Summary

Evidence of rising temperatures, melting ice, rising sea levels, and damage to flora and fauna on land and in the oceans has been accumulating for several decades. Scientific bodies around the world have traced this trend to increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, most of it attributable to the consumption of fossil fuels. Despite the evidence, political debate still rages over the existence of global warming. Global Warming in the 21st Century provides a detailed review of the accumulating evidence of global warming, from the Arctic and Antarctic to the tropics, focusing special attention on a number of processes that will accelerate warming as the century passes. Extensive warming also could endanger sea life through the devastation of phytoplankton populations at the base of the oceanic food chain.

Bruce Johansen presents scientific theories on the subject that conflict with popular assumptions and explains that global warming is a slow-motion crisis in which the effects of greenhouse gas emissions are not evident in the atmosphere until roughly a half-century after they occur. Extensive reports from scientific literature explain how ozone depletion in the stratosphere and warming near the surface of the Earth are related. This three-volume work also proposes detailed solutions to global warming, including a worldwide overhaul in energy systems that will go beyond the initial diplomatic efforts of the Kyoto Protocol.

The set ends with one of the most extensive bibliographies in the field and includes more than 80 color and black and white illustrations.

Choice Review

Johansen is an accomplished wordsmith who uses his fluency in the natural sciences and the human condition to fashion a compelling argument for change in the energy industry. Although he couches his apocalyptic view of future global climate change within a context of real events, his anecdotal descriptions of melting glaciers, drowning polar bears looking for Arctic ice, spruce bark beetles destroying forests, Russian peat bogs smoldering, and grass sprouting on the Antarctic peninsula are factual and alarming. The first recorded landing of sea turtles on Kodiak Island in Alaska, northern permafrost that is no longer permanent, the projected loss of the maple sugar industry in New England, increasing numbers of wildfires, and, of course, dramatic increases in summer temperatures in the Arctic and global illustrations of elevated sea levels add impetus to Johansen's concerns. Apart from a confusing conclusion that "gas mileage for U.S. internal combustion engines has declined during the last two decades" and the pique expressed toward George W. Bush and GM's Hummer, the subject of global climate change is expertly presented. The three-volume set concludes with a list of solutions to the current threat, along with many useful references. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. R. M. Ferguson Eastern Connecticut State University

Library Journal Review

Johansen (communication & Native American studies, Univ. of Nebraska) presents an updated and expanded version of his 2001 book, The Global Warming Desk Reference, although neither title can be characterized as a reference source in the traditional sense. Three volumes-Our Evolving Climate Crisis, Melting Ice and Warming Seas, and Plants and Animals in Peril-are divided into 20 chapters, each approximately 20-50 pages long. Johansen serves a wake-up call to naysayers, listing the scientific evidence of global warming in terms of its effects on icecaps, oceans, plants, and animals. He also provides examples of how the United States and other nations are (or are not) reacting to this impending catastrophe. Although he uses scientific data to back his argument, Johansen seems to rely heavily on newspaper reportage. The use of more than 80 black-and-white photographs diminishes the impact of seeing, e.g., the receding snow on Mount Kilimanjaro. Perhaps not as well written as Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth or Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, this book may nonetheless be useful to students for its compilation of facts and 100-page bibliography. However, for an overview of such specific topics as the Kyoto Protocol, they would be better off with a resource like the Encyclopedia of Global Change. Recommended as a supplementary purchase for public libraries and undergraduate collections.-Teresa U. Berry, Univ. of Tennessee Libs., Knoxville (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.