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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 10, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1997

BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS...
OF GENERAL INTEREST

Information given in the annotations is frequently taken from publishers' promotional literature. Prices and page numbers may be approximate; contact publisher for details and additional information on content. Publishers are named in parentheses at the end of each citation; addresses when known are listed at the end of this section. In most cases, books advertised by publishers with an expected publication date are not listed here until actually in print.

Item #d97sep49

Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect: A Primer, GreenLife Society-N. America, 1997, $15 (Greenlife).

An updated monograph intended for undergraduate and graduate classes in several disciplines, as well as for nonscientists. Major sections include global warming and the greenhouse effect, the global warming debate, international legal responses, and the history of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Also reprints several major related political documents.

Item #d97sep50

Vital Signs 1997: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future, L.R. Brown, M. Renner, C. Flavin, June 1997, $12 (Worldwatch). Data also available on diskette; paper copy and Jan. 1998 diskette update included, $89.

Topics covered in this year's edition are energy, atmospheric and economic key indicators, and storm damage trends. Special features include forest loss, stratospheric ozone, and electric cars.

Item #d97sep51

Canada and the State of the Planet, M. Keating for the Canadian Global Change Prog., 100 pp., 1997, CDN$12.95 Published in English by Oxford Univ. Press; in French by Editions Multimondes.

Most of the information about climate change, ozone depletion and other major environmental issues comes to the public in disconnected bits and pieces. This book, Canada's first annual report on global environmental changes, makes sense of the information flood in a comprehensive way by explaining environmental trends, and the social and environmental forces that drive environmental change.

Item #d97sep52

The Heat Is On: The High Stakes Battle over Earth's Threatened Climate, R. Gelbspan, 1997, 278 pp., $23 (Addison-Wesley).

An expansion of an article that originally appeared in Harper's magazine; briefly reviewed by F. Pearce in New Scientist (p. 45, Aug. 9, 1997). Pearce states this is an advocates' book. Nevertheless, his reporting is reasonably fair, his dissection of industry funding of the skeptics is scrupulous, and his portrayal of the skeptics is not ungenerous.

Item #d97sep53

The Manic Sun, N. Calder, 1997, £24.95 (Pilkington Press).

Questions the motives and integrity of scientists who claim that global warming is here and will get worse. Promotes the work of two Danish scientists who say the Sun is changing the climate more than are greenhouse gases. Fred Pearce in New Scientist (p. 45, Aug. 9, 1997), concludes that the idea is intriguing, if inconclusive, but criticizes the author for elevating greenhouse skeptics to heroic status. Mining Week (p. 3, June 2, 1997), comments that the book shows that the greenhouse effect theory is wrong, and that British scientists in general have misled the public.

Item #d97sep54

Factor Four: Doubling Wealth--Halving Resource Use, E. von Weizsäcker, A.B. Lovins, L.H. Lovins, 352 pp., 1997, £15.99 (Earthscan).

Discusses a new form of technological progress analogous to the improvement in labor productivity since the industrial revolution: the improvement in resource productivity. Examples include improvements in the use of energy (from hypercars to low-energy beef); in materials productivity (from sub-surface irrigation to electronic books); and in transport. So that wealth can grow while consumption does not, this book explains how markets can be organized and taxes re-based to eliminate perverse incentives and reward efficiency.

Item #d97sep55

Ozone Depletion Yearbook: 1996, 119 pp., 1997 (Cutter).

The first in a series, and a companion to the Global Warming Yearbook. Brings together information published over the past year in Global Environ. Change Report.

Item #d97sep56

International Trade and the Montreal Protocol, D. Brack, 128 pp., 1996, £12.95 (Earthscan, for Royal Inst. Intl. Affairs).

Called the first available analysis of the effects on trade of the Protocol, including the substantial black market, problems of implementation in the former Soviet Union, and compatibility with the international trading system. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of the protocol, the author points out lessons to be learned in the value and design of trade restrictions for future environmental treaties.

Item #d97sep57

Climate Change: Developing Southern Hemisphere Perspectives, T.W. Giambelluca, A. Henderson-Sellers, Eds., 475 pp., 1996, £65 (Wiley).

A text aimed at the graduate level that grew out of a 1993 Graduate Summer School on Coupled Climate System Modeling that also complements the text Climate System Modeling, edited by Trenberth. The four sections cover global change pluralities; hemispheric climate: global models; climate change: ecological and human dimensions; and policy perspective. Reviewer R. Washington (Intl. J. Climatol., p. 903, June 30, 1997) comments that the authors have put together an important text--provocative, authoritative, and ambitious. Although some chapters could have been expanded, what the book covers, it does so very well.

Item #d97sep58

Population Growth and Environmental Issues, S. Ramphal, S.W. Sinding, Eds., 1996 (Praeger Pub.).

Scholars, political leaders, and experts in international development offer responses to the need for up-to-date information about the linkages between population growth and global warming, land use, and natural resource management.

Item #d97sep59

Climate Change Research: Evaluation and Policy Implications (Studies in Environ. Sci., Vol. 65), S. Zverver, R.S.A.R. van Rompaey et al., Eds., 1504 pp., 1995, Dfl. 490 (Elsevier).

Includes papers from the International Climate Change Conference (Maastricht, 1994): 11 keynote papers; assessments of the Dutch National Research Program (NRP); and short papers on specific projects. Reviewed by U. Mander and A. Kull in Ecol. Econ. (pp. 95-97, Jan. 1997), who consider the book an invaluable took for those interested in the climate system and its interrelations with ecosystems, and for those involved in environmental management and policy.

Reviews of Previous Entries: Of General Interest

Item #d97sep60

Reviews of Climate Change 1995, the three-volume publication of the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC by Cambridge Univ. Press (see Global Climate Change Digest, BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS, GEN. INTEREST AND POLICY, June 1996):

Vols. I, II and III (science, impacts, and economics, respectively) are reviewed extensively by W. Robinson in IEEE Spectrum, pp. 10-14, Jan. 1997. Vol. I is reviewed by P. Smithson and Vol. II by A. Perry in Intl. J. Climatol., pp. 905-907, June 30, 1997; Vol. II by P. Freund and Vol. III by Q. Ahmad in Global Environ. Change, pp. 187-190, July 1997.

Item #d97sep61

Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Can't Afford to Lose, S.H. Schneider, 174 pp., Jan. 1997, $20/£11.99 (Basic Books in the U.S.; Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the U.K.). (See Global Climate Change Digest, BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS, GEN. INTEREST AND POLICY, Feb. 1997.)

Reviewed by J. Houghton in Nature, p. 345, Mar. 27, 1997; and by B. Bolin in Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., pp. 1511-1512, July 1997. Hougton states that the book addresses global warming and climate change in a wide context of science and policy for today's times. Although laced with considerable technical detail, even readers not scientifically trained will gain broad understanding. Bolin summarizes the main sections of the book, noting that the presentation is clear with numerous examples. The author has generally succeeded very well in the difficult task of balancing the many pieces of important evidence.

Item #d97sep62

Politics of Climate Change: A European Perspective, T. O'Riordan, J. Jäger, Eds., 256 pp., Apr. 1996, $65 hbk./$22.95 pbk. (Routledge). (See Global Climate Change Digest, BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS, GEN. INTEREST AND POLICY, June 1996.)

Reviewed by K. Dow in Global Environ. Change, pp. 193-194, July 1997. This collection integrates the expertise needed to tackle this complex topic through a detailed investigation of the structure of legal and policy initiatives. It is an admirable model of the type of ambitious collaboration important to expanding insight into global environmental problems.

Item #d97sep63

Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, P. Ehrlich, A. Ehrlich, 335 pp., 1996 (Island Press). (See Global Climate Change Digest, BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS, GEN. INTEREST AND POLICY, Dec. 1996.)

Reviewed by R.J. Cicerone, Chem. Eng. News, p. 53, Apr. 7, 1997; three comments on his review appear on pp. 5-6, May 7.