some effort, but that effort is our civic duty. This book has no agenda other than compiling the research and putting it before the reading public in an accessible format.

Customer Review: Excellent Science made intelliglble

I am not a climatologist – I studied physics and math – but it is clear that this man is an expert in his field. The book was very favorably reviewed by other climatologists and is convincing if you have the patience to follow the science. it is not “for Dummies” but looks very solid. Highly recommended if you don’t mind charts and scientific explanations. If you can read Scientific Amercian you will find this an easy read.

The conclusions are very objectively understated which only makes them more scary:

1 billion people displaced by floods and rising seas from some of earth’s most fertile areas; increasingly violent, larger and more frequent storms; a new ice age for northern Europe; the American midwest and California’s Central Valley becoming desert; major edible fish supplies running out; massive flooding of areas that have never been flooded before; major river arteries like the Mississippi and Missouri no longer being navigable.

For an example of what man can do to affect climate, take a look at Tuscon, AZ. Before whites started intensive grazing after 1860 it was grassy, with humid Summers and temperatures in the 80s. After grazing denuded the grass, it became the desert it is now with Summer temperatures over 100 by morning and periodic flash flooding. Nothing grows there now except cactus.

The species that humans are currently endangering with their “head in the sand” approach is [...] sapiens, but after that species is gone things will return to normal. Stupidity is not a survival trait.