Author: Mark Lynas,
HarperPerennial

ISBN 978-0007209057

 

The scenarios predicated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been covered in serious talks, popular science articles and internet discussion forums: by 2100, global warming is expected to be somewhere between one and a half and six degrees, depending on the future behaviour of mankind.  But previously, nobody could really imagine what the practical impact of these abstract figures would be – unless he or she had read the IPCC’s report and the scientific research results on which it is based in detail.


This book saves you the trouble. By his own account, the British environmental activist David Lynas has read and evaluated more than ten thousand articles written by climate scientists, glaciologists, geologists and other specialists, and used them as the basis for this truly extraordinary book. Six Degrees looks at a range of possible futures for our earth, depending on the extent of global warming in the coming decades.

Six Degrees looks at a range of possible futures for our earth, depending on the extent of global warming in the coming decades. Lynas has arranged his book into seven chapters – one for every degree of warming with a seventh chapter to discuss the conclusions. What becomes particularly clear in Six Degrees is that three degrees’ global warming is completely different from three degrees’ variation in temperature throughout the day: some of the most sensitive areas – particularly the high mountain regions and the higher latitudes where most of the freshwater is stored in the form of glaciers – will be most affected by climate change.

 

Even one or two degrees of global warming will result in a massive extinction of species in the polar regions and the high mountain areas of the world. As a climate scientist once put it: “Climate changes force animals to move up the mountains to higher areas – and when they can no longer go any higher, they go to heaven.” According to Lynas, three degrees’ global warming would be sufficient to turn the Amazon region into a semi-arid desert and four degrees’ warming would suffice to melt the polar caps for good.

 

The consequences: among others, an increase in the mean sea level of around 65 metres. A six degrees warmer climate – which scientists believe could occur by 2100 if CO2 emissions continue to increase strongly – has occurred only once in the earth’s history since life began. Some 251 [either “251” or “some 250” –PAW] million years ago the combination of a volcanic explosion, poisonous gases from rotting materials rising out of the oceans, and gigantic methane explosions in the atmosphere resulted in the obliteration of 95 percent of all species on earth.