Plows, plagues, and petroleum : how humans took control of climate
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Bibliographic Information
Plows, plagues, and petroleum : how humans took control of climate
Princeton University Press, c2005
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [195]-196) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? William Ruddiman's provocative new book argues that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years - as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture. The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on greenhouse-gas levels, thousands of years before the industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than if natural climate cycles had prevailed - quite possibly forestalling a new ice age."Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum" is the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us through three broad stages of human history: when nature was in control; when humans began to take control, discovering agriculture and affecting climate through carbon dioxide and methane emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on climate change.
Along the way he raises the fascinating possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations, also affected reforestation and thus climate - as suggested by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics have occurred. The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global warming debate. Eminently readable and far-reaching in argument, "Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum" shows us that even as civilization developed, we were already changing the climate in which we lived.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix Preface xiii Part One: What Has Controlled Earth's Climate? Chapter One: Climate and Human History 5 Part Two: Nature in Control Chapter Two: Slow Going for a Few Million Years 17 Chapter Three: Linking Earth's Orbit to Its Climate 25 Chapter Four: Orbital Changes Control Ice-Age Cycles 35 Chapter Five: Orbital Changes Control Monsoon Cycles 46 Chapter Six: Stirrings of Change 55 Part Three: Humans Begin to Take Control Chapter Seven: Early Agriculture and Civilization 65 Chapter Eight: Taking Control of Methane 76 Chapter Nine: Taking Control of CO 2 84 Chapter Ten: Have We Delayed a Glaciation? 95 Chapter Eleven: Challenges and Responses 106 Part Four: Disease Enters the Picture Chapter Twelve: But What about Those CO 2 "Wiggles"? 119 Chapter Thirteen: The Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Which One? 127 Chapter Fourteen: Pandemics, CO 2 , and Climate 139 Part Five: Humans in Control Chapter Fifteen: Greenhouse Warming: Tortoise and Hare 151 Chapter Sixteen: Future Warming: Large or Small? 159 Chapter Seventeen: From the Past into the Distant Future 169 Epilogue Chapter Eighteen: Global-Change Science and Politics 179 Chapter Nineteen: Consuming Earth's Gifts 190 Bibliography 195 Figure Sources 197 Index 199
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