Greenhouse

January 4, 1999
In an unorthodox blend of history, science and ecopolitics, Christianson (Edwin Hubble) makes a cogent case that global warming is realmost probably exacerbated by the massive consumption of fossil fuelswith consequences that could include rising sea levels, spread of insect-borne diseases and epidemics of skin cancer as greenhouse gases destroy earths protective ozone layer. A historian of science at Indiana State University, Christianson calls his gracefully written book the biography of a scientific idea. It traces the study of the phenomenon of global warming from French revolutionary Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, who envisioned earth as a giant greenhouse, through Swedish chemist Svante Arrheniuss 1896 prediction that accumulation of industrial pollutants in the atmosphere will gradually heat up the planet, to a slew of recent scientific evidence for global warming. The engaging text roams from Antarctica, where in 1985 geophysicist Joseph Farman discovered a continent-wide hole in the ozone layer, to Hawaiis Mauna Loa volcano, where in 1958 renegade geochemist/futurist Charles Keeling plotted the rhythmic breathing of the planet, confirming his discovery that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising more rapidly than previously thought. Christianson works in colorful profiles of the Industrial Revolutions inventors and capitalist titans, as well as cautionary tales of disastrous climactic change involving the disappearance of the Anasazi Indians of the Southwest, the demise of Greenlands Vikings and the depression-era forced migration of Dust Bowl Okies. His concluding report on the 1997 UN conference in Kyoto, Japan, points up the reluctance of the U.S. to curb emissions of greenhouse gasesand the outright refusal, led by China, of developing countries to accept mandatory emission controls. 30 illustrations, not seen by PW. Agent, Michael Congdon.