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2011, Oceanography 24(1):178–179, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.17
BOOK REVIEW | The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate (second edition)
Book Information | Reviewer | First Paragraphs | Full Review | Citation
Book Information
The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate (second edition)
By Andrew Dessler and Edward A. Parson, Cambridge University Press,
2010, 211 pages, ISBN 978-0-521-73740-1, Paperback $33 US, Kindle $29 US
Reviewer
D. James Baker | Director, Global Carbon Measurement Program, The William J. Clinton Foundation
First Paragraphs
The quantity 350 ppm has become an iconic number for the safe upper level of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, promoted widely by environmentalists, scientists, and policymakers. But the simplistic focus on a single number, no matter how laudable for ease of communication, clouds the reality of the scientific complexity and the enormous political challenge of re-engineering the world's energy supply.
Thus, it's important to have books like the one under review and others that expand on these points. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments, the Stern Report, and scores of other recent books by experts provide detail on the science, policy, and economics of climate change. Dessler and Parson's refined second edition offers one of the best summary backgrounds of this complex topic now available. They carefully describe what we know about the science of climate change, and why we can make some overall global forecasts with confidence. And they underscore that there is much that we don't know—for example, that the kind of regional to local forecasts most useful to policymakers are, in fact, the most uncertain...
Full Review
Citation
Baker, D.J. 2011. Review of The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate (second edition), by A. Dessler and E.A. Parson. Oceanography 24(1):178–179, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.17.