With Speed and Violence Fred Pearce - Global Commons Institute

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THE ANTHROPOCENE A new name for a new geological era Welcome to the Anthropocene. It's a new geological era, so take a good look around. A single species is in charge of the planet, altering its features almost at will. And what more natural than to name this new era after that top-of-the-heap anthropoid, ourselves? The term was coined in 2000 by the Nobel Prize—winning Dutch atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen to describe the past two centuries of our planet's evolution. "I was at a conference where someone said something about the Holocene, the long period of relatively stable climate since the end of the last ice age," he told me later. "I suddenly thought that this was wrong. The world has changed too much. So I said: 'No, we are in the Anthropocene.' I just made up the word on the spur of the moment. Everyone was shocked. But it seems to have stuck." The word is catching on among a new breed of scientists who study Earth systems—how our planet functions. Not just climate systems, but also related features, such as the carbon cycle on land and at sea, the stratosphere and its ozone layer, ocean circulation, and the ice of the cryosphere. And those scientists are coming to believe that some of these systems are close to breakdown, because of human interference. If that is true, then the gradual global warming predicted by most climate models for the next centuries will be the least of our worries.
The big new discovery is that planet Earth does not generally engage in gradual change. It is far cruder and nastier, says Will Steffen, an Australian expert on climate and carbon cycles who from 1998 to 2004 was director of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, a research agency dedicated to investigating Earth systems. A mild-mannered man not given to hyperbole, Steffen nonetheless takes a hard-nosed approach to climate change. "Abrupt change seems to be the norm, not the exception," he says. We have been lured into a false sense of security by the relatively quiet climatic era during which our modern complex civilizations have grown and flourished. It may also have left us unexpectedly vulnerable as we stumble into a new era of abrupt change. We have also been blind, he says, to the extent of the damage we are doing to our planetary home. We often see our impact as limited to individual parts of the system: to trashed rainforests, polluted oceans, and even raised air temperatures. We rarely notice that by doing all these things at once, we are undermining the basic planetary systems. Something, Steffen says, is going to give: "The planet may have an Achilles heel. And if it does, we badly need to know about it." Without that knowledge and the will to act, he says, the Anthropocene may well end in tears. A report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2002, under the chairmanship of Richard Alley, of Penn State University—a glaciologist with the slightly manic appearance of an ex-hippie, who has become a regular on Capitol Hill for his ability to talk climate science in plain language—sounded a similar warning. "Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed," the report began. "The new paradigm of an abruptly changing climate system has been
Page 1 and 2: WITH SPEED AND VIOLENCE
Page 3 and 4: We are on the precipice of climate
Page 5 and 6: CHRONOLOGY OF CLIMATE CHANGE 5 bill
Page 7 and 8: 1970s Beginning of strong global wa
Page 9 and 10: James Croll, a nineteenth-century S
Page 11 and 12: PREFACE: THE CHIMNEY The Greenland
Page 13 and 14: But even as he gazed on these dynam
Page 15 and 16: INTRODUCTION Some environmental sto
Page 17 and 18: Type II climate change became, in t
Page 19 and 20: eally dire times ahead. Having a da
Page 21 and 22: with his wife gone, he had few dist
Page 23 and 24: more than 80 percent for dark ocean
Page 25 and 26: climates, especially as regards the
Page 27 and 28: y nature. By the late 1960s he had
Page 29 and 30: TURNING UP THE HEAT A skeptic's gui
Page 31 and 32: These findings alone should be enou
Page 33 and 34: 1970s readings at night should be r
Page 35 and 36: ecause they can happen by chance; b
Page 37 and 38: The current climate models concur w
Page 39 and 40: early 2005: "By ignoring these outl
Page 41 and 42: whole communities. A thousand peopl
Page 43: drought regions and droughts to nor
Page 47 and 48: Similar switchback temperature chan
Page 49 and 50: fulfill the expectations of climate
Page 51 and 52: THE WATCHTOWER Keeping climate vigi
Page 53 and 54: etreated about 3 miles back up the
Page 55 and 56: for meat, but will sink their teeth
Page 57 and 58: and birds. But the very highest con
Page 59 and 60: on summer vacation from chairing an
Page 61 and 62: There is another driver for the mel
Page 63 and 64: ON THE SLIPPERY SLOPE Greenland is
Page 65 and 66: For many centuries these great ice
Page 67 and 68: lasted for a decade or more now," h
Page 69 and 70: esults of a detailed satellite rada
Page 71 and 72: things go wrong, it could just be d
Page 73 and 74: The demise of the Larsen B ice shel
Page 75 and 76: slab of ice the size of Spain at th
Page 77 and 78: At a time when everyone else saw An
Page 79 and 80: glaciers were responding to a rapid
Page 81 and 82: The East Antarctic ice sheet is the
Page 83 and 84: RISING TIDES Saying "toodle-oo" to
Page 85 and 86: a lagoon, with the open ocean on th
Page 87 and 88: How could such a thing have happene
Page 89 and 90: III. RIDING THE CARBON CYCLE IN THE
Page 91 and 92: some extent, adapted to drought. Bu
Page 93 and 94: ains returned. The forest may recov
Page 95 and 96:
process ultimately drives winter st
Page 97 and 98:
vegetation that had fallen into the
Page 99 and 100:
Every year, farmers continue burnin
Page 101 and 102:
annual emissions from power plants,
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escaped from western European fores
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many anticipated. And many believe
Page 107 and 108:
Perhaps understandably, such studie
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The entire western Siberian peat bo
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freezing over in winter. And Euan N
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character: it has passed to the pla
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movements of the tree line; examini
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There is nothing unusual about Stor
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along the melting-point isotherm is
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carbon dioxide seems to seesaw betw
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"Corals could be rare on the tropic
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THE WINDS OF CHANGE Tsunamis, megaf
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ut even so, they could not have del
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cattle—and primates. And among th
Page 131 and 132:
Meanwhile, pockmarks are turning up
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een enough, he said, to melt clathr
Page 135 and 136:
The prognosis, Mienert says, is wor
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also releases more energy, so event
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absorbed. But that is just an avera
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darker landscape will be more than
Page 143 and 144:
the temperature range. It showed a
Page 145 and 146:
absence—are most pronounced in de
Page 147 and 148:
Murphy took a standard climate mode
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We can see evidence of this already
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more sober colleagues registered ag
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though, have some scattering effect
Page 155 and 156:
A BILLION FIRES How brown haze coul
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now refuse to discuss the subject w
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importance for a country entirely d
Page 161 and 162:
amounts of heat into the upper atmo
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called oxidation. To take one examp
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ecause the smog itself prevents ult
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ICE AGES AND SOLAR PULSES: GOLDILOC
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enough to freeze the carbon dioxide
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system called Gaia. It may also exp
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in ice sheets forming in the Northe
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enormous hippopotami and gigantic c
Page 177 and 178:
Astronomical forces, he discovered,
Page 179 and 180:
In fact it turned out that Croll wa
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exactly what limited it. Why, after
Page 183 and 184:
There may have been other feedbacks
Page 185 and 186:
gradually raising temperatures. The
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collaborator Gerard Bond, a man a d
Page 189 and 190:
had done the same thing around Anta
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feature in keeping the region warm,
Page 193 and 194:
But all this is models. What eviden
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modelers feared. But there did seem
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Then the unthinkable happened: the
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Richard Alley, who was there handli
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The vast inrush of cold freshwater
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It took about 1,300 years before th
Page 205 and 206:
THE PULSE How the sun makes climate
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If the Viking settlers had followed
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period than it was in the early twe
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perplexing that such a widespread e
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What climatic events would send vas
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event, followed by five less and le
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Bond came up trumps again. The evid
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TROPICAL HEAT THE FALL The end of A
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filled mostly by leaking wadis in t
Page 223 and 224:
sun sufficient to reduce temperatur
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idea, with plenty of adherents. Rei
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Dust Bowl years. In 2002, it fell t
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some places. But the rain-bearing w
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University, two fifths of the dust
Page 233 and 234:
TROPICAL HIGH Why an ice man is rew
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horseback onto the high slopes of t
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ago and then moved north, becoming
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in ice in Alaska. It is already pro
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Mesopotamia. Its rule extended all
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monsoon region of the Himalayas, to
Page 245 and 246:
A CHUNK OF CORAL Probing the hidden
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heat energy than the entire atmosph
Page 249 and 250:
Through isotopic analysis, Schrag e
Page 251 and 252:
Nina events will still happen occas
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how they possibly worked it out." P
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famine has fallen. There are many r
Page 257 and 258:
snow on the Tibetan plateau in spri
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AT THE MILLENNIUM: THE HEAT WAVE Th
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temperatures and the start of the h
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THE HOCKEY STICK Why now really is
Page 265 and 266:
dismissing Inhofe as "the single la
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twentieth-century levels, and this
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HURRICANE SEASON Raising the storm
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account an increasing coastal popul
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analysis, Gray argues, the hurrican
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that "the contention that hurricane
Page 278 and 279:
But even if we don't yet see "super
Page 280 and 281:
OZONE HOLES IN THE GREENHOUSE Why m
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Cambridge in 1984 to finish his pap
Page 284 and 285:
atmosphere is not quite so stable a
Page 286 and 287:
INEVITABLE SURPRISES: THE DANCE The
Page 288 and 289:
But that doesn't mean that the Arct
Page 290 and 291:
Manchester United wouldn't be playi
Page 292 and 293:
NEW HORIZONS Feedbacks from the str
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The idea that the South may lead in
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Like El Nino, the Arctic Oscillatio
Page 298 and 299:
has seen air temperatures rise by 5
Page 300 and 301:
The stratosphere and its influence
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CONCLUSION: ANOTHER PLANET Over the
Page 304 and 305:
ocean floor. Until it stops. Who kn
Page 306 and 307:
In the past, if we got things wrong
Page 308 and 309:
consensus, especially in Europe, th
Page 310 and 311:
the air will flatten out. Reaching
Page 312 and 313:
view. "It makes a lot of sense to t
Page 314 and 315:
While the U.S. and Australia emit a
Page 316 and 317:
improving energy efficiency in buil
Page 318 and 319:
emissions from the projected 15.4 b
Page 320 and 321:
economist William Nordhaus suggests
Page 322 and 323:
climate change that this book has c
Page 324 and 325:
Carbon cycle The natural exchange o
Page 326 and 327:
Little ice age The period from the
Page 328 and 329:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Where to start? In
Page 330 and 331:
superseded during 2007 by the Fourt
Page 332 and 333:
12. WILD FIRES OF B ORNEO I visited
Page 334 and 335:
22. THE BIG FREEZE The best read on
Page 336:
34. H URRICANE SEASON I spoke to Co
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With Speed and Violence Fred Pearce - Global Commons Institute

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