Product Description

In 2001 an international panel of distinguished climate scientists announced that the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The story of how scientists reached that conclusion - by way of unexpected twists and turns - was the story Spencer Weart told in "The Discovery of Global Warming". Now he brings his award-winning account up to date, revised throughout to reflect the latest science and with a new conclusion that shows how the scientific consensus caught fire among the general world public, and how a new understanding of the human meaning of climate change spurred individuals and governments to action.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126532 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory [of global warming], Weart dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists' views and the public reception their work received." - Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Book Review"

About the Author
Spencer R. Weart is Director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. He is the author of Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Harvard).

Customer Reviews

Landfall or a bank of cloud?
The title displays the author's ambition,but perhaps also his anxiety. "Discovery" indicates something irrefutably present and it is clearly his intention to take us on chartered course to what,to him, seems an unavoidable destination - a land in which anthropogenic global warming is significant, imminent and destructive.
The story of changing perceptions among 20th century climatologists is told soberly and with some wit but one senses, as the history reaches the last decade, the dispassionate mood dissolving.There is a growing tetchiness on the part of the author towards the awkward squad of scientists who refuses to embrace the proper conclusion.
The penultimate chapter, breezily entitled "The discovery confirmed" puts much emphasis on the vaunting ambitions of those who deal in weather speculation -the computer modellers- and the self-reinforcing righteousness of those moralisers who trot behind the IPCC wagon train.It would have been better if the author had paid more heed to those (within and without the IPCC) who draw their less theatrical conclusions from the weather we have seen rather than the weather we can imagine. He fights shy of examining troubling weaknesses in what still remains a hypothesis. The book is worth reading but the initial objectivity is not sustained; description descends into denunciation.

An important book
Despite the flat earthers who will not accept what everyone from NASA to Stephen Hawking, to Harvard to Yale to Oxford to Cambridge to the American Academy of Sciences has - that climate change is deadly serious and caused by human activity - this book shows exactly why you should be getting involved and tking this issue seriously. It explains how the world started to wake up to what is happening. If you want to know who has tried to stop us from taking any action read the brilliant and essential BOILING POINT by the Pulitzer prize winning author Ross Gelbspan

How scientists confirmed global warning
Drawing from scientific discoveries in oceanography, meteorology, geochemistry, biology and astrophysics, author Spencer R. Weart draws you into the puzzle of climate change as it is unfolding through time. No one person had an "aha" moment and discovered global warming. Instead, today's understanding required an accumulation of theories from disparate areas of research, shaped by the rigors of the scientific method. These discoveries convinced most scientists that global warming is a serious phenomenon. Weart outlines the scientific process that led to today's climate diagnosis. He also relates lively stories about the people behind the discoveries. That may not be as immediately applicable, but getAbstract finds that it is illuminating and could help readers feel like insiders in this fight.