Forecast: The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley

By Stephan Faris

Book Overview

A vivid and illuminating portrayal of the surprising ways that climate change will affect the world in the near future--politically, economically, and culturallyWhile reporting just outside of Darfur, Stephan Faris discovered that climate change was at the root of that conflict, and began to wonder what current and impending--and largely unanticipated--crises such changes have in store for the world. "Forecast "provides the answers.Global warming will spur the spread of many diseases. Italy has already experienced its first climate-change epidemic of a tropical disease, and malaria is gaining ground in Africa. The warming world will shift huge populations and potentially redraw political alliances around the globe, driving environmentalists into the hands of anti-immigrant groups. America's coasts are already more difficult places to live as increasing insurance rates make the Gulf Coast and other gorgeous spots prohibitively expensive. Crops will fail in previously lush places and thrive in some formerly barren zones, altering huge industries and remaking traditions. Water scarcity in India and Pakistan have the potential to inflame the conflict in Kashmir to unprecedented levels and draw the United States into the troubles there, and elsewhere.Told through the narratives of current, past, and future events, the result of astonishingly wide travel and reporting, "Forecast "is a powerful, gracefully written, eye-opening account of this most urgent issue and how it has altered and will alter our world.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805087796
• ISBN13: 9780805087796
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

If you read just one book on the climate crisis...

There are plenty of books on the climate crisis, but a readable one is rare enough to fetch a Nobel Peace Prize. Though solutions depend on specific and possibly boring knowledge and actions, political and public support requires general understanding and passionate attention. This book is written not by a committee nor as the result of group findings, but by an individual writer--not a scientist or a politician but an astute and acute journalist. It is that rarity: excellently reported and written, very readable and therefore an important book on the most significant topic of our time. It's a post-Inconvenient Truth treatment that doesn't analyze or speculate but describes. This isn't about the far future, but changes already underway that are bound to increase in the next few decades: "impacts that range from the subtle and sometimes benign to the horrific and potentially catastrophic...Yet we don't have to guess at the consequences of a warming world...The future of our planet can be found now, on the frontiers of climate change." My one note of warning is that dealing with the effects of the climate crisis, as described in this book, are going to become more and more important. But it is just as crucial to continue trying to deal with the causes, so that there aren't much, much worse consequences for the future. That said, if you read just one book on the climate crisis this year, "Forecast" should be it.

A great book to give to global warming skeptics.

I enjoyed "Forecast" and have recommended it to several people. What I liked most about the book, is that it was not designed to convince anyone about climate change, but simply described impacts. The book is very well-written -- easy to read. I think it can do more to convince people of the truth of climate change and the overall lack of debate in the scientific community than books that rely heavily on climate data. Because I am a physical scientist who reads several scientific journals; I was aware of most of the facts and expected impacts presented. However, I don't know that anyone has put it altogether so nicely without any inclusion of politics. So, I hope a lot of people read it.

A different rhetorical take on warming

I found this book interesting and well-written. It is not a book by a scientist or someone pretending to do science writing -- it is a book by a journalist who traveled extensively, learned some things on the ground, and reported back on what they learned. It avoids questions about why there is warming, and it avoids speculation about the future: it talks about impacts that warming is having on the world today. It would be a good book to give to someone who was inclined towards being argumentative around warming: it avoids all the standard arguments and just reports on what is. The book shares structure and perhaps a "type" with Jared Diamond's Collapse: a series of chapters illustrating different aspects of a larger phenomenon. It does not pull off the same grand abstract sense of wonder that Diamond is capable of, but it has a greater warmth. I found the sections on Dafur, Bangladesh, and Kashmir chilling: the book does a great job of describing the political/social situation on the ground, sketching out how these complex and fragile places are particularly susceptible to climate change, and then talking about the terrible consequences that are already playing out. In the US, the book describes the reaction of the insurance industry to our increasingly chaotic weather, and how that effects communities like New Orleans and the Florida Keys. The section on how the wine industry is being effected by warming was interesting: tough luck France, I guess.