In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a landmark report projecting average global surface temperatures to rise between 1.4° and 5.8° Celsius (roughly 2-10° Fahrenheit) by the end of this century. Based on this forecast, author Mark Lynas outlines what to expect from a warming world, degree by degree.
At one degree Celsius, most coral reefs and many mountain glaciers will be lost. A three-degree rise would spell the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, disappearance of Greenland's ice sheet, and the creation of deserts across the Midwestern United States and southern Africa. A six-degree increase would eliminate most life on Earth, including much of humanity.
Based on authoritative scientific articles, the latest computer models, and information about past warm events in Earth history, Six Degrees promises to be an eye-opening warning that humanity will ignore at its peril. Possibly the most graphic treatment of global warming that has yet been published, this compelling book uses accessible journalistic prose to distill what environmental scientists portend about the consequences of human pollution for the next 100 years.
Mark Lynas, a journalist, campaigner, and broadcast commentator on environmental issues, is the author of High Tide: News from a Warming World. He is a contributor to periodicals including New Statesman, Ecologist, Granta, and Geographical, and to the Guardian and Observer newspapers in the United Kingdom.
"...compulsively readable... Lynas offers hard-nosed calculations...and estimates that we have seven years to get it right."—starred review, Booklist
"Want to spend a few evenings hiding under the covers in abject fear? Might we suggest the new nonfiction book about global warming."—Wired
"More factual than hysterical and using accessible language, the author portrays a sobering, but broad and fascinating, view of the problem. Anyone studying climate change will find this a helpful reference as much current research has been precompiled and interpreted within one resource."—School Library Journal
