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The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

Tim Flannery. 2006. Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. 352 pp., hardbound. $25.

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Scarcely a day goes by without one more article in the newspaper on some new twist in the climate-change story. I suspect that many people respond as I do: Skim the headline, turn the page, and look for some news. Everyone is aware of the threats posed by global warming, if only from the apocalyptic (and error-ridden) 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow. (Far fewer understand how and why the climate is changing—it's not easy.) But, except in the Hollywood version, can climate change really be the end of the world?

If you think not, as I did, read The Weather Makers. It's easy to dismiss the doomsday scenario of a film script, but the dire predictions of renowned scientist Tim Flannery are hard to discount. His reading of the evidence convinced him that unless the world gets serious about dramatically reducing its carbon footprint, starting today, we really could be looking at the end of civilization as we know it. Not the day after tomorrow, but almost certainly in the lifetimes of our grandchildren.

Flannery is the director of the South Australian Museum, a professor at the University of Adelaide, and one of Australia's leading thinkers. In addition to his specialized scientific writing, he contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books, and is the author of acclaimed books for the general public, including environmental histories of Australia (The Future Eaters) and North America (The Eternal Frontier), both of which I highly recommend.

A biologist and conservationist, Flannery admits he came to be interested in and concerned about the effects of climate change only recently—in 2001—believing there were more immediate threats, such as rampant habitat destruction, to the world's flora and fauna. Then he started reading that species are being driven to extinction right now by changing climate in the habitats left to them. This spurred him to delve into a scientific literature new to him so he could get to the bottom of what was going on. The Weather Makers is the result of his study, and a call to all of us to take action.

Apart from the reputation of its author, what's so persuasive about The Weather Makers is Flannery's inexorable piling on of facts—what is known with scientific certainty—coupled with careful explication of the scientific evidence that underpins predictions about the future. What's more, he offers his readers an excellent introduction to climatology, including the history of climate change and its impacts over the last 65 million years. Flannery makes this complex science accessible and offers explanations for the uncertainties that lead some to question whether human-induced climate change is a real problem and whether we really have to do anything at all. After reading this book, nonspecialists will truly understand what all the fuss is about, and how human activities, especially the use of fossil fuels, are responsible for modern climate change. As Flannery puts it, "We are now the weather makers... ."

For at least a few species, it's already too late. The golden toad, a once-common (and uncommonly beautiful) species in the cloud forests of Costa Rica, went extinct when an abrupt rise in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean reduced the amount of mist in its habitat to the point that the toads simply dried out. Many other mountain-dwelling species are on a similar sort of reverse slippery slope. When circumstances change within a species' habitat—get hotter or colder, wetter or dryer—the animals and plants either adapt to the new conditions, migrate to find new suitable habitat, or go extinct as the golden toad has. Very rapidly changing conditions tend to preclude adaptation, and migration is only possible when there is somewhere to migrate to, which is particularly problematical when you live in an isolated or island habitat from which there is no exit, or within a narrow altitudinal climate belt on a mountain.

Our beloved giant pandas provide a simplified example. The bamboos that pandas depend on grow higher than about 6,600 feet above sea level, where it is cool and wet. As temperatures rise, so too will the bamboo belt, and the pandas will have to migrate with the bamboo. This is all well and good—until the bamboo and the pandas get to the top of the mountain and fall off.

The human species isn't in danger of falling off the mountains or migrating lemming-like into the sea, although people who live in coastal areas may be inundated by rising sea levels that result from melting glaciers. But Flannery does paint a pretty gloomy picture of the quality of life our grandchildren can expect if we don't become responsible weather makers: enormous losses of biodiversity; food shortages as highly productive agricultural land changes in extent and distribution; increased conflict between the haves and the have-nots; and more and bigger floods, droughts, heat waves, and storms—think Hurricane Katrina many times over—will lead to huge economic losses. It is telling that the insurance industry is one of the most concerned about future climate change, predicting rising claims they cannot absorb.

Surprisingly, Flannery ends on a positive note. With enough political will, the governments of the world can stabilize the Earth's temperature before disaster becomes unavoidable. And Flannery recommends that individuals take their own action—simple things like walking more and driving less, and using the most energy-efficient products possible—and harder ones, like using solar panels to heat your household water, which, Flannery reports, is eminently doable and affordable. Even with concerted effort, it will be too late for some species and some places, but many more will survive, and our grandchildren will thank us.

—Susan Lumpkin

ZooGoer 35(2) 2006. Copyright 2006 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.

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