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

by Tim Flannery
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, c2005.
Call No.: English 363.73874 FLA (Click here for item availability)

In The Weather Makers, Australian biologist Tim Flannery details the history and future impact of climate change.  Climate is a complex, dynamic subject, and it is no mean feat translating complicated concepts such as thermal inertia and global climate modelling into clear language for the layman. (So influential was this book and Flannery’s writings on climate change that Flannery was named Australian of the Year in 2007.) Flannery may be an evolutionary biologist by training, and it shows in his careful explanations of millions of years of climatic changes and his loving descriptions of species threatened by climate change, but he also does a spectacular job of explaining how climate has shaped not just ecosystems but also modern civilisation.

Flannery walks the reader through the various aspects of the climate change discussion, starting with climate history and impact to understanding the science and the political, social, and economic dimensions of the debate, making the Weather Makers not just an interdisciplinary tour de force, but also a useful primer for those new to the subject. Flannery himself came to the global warming topic almost from a sceptical bent, and the opening narrative describes a man who as a good scientist came to see the science as being irrefutable, before finally making the impassioned case that action needs to be taken on climate change now.

And so it is that the Weather Makers cuts through the thicket of climate scepticism, explaining how the scientific evidence is almost certainly that climate change is manmade, and that climate change is likely to affect at least the 70% of the world that will be alive in 2050, and even people living today, and that ‘uncertainty’ has never been a cause for inaction. Yes, Flannery notes, the earth has seen dramatic changes in climate in eras and periods in the past, caused by natural events.  But what is unprecedented is that “some time this century the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all natural factors”.

This is “popular science” – a term sometimes seen as derisive – at its best. Flannery walks through his argument without ever talking down to readers, understanding the strong institutional and political forces that prefer the status quo, but compellingly arguing that adopting certain solutions to lower greenhouse gases now would be preferable to a world so overwhelmed by climate-related security problems that the only solution might be the tyrannic control of a “carbon dictatorship”. As a pragmatist, he recognises that nuclear power might be appropriate means of lowering the world’s carbon production in certain contexts. He also appeals for personal action, providing some good (if sometimes Australia-specific) suggestions for what you and I as individuals can do.

Reviewed by Daryl Sng

(Editor’s Note - Daryl, who works for MEWR (www.mewr.gov.sg), contributes the review in his personal capacity. He blogs at http://www.dsng.net )

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