Greenhouse

by Gail E. Christianson

This book tells the history of the phenomenon global warming. How it began to occur, and how we first started to notice it, and a little bit about what we might do about it. Historically it starts at a point just prior to the industrial revolution, detailing all the changes in how mankind has used and created energy, tinkering we've done with fuels and chemicals and other things. And all the bad it has done to the environment. And how much it's been misunderstood or ignored, and the politicking behind making people think it's a non-issue and so on. The history stuff was really interesting, because it connected a lot of ideas and reasons that I'd never realized were related. Also fairly dull to read. I did want to finish it, to see the final points, but it was hard to get there. Of course since the book is over a decade old it's not up-to-date. Some things are, I believe, worse than the author had surmised they would become. Other things he pointed at quickly declining or going extinct, are still here or on the road to recovery. I appreciated that it was pointed out where the science was inconclusive, and where some people thought a warming climate would actually be beneficial. It strikes me as rather crazy that in the 1800's some scientists were already measuring changes in the atmosphere, but they failed to realize it could have such a negative impact.

So much stuff in this book, no way I can relate even a small part of it. Lots of sobering things, and it touches on many other interesting topics including evolution, the rapid growth of the industrial revolution, all the incidents that triggered new inventions therein, pollution, wildlife migrations and scientific feuding to name a few.

Rating: 2/5       305 pages, 1999