Review: Obviously speculative but interesting nonetheless.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 14, 2012
This is a short, speculative piece on global warming. I was able to read it in one sitting and it was able to hold my attention for the whole time. The premise of the work is that it is an imagined summary of fictional interviews with characters from the year 2084 focusing on their views of how global warming shaped the world they live in. In some cases, the interviewees are government or military officials talking about how global warming precipitated a war or some humanitarian crisis. In other cases they are scientists or some other character that talks about how global warming re-shaped the area they live in. All of the interviews were done by satellite phone and the implication is that travel is either too expensive or difficult at that time. The overall tone of the book is that global warming turned out to be a worst-case scenario with the numbers being at or above the high end of all current projections.Obviously, any book of this type has to be speculative and extrapolate from current trends based on what we think might happen under different scenarios. Although this particular attempt to do so is clearly based on the work of other experts, and as such is not outlandish in its claims, the real value in something like this isn't so much that it represents an attempt to create a scientifically-solid prediction, but rather that it helps readers visualize what kind of future our children could possibly face. It would be easy to nitpick details or contradict some of the author's imagined outcomes, but it is more difficult to claim that there isn't a place for these kinds of speculative works. Issues that have a scientific aspect but that are tied up with policy and economic decisions can become complex, emotional and difficult to visualize in a larger context. This book helps put decisions and practices that are part of our current existence into long-range focus.There are certainly some other books out there that make a stab at visualizing long-term outcomes of global warming through vignettes, so this isn't completely a one-of-a-kind or revolutionary piece, but it's certainly worth reading for enjoyment and as a way to help visualize some of the scenarios that most experts now say can happen. I wouldn't make this the first or only book on global warming to read if I were new to the topic, but it is a nice companion to some of the more academic books.