This is the book the world has been waiting for--and needing--for decades.At last, a book that sets out, for the general public, the irrefutable evidence that climate change is already happening, and we need to become very serious about it--fast.

Of the doomsday clocks ticking toward midnight, climate change is the most fearful. To learn what is known, one cannot do better than read Tim Flannery's eloquent and authoritative account in The Weather Makers.Understanding is the first step toward salvation.

With The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery, himself a creative scientist, adds a blend of poetical writing and historical perspective to an amazingly clear and comprehensive tour of the complex climate-change world. He starts in early Earth history and brings us to the present predicament--and names names of who is primarily responsible--us, especially via careless management, crass consumerism, corporate greed, political corruption, and media indifference. This is a beautifully written guide for anyone interested in the increasingly serious climate-change problem to learn what is going on.

Until The Weather Makers, nobody since Bill McKibben had told the tale of what this global-warming beast will be like as it awakens. Super hurri canes are understood as omens as Flannery weaves the science, politics, and the economics together in a tale as frightening as it must have been when Hitler was marching across Europe. When he writes, 'there has been little reason for our blindness, except perhaps for an unwillingness to look such horror in the face and say,“You are my creation,” ' I believe he will inspire us to destroy this creation before it destroys us.

  FOREWORD xvii

     MAP xviii

THE SLOW AWAKENING

        PART  I

GAIA'S TOOLS

GAIA 11

THE GREAT AERIAL OCEAN 19

THE GASEOUS GREENHOUSE  27

THE SAGES AND THE ONION SKIN 36

TIME'S GATEWAYS 45

BORN IN THE DEEP FREEZE  54

MAKING THE LONG SUMMER 63

DIGGING UP THE DEAD  69

         PART 2

ONE IN TEN THOUSAND

THE UNRAVELING WORLD  83

PERIL AT THE POLES  95

2050: THE GREAT STUMPY REEF? 104

A WARNING FROM THE GOLDEN TOAD 114

AN ENERGETIC ONION SKIN 135

PLAYING AT CANUTE  142

             PART 3

THE SCIENCE OF PREDICTION

MODEL WORLDS  153

   THE COMMITMENT AND

APPROACHING EXTREME DANGER 166

LEVELING THE MOUNTAINS 171

HOW CAN THEY KEEP ON MOVING? 178

BOILING THE ABYSS 184

THE PACK OF JOKERS  189

   CIVILIZATION:

OUT WITH A WHIMPER? 203

           PART 4

PEOPLE IN GREENHOUSES

A CLOSE-RUN THING 213

THE ROAD TO KYOTO  222

COST, COST, COST 232

PEOPLE IN GREENHOUSES

SHOULDN'T TELL LIES 239

ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS? 249

LAST STEPS ON THE

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN?  258

      PART 5

 THE SOLUTION

BRIGHT AS SUNLIGHT,

 LIGHT AS WIND 267

NUCLEAR LAZARUS?  272

OF HYBRIDS, MINICATS, AND

   CONTRAILS  279

THE LAST ACT OF GOD? 284

2084: THE CARBON DICTATORSHIP? 290

TIME'S UP 296

OVER TO YOU 302

     POSTSCRIPT 307

     AFTERWORD 308

CLIMATE CHANGE CHECKLIST 316

    GREEN POWER 317

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 318

    ILLUSTRATIONS 319

        NOTES 320

        INDEX 344