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04.09
Book
Reviews: Climate Change in Focus
By George
Zobrist
As Congress
considers legislation to address global
warming by reducing emissions of greenhouse
gases, it seems fitting to have reviews of two
recent books on climate change.
 The
Great Warming
by Brian Fagan
Bloomsbury Press - 2008
ISBN-10: 1596913924
Anthropologist Brian Fagan’s
treatise on climate change looks at the rise and
fall of great civilizations during the Medieval
Warming Period (800 — 1300 AD). This period gave
way to the Little Ice Age. Most of the
scientific evidence of warming cited by Fagan is
derived from tree rings, ice cores and growth
layers in tropical coral. During these medieval
dry cycles, civilizations flourished,
civilizations were toppled, some experienced
partial collapse, and many were forced to
migrate to more hospitable climes. Fagan’s look
at climate change is a cautionary tale
applicable even today, warning of the possible
consequences during periods of extended warming.
During the Medieval Warming
Period in southern England, everything depended
on subsistence farming, and the farmer’s fate
was tied to the interplay of temperature and
rainfall. The era’s significant warming
increased the growing periods and brought relief
to the subsistence farmers. Farmers expanded
their regions of arable land, which allowed the
accumulation of food surpluses. But the warming
climate also stimulated population growth and
violence, and brought about enormous
deforestation for pastureland and arable land
for crops. Near the end of the Medieval Warming
Period in Europe, population growth had
outstripped the ability to supply agricultural
goods.
The empire of Genghis Khan
expanded during this period, too, as detailed in
the chapter entitled, “The Flail of God.” The
ebb and flow of the Mongol Empire was somewhat
related to the environment of the Steppes. A
subsequent chapter describes how the climate
change of the Medieval Warming Period influenced
trade through the Saharan Desert, specifically
the Gold trade. In contrast to the Eurasian
Steppes, which depended upon the horse for
transport, the Saharan transport was the Camel
which was much more tolerant of drought
conditions. This enabled Gold trade from the
inner reaches of Africa to the Mediterranean
coast to flourish even during the Warming
period.
As in Europe, the Medieval
Warming period brought milder winters to the
Scandinavian region, and allowed for longer
growing periods, which in turn increased the
population. This encouraged the seafaring
populace to venture further off-shore. There was
also a migration across the Bering Strait of a
populace looking for new trading opportunities.
The Norse and Inuit populations welcomed the
warmer climate during this span, while it was
bringing disaster to more drought prone regions.
The American West was an area
where the Medieval drought was harshly felt, and
the warmer centuries made much of the region
uninhabitable. Fagan describes the migration of
the populace and their dependence on the
carbohydrate rich acorn, which could be stored
over relatively long periods of time. Much of
the American southwest climate originated in the
Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Niños and
La Ninas of the Pacific Ocean. South of the
American Southwest was the Mayan civilization,
which was depopulated catastrophically. Even
after the climatic conditions became more
livable, the Mayan civilization never recovered
to its previous grandeur. Fagan discusses the
parallel between Mayan civilization’s dependence
— and its demise — upon an unpredictable water
source and present-day California and some of
Arizona’s cities’ similar dilemma.
The narrative moves to the
climatic effect on Peru during the Warming
Period. The Andean region was under constant
threat from the El Niños and long-term drought,
being driven by the climatic events in the
Pacific Ocean. It was through various pragmatic
strategies that there was any survival at all.
The Chimu society survived, while the Mayan
civilization partially collapsed during the arid
cycle, partially due to their organization of
valley landscapes. The final demise of the
Mayans came about when Incan conquerors gained
control of their watersheds. Looking westward,
Fagan discusses the movement of the various
Polynesian peoples over the vast Pacific region
of small islands. It is not known for sure what
effect the Warming period had on migrations in
the South Pacific. In northern climes, there was
a more drastic effect upon the populace, where
La Nina, El Nino and the Southern Oscillation
dictated the terms of survival.
During this period, prolonged La Nina conditions affected much
of the Indian subcontinent and as far away as
northeast Africa. The times were marked by
considerable turmoil in India, by Islamic
incursions, and the demise of Buddhism. The
Khmer region of Southeast Asia was also
dramatically affected by the warm centuries. It
was with the beginning of the Little Ice Age
that the climate may have become more volatile
in this region and the overtaxed water system
may have become unreliable. This probably
resulted in the populace dispersing into smaller
settlements and the abandonment of the Angkor
region.
The final chapter looks at the
effects of the Warming period on China. Again,
the tropical Pacific played a major role. For
the northern Chinese, the Medieval Warming
Period may have induced a warmer climate, and
there were lengthy dry cycles and periods of
torrential rainfall, again promulgated by
Pacific weather phenomenon. To this day, the
Yellow River basin remains highly vulnerable to
climatic changes.
In The Great Warming,
Fagan has produced a treatise which illustrates
the many ways climate change has affected
populations around the world, not just during
the Medieval Warming Period, but also before and
after. As the Fagan states, our picture of the
period is still hazy, but gaining clarity. The
effects of climate change offer a sobering
message, regardless of whether it is human
induced, or part of a cyclical phenomenon. With
today’s population and population patterns, it’s
unlikely that the reactions to continued warming
would be the same as in the Medieval Warming
Period, but water is of prime importance
to the arid southwest, and a severe lengthy
drought would have disastrous social
implications.
 Cool
It: The Skeptical
Environmentalist’s Guide
to Global Warming
by Bjorn Lomborg
Alford A. Knopf — 2008
ISBN 9780307266927
Danish environmentalist Bjorn
Lomborg, author of controversial bestseller,
The Skeptical Environmentalist, continues
his unconventional campaign to get world leaders
to look at global warming as a long-term
problem, arguing against drastic quick fixes
designed to curb carbon emissions. In Cool It,
Lomborg’s stated argument is four-fold:
-
Global warming is real and
manmade
-
Statements about the strong,
ominous and immediate consequences of global
warming are often wildly exaggerated
-
We need simpler, smarter and
more efficient solutions for global warming
-
Many other issues are much
more important than global warming
Lomborg reminds us that our
ultimate goal is not to reduce greenhouse gases
or global warming per se, but to improve the
quality of life and the environment for future
generations. According to Lomborg, reducing
greenhouse gases is one of the least efficient
ways to do this.
Lomborg points out that if we
didn’t have greenhouse gases, the average
temperature on Earth would be 59 degrees lower,
and life as we know it probably wouldn’t exist.
Lomborg acknowledges that temperature increases
attributed to global warming result in higher
numbers of heat-related deaths, but he also
believes that we too often overlook the
(greater) number of cold-related deaths that
could be mitigated by global warming. After all,
climate change affects temperatures much more in
temperate and Arctic regions than in tropical
areas.
The Kyoto Protocol is the
only international initiative calling for carbon
reduction; by Lomborg’s estimates, Kyoto
will matter little for the climate in the long
run. Even if all nations subscribe to the
Protocol it would only postpone the global
temperature rise by less than seven days into
2100. Most models show the cost to implement the
Protocol at $108 billion annually,
starting in 2008. The real cost comes from
businesses using more expensive alternative
fuels, or other expensive ways to work around
the carbon effect. The question Lomborg raises
is: Are there are better uses of this money?
Lomborg’s answer is a resounding “yes,” listing
pressing issues such as AIDS, malaria and
malnutrition as far more deserving of limited
international funds and attention. As an
economist, Lomborg ranks the risk versus reward
of curbing global warming at the bottom of the
list.
Global resources, according to
Lomborg, should be spent on societal policies
rather than climate (political) policies. For
example, by following climate policies, malaria
deaths might be reduced to 140,000 deaths, while
a social policy of attacking malaria directly
could avert 85 million deaths. Reducing carbon
emissions, just one parameter of climate change,
will save some people from dying from heat, but
cause others to die from cold.
Sensible dialogue about climate
change is difficult, since the media has a
tendency to ride on the catastrophe bandwagon.
Scare tactics sell papers — but they can also
hamper meaningful
dialogue. Prominent politicians and
environmentalists warn us about every calamitous
outcome of global warming, but the serious costs
involved in their proposed solutions are often
glossed over.
Lomborg is concerned that the
public’s understanding of global warming is
severely biased by the media, environmental
pundits and politicians. Melting glaciers,
rising sea levels, extreme weather, flooding
rivers, new ice age, malaria, starvation, and
water shortages — all have been shown to be
gross exaggerations and a diversion from sound
policy judgments. And Lomborg takes issue with
Mann’s “hockey stick” graph of global
temperature changes over the last 1,000 years,
which has been disputed by leading scientists,
but which had been widely accepted as gospel.
Lomborg assails the alarmist view of global
warming and points out that the presentation has
become “politicized science.”
At the heart of Lomborg’s thesis
is a central question: do we want to feel
good, or do we actually want to do good?
Rather than having expensive and inefficient
solutions like Kyoto, Lomborg believes we
should search out new solutions, including
drastically increasing the R&D budget. The only
way to have a prolonged decrease in global warming is
to transition to a non-fossil fuel economy.
Dr. George W. Zobrist is
professor emeritus at the University of
Missouri-Rolla, Department of Computer Science,
IEEE-USA's Member Activities editor, and former
editor of IEEE Potentials.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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