When the Planet Rages: Natural Disasters, Global Warming and the Future of the Earth - Softcover

Officer, Charles; Page, Jake

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019537701X ISBN 13: 9780195377019

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2009

Synopsis

In New England, 1816 was called the Year Without a Summer. Crops failed throughout America and, in Western Europe, it was even worse, with food riots and armed groups raiding bakeries and grain markets. All this turmoil followed a catastrophic volcanic eruption--a year earlier on the other side of the world--the eruption of Tambora, a blast heard almost a thousand miles away.
In When the Planet Rages, Charles Officer and Jake Page describe some of the great events of environmental history, from calamities such as the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 (the greatest in recorded history) and the ice ages, to recent man-made disasters such as Chernobyl, acid rain, and the depletion of the ozone layer. Officer and Page provide fascinating discussions of meteorites and comets; of the demise of mammoths, mastodons, and dinosaurs; and of great floods that have swept the earth. But they also show that human activity can make trouble for nature, discussing the depletion of natural resources (we burn coal and oil at millions of times their natural rate of production), air pollution in Los Angeles and London (where the Killer Smog of 1952 caused the death of some four thousand people), and the pollution of major waterways, like the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie. For the paperback edition, the authors have included a new preface, have added material on the recent Sichuan, China earthquake, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina, and discuss such topics as of the (un)predictability of symptoms of global warming.
Ranging from the monumental eruption at Krakatoa to industrial disasters such as the mercury poisoning in Japan's Minamata Bay, When the Planet Rages will engage anyone concerned with the environment and the natural world.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Officer is Research Professor in the Earth Sciences Department and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College.

Jake Page has written some 450 books of fiction and nonfiction along with hundreds of magazine articles and columns, mostly on the natural sciences and American Indian affairs. He writes a regular column for Destination Discovery called "Jake's Page".

Reviews

An updated version of 1993's Tales of the Earth by geophysics researcher Officer, this new release incorporates information on Hurricane Katrina, the Great Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, and other severe floods from across the world, to inform general readers on today's numerous geological hazards. Officer divides his primer into three parts: how humans are vulnerable; how humans have been affected by past climate changes; and how humans currently affect the Earth. Topics range widely, from the threat of extraterrestrial impacts to ozone pollution to the New Madrid Earthquake Swarm of 1811-1812 to anthropogenic climate change, with consistently thorough and clear explanations. Unfortunately, Officer's update did not go far enough; with just a few exceptions, no references are more recent than 1992, a serious shortcoming when new data is available for every historical catastrophe discussed (Krakatoa, Tambora, Santorini etc.). Officer also shows a clear preference for his own work. This volume may be useful for those with no knowledge of geophysics or climate studies, but serious students will require a more up-to-date survey.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019537701X
• ISBN 13: 9780195377019
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227