Product Description

An eye-opening and vital account of the future of our earth, and our civilisation, if current rates of global warming persist, by the highly acclaimed author of 'High Tide'. Picture yourself a few decades from now, in a world in which average temperatures are three degrees higher than they are now. On the edge of Greenland, rivers ten times the size of the Amazon are gushing off the ice sheet into the north Atlantic. Displaced victims of North Africa's drought establish a new colony on Greenland's southern tip, one of the few inhabitable areas not already crowded with environmental refugees. Vast pumping systems keep the water out of most of Holland, but the residents of Bangladesh and the Nile Delta enjoy no such protection. Meanwhile, in New York, a Category 5-plus superstorm pushes through the narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn, devastating waterside areas from Long Island to Manhattan. Pakistan, crippled by drought brought on by disappearing Himalayan glaciers, sees 27 million farmers flee to refugee camps in neighbouring India.Its desperate government prepares a last-ditch attempt to increase the flow of the Indus river by bombing half-constructed Indian dams in Kashmir. The Pakistani president authorises the use of nuclear weapons in the case of an Indian military counter-strike. But the biggest story of all comes from South America, where a conflagration of truly epic proportions has begun to consume the Amazon! Alien as it all sounds, Mark Lynas's incredible new book is not science-fiction; nor is it sensationalist. The title, 'Six Degrees', refers to the terrifying possibility that average temperatures will rise by up to six degrees within the next hundred years. This is the first time we have had a reliable picture of how the collapse of our civilisation will unfold unless urgent action is taken. Most vitally, Lynas's book serves to highlight the fact that the world of 2100 doesn't have to be one of horror and chaos. With a little foresight, some intelligent strategic planning, and a reasonable dose of good luck, we can at least halt the catastrophic trend into which we have fallen -- but the time to act is now.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3186 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'Scientists predict that global temperatures will rise by between one and six degrees over the course of this century and Mark Lynas paints a chilling, degree-by-degree picture of the devastation likely to ensue unless we act now!"Six Degrees" is a rousing and vivid plea to choose a different future.' Daily Mail 'The saga of how, in the world as imagined by thousands of computer-modelling studies, global warming kicks in degree by degree. "Six Degrees", I tell you now, is terrifying.' Sunday Times 'Buy this book for everyone you know: if it makes them join the fight to stop the seemingly inexorable six degrees of warming and mass death, it might just save their lives.' New Statesman 'An apocalyptic primer of what to expect as the world heats up!it's sobering stuff and shaming too. Despite its sound scientific background, the book resembles one of those vivid medieval paintings depicting sinners getting their just desserts.' Financial Times 'Gripping ***.' The Scotsman 'Mark Lynas!has time-travelled into our terrifying collective future!Go with him on this breathtaking, beautifully told journey!I promise that you will come back!determined to alter the course of history.' Naomi Klein, author of 'No Logo' 'Clear, lucid and informative.' New Statesman 'A thoroughly engaging and well-researched book.' Times Literary Supplement 'Written with passion and packed with an impressive amount of information.' The Guardian 'In this highly accessible book, Lynas lays out just what we can expect with each progressive temperature rise, before stating exactly what needs to happen regarding decreasing carbon emissions, among other things. This stuff used to be the preserve of scientists and governments. As Lynas makes painfully clear, it is now our problem, too.' Metro

Independent
`This book is not for the faint-hearted...Lynas gives us something think about.'

Financial Times
'An apocalyptic primer of what to expect as the world heats
up...it's sobering stuff and shaming too.'

Customer Reviews

Come on...
For crying out loud, why don't we all open our mouths and swallow whatever rot the 'IPCC' feed us. There are so many flaws with this book that can only be seen as propoganda aimed at people who cannot think for themselves. Yes, global warming is almost certainly occurring but it has been blown out of all proportion and all to benefit propositions made by the government. (Carbon taxes to name but one, however that's a whole different kettle of fish.) Look at the End-Permian extinction. An approximated rise in temperature of 5 degrees Celcius is believed to have wiped out the vast majority of terrestrial and marine life. Do you really think this took a century?! Evidence pointing to the Permo-Triassic extinction has been locked away in stratigraphy - the thickness of which is substantianly more than could be deposited in a century! Think between 100,000 to 300,000 years worth.

So come on Mark Lynas, 6 degrees celcius in a century is hugely arrogant because we are so insignificant regarding global surface processes. If you were to look at recent scientific papers, you might be surprised to find that climatologists and geologists predict a 0.8 degree rise in temperature over the next century.

File this one under fantasy.

This book could save your life
This is the best book on the subject I have ever read and I feel it should be mandatory for all school children over 12 years old. I have been following the global warming debate for over 20 years now (both as an environmentalist and former journalist) from its early days when there were a few very worried scientists getting trashed by the politicians to protect big business, to now when we have thousands of very worried leading scientists and terrified experts of the highest calibre getting trashed by politicians to protect big business. This book is vital and I only wish it could have appeared ten years ago when we still had a chance of making a real difference. The science that Lynas reviews is the best available to us and he communicates difficult subject matter very clearly and with real skill. For such a dry subject (no pun intended) the book is actually quite gripping but it doesn't fall into the easy trap of trivialising or sensationalising the raw data. Let's face it, these are terrifying enough on their own. Read it, it could save your life.

Lynas paints a possible apocalyptic future for us all
Mark Lynas had spent months in libraries reading and taking notes about future global weather changes from scientific journals and from his studies he has put together this book.
The book explains to the reader what would happen to the planet if it were to get six degrees hotter over the next 100 years.
Each chapter explains what would happen to world as it got 1 degree hotter.
Chapter 1 explains what would happen if the planet got one degree hotter and chapter 6 finishes by explaining what would happen if the planet got six degrees hotter.
This book is not easy to digest as it paints a very apocalyptic future for us humans should climate change not be halted.
In the final chapter Mark explains how we can prevent this scenario ever happening.
A very different book from Al Gore's inconvient truth in a sense that this book looks at what could happen rather than what is happening now.
If the subject global warming interests you than this book is well worth a read and will give you a great insight in future life on earth if we fail to act now.