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--></style><title>Brief book review: Oh, what a
punchline</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">Some have been excoriating<i>
National Geographic</i> for the space, ink and photography it's been
giving to the amount of climate change caused by combustion of coal,
oil and gas. Among other such sins, Nat'l Geo published a
book,<i> Six Degrees</i>, by Mark Lynas.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">It's been a while, but I
remember<i> Six Degrees</i> as a pretty dry read, mostly matter of
fact, describing what scientific sleuths have found out about the
consequences of increasingly hotter times. Some of this is now
everyday stuff, with increasingly widespread coverage of the
necessity, even considerable urgency, of avoiding a situation where we
push the worldwide average heat to 2 degrees Celsius -- about 3.5
degrees Fahrenheit -- hotter than it was in pre-industrial
times.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">Chapter by chapter, Lynas takes the
analysis further than the usual media fare. He lays out the tedious
detail of possible and plausible outcomes of getting to 2C, 3C, 4C,
5C, and C. His punchy punchline is that just getting to 2 could lock
us in to 6.</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">After he's taken readers through
six chapters of dry description, here's his paragraph-long
punchline:</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">"If Š we
cross the 'tipping point' of Amazonian collapse and soil carbon
release that lies somewhere above two degrees, then another 250 ppm of
CO2 would pour into the atmosphere, yielding another 1.5C (2.7F) of
warming and taking us straight into the four-degree world. Once we
arrive there, the accelerated release of carbon and methane from
thawing Siberian permafrost will send even more greenhouse gas into
the atmosphere, driving yet more warming, and perhaps pushing us on
into the five-degree world. At this level of warming,
Š organic methane hydrate release becomes a serious
possibility, catapulting us into the ultimate mass extinction
apocalypse of six degrees. The lesson is as clear as it is daunting:
If we are to be confident about saving humanity and the planet from
the worst mass extinction of all time, worse even than that at the end
of the Permian, we must stop at two degrees."<br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Geneva" size="-1">Mark Lynas.<i> Six Degrees</i>.
2008. National Geographic Society by arrangement with HarperCollins.
P.276</font><br>
<font face="Geneva" size="-1" color="#1A1A1A"></font></div>
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