Product Description

The No Logo of climate change? -- a book that shows how global warming is not something whose existence we should still debate, but something that has already happened, to many millions of people in a variety of ways, causing flooding, desertificaton, icemelt, erosion, drought and fires all across the world. Climate change is no longer a concern for the future. It's happening right now, and in this book -- based on the very latest scientific evidence -- the author takes us around the world to show that the impacts of global warming are already having a tangible effect on people's lives. From houses being washed over by sand in China to the thawing of the Alaskan Arctic, the author witnesses some of the worst impacts of climate change at first hand. Some, like the floods in the UK, are near home. Others -- like the drowning Pacific island of Tuvalu -- are a world away from the car tailpipes and factory chimneys that are causing global warming in the first place. But this isn't simply an inventory of disaster, it's a wry look at how people around the globe are coping as the world they've always known changes at unprecedented speed. And in the process, the author has to eat whale blubber in Alaska, swim in shark-infested waters off the Great Barrier Reef and struggle to the top of Andean peaks in Peru. Alongside the issue of the effects of rootless, lawless transnational capitalism, the already-catastrophic man-made alterations to the global ecosystem will rise, like the oceans, to engulf all other issues worldwide in the coming decades. There is a new twenty-first-century generation of activists being educated right now who will be their blithe, apolitical, party-animal predecessors' salvation. They have one bible already. This is the other one...This, obviously, is an issue that is only going to be more and more present to more and more of us. And this is that issue's indispensable book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #573491 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 341 pages

Review
'With High Tide, Mark Lynas has given us a tremendous gift: he has time-travelled into our terrifying collective future, a future that has already arrived in the farthest reaches of the globe. Go with him on this breathtaking, beautifully told journey -- to island nations being engulfed by rising tides, to towns swallowed by encroaching desert, to glaciers melting into oceans -- and I promise that you will come back changed, determined to alter the course of history.' Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

Independent
'There will be many more books like HIGH TIDE, but this will be remembered as the breaker of new ground.'

New Statesman
'clear, lucid and informative'

Customer Reviews

Withdrawal symptoms
Although many studies of climate change and its impact have been published, few count the human cost. Mark Lynas makes up for that oversight in this vividly presented account. As a journalist, he's unconstrained by the limitations of long-term data sets, political reaction to his personal findings or peer group pressure. He travels the globe, even to the point of last minute flight bookings, to observe conditions. His approach is to confront people and ask about their experiences with changing weather over the years. The method is direct, straightforward and revealing. What it demonstrates is more than startling, it's devastating.

While the scientists debate the temperature rise rate or the intensity of this or that storm, around the planet people are living through the conditions of warming climate. Tuvalu residents, on their miniscule island chain in mid-Pacific, are watching the land wash away. It isn't just that melting ice caps are raising sea levels and ruining crops. There are more frequent and more devastating storms occuring. In China, land is also moving, but the reason is the opposite - the rains have ceased and the land is dried and blowing away in fierce desert winds. The account of a lone woman, the last survivor of a village overwhelmed by drought, is more poignant [to me] than anything found in fiction. And the number of such stories is growing.

If a most gripping part of this book must be chosen, it is Lynas' tour of Peru and the Cordillera Blanca glaciers. His father, a geologist, had visited the area three decades before, camera in hand. Huge glaciers, akin to frozen waterfalls, fill the images. With those photos in his knapsack, Lynas trudges up the slopes, racked by Alititude Sickness, to record any changes. His expression at the sight cannot be repeated here, a signal of his shock - and ours at his comparative photographs. The glaciers are gone! Lynas takes us through a litany of rivers of ice that are withdrawing from long established limits. The withdrawal has a dual results - not enough snow is feeding their growth, and the meltwater is no longer available to nourish human populations. He asks: what will the citizens of Lima do when there is no more water to drink? Lynas avoids prediction of furture El Ninos' impact on these conditions. He's hardly blameable for that. Some observations on North America's depletion of the Ogalalla Aquifer, only partly attributable to overuse of fossil fuels, however, would have been useful.

It is fossil fuel consumption that stands charged, indeed declared guilty by Lynas, as the culprit in these events. The tumultuous clouds of auto exhausts are the major source of gases rising into our atmosphere, choking off proper heat exchange mechanisms. The contributions of the oil industry to politicians short circuits any political action to curb these emmissions. Hence, Tuvalu is being swept away, China is choking with dust and Lima, Peru will soon be seeking homes for its million citizens. But the United States, the world's greatest and most persistent polluter, decrys or subverts all efforts to quell the output of their millions of vehicles, while assiduously searching for more to burn.

Lynas is unequivical in his denunciations. At the same time, he invokes response from his readers to take action. Pollution increases can be curbed, he argues in his conclusion. It is you who must take the first steps. America, he stresses, must follow the lead of the European Union. Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is the first step - a committment to stop, then reduce emissions. "Contraction and convergence" policies must be implemented as a means of reducing emissions with a minimal impact on economies. The quest for new supplies of fossil fuels must cease and the funds used to promote alternative energy sources. Individual actions, amazingly easy small steps, must be taken and imparting to others the need follow your example spreads the message. "Don't be scared to speak out!", he warns. Who should read his warning message? Anyone who breathes - and wishes to continue breathing. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

It won't go away if you just ignore it
So Climate Change is happening - it is destroying the world, dramatically.Lynas takes us to the places it is affecting, he endures some of thehardships it is causing, we through his excellent writing can empathise.But, we keep behaving in a way that causes Climate Change, the question iswhy? Lynas says we are in denial, that we are passive bystanders. Most ofus when we have finished reading this book will put it down and think 'Ishould do something about this, the world's governments should dosomething about this.' The reality is that nothing much will happenbecause we live in a culture that constructs needs and wants that make usbehave in a way that causes climate change. What we need is a culturalshift, so that our needs and wants are fulfilled by non-materialthings.
When you have finished Mark Lynas and you understand a bit about climatechange and why it needs to be addressed, read Status Anxiety by Alain deBotton - you might just re think what you NEED and WANT.

Compulsory Reading
High Tide is a simple idea brilliantly executed: to visit the far flung places around the globe most affected by global warming. Global warming to date is nowhere near as apparent in the UK and other Western countries as it is in other parts of the world - yet.

I had no doubt whatsoever after reading this book that it was only a matter of time, though, before every person on the planet is affected directly by this catastrophe unfolding in front of us, if only we could see!

The really striking thing about the book is just how many different types of country are affected in different ways. The eponymous rising sea levels are just one of a number of ways in which this problem is already affecting so many different communities. Hot countries, cold countries, dry countries and wet countries will all be devastated over the course of the next few years unless action is taken immediately.

Read it and act now!