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CO2 Rising
The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge
Tyler Volk
 Table of Contents and Sample Chapters
The most colossal environmental disturbance in human history is under way. Ever-rising levels of the potent greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) are altering the cycles of matter and life and interfering with the Earth's natural cooling process. Melting Arctic ice and mountain glaciers are just the first relatively mild symptoms of what will result from this disruption of the planetary energy balance. In CO2 Rising, scientist Tyler Volk explains the process at the heart of global warming and climate change: the global carbon cycle. Vividly and concisely, Volk describes what happens when CO2 is released by the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), letting loose carbon atoms once trapped deep underground into the interwoven web of air, water, and soil.
To demonstrate how the carbon cycle works, Volk traces the paths that carbon atoms take during their global circuits. Showing us the carbon cycle from a carbon atom's viewpoint, he follows one carbon atom into a leaf of barley, then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the human bloodstream, and then back into the air. He also compares the fluxes of carbon brought into the biosphere naturally with those created by the combustion of fossil fuels and explains why the latter are responsible for rising temperatures.
Knowledge about the global carbon cycle and the huge disturbances that human activity produces in it will equip us to consider the hard questions that Volk raises in the second half of CO2 Rising: projections of future levels of CO2; which energy systems and processes (solar, wind, nuclear, carbon sequestration?) will power civilization in the future; the relationships among the wealth of nations, energy use, and CO2 emissions; and global equity in per capita emissions. Answering these questions will indeed be our greatest environmental challenge.
About the Author
Tyler Volk is Science Director of Environmental Studies and Associate Professor of Biology at New York University. He is the author of Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of the Earth (MIT Press, 2003), Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind, and other books.
| "... the book is well written and engaging ... Volk clearly and fairly communicates complex and sometimes difficult concepts. CO2 Rising provides the basic information about the global carbon cycle that is needed to understand the scope, challenges, and options for dealing with climate change. This understanding should be part of everyone's scientific literacy." (For the full review, visit http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2009/117-2/newbooks.html.)
—Kristie L. Ebi, Environmental Health Perspectives "Tyler Volk's CO2 Rising is a finely crafted introduction to the greenhouse problem, taking as its protagonist a little carbon atom called Dave.... If there is one book on climate change that President-elect Barack Obama should read, it might well be Tyler Volk's CO2 Rising. Its clear, simple exposition of atmospheric chemistry is so well-written that it might even convince past-presidents." (For the full review, visit http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.123.html.)
—Euan Nisbet, Nature Reports: Climate Change "The MIT Press has released CO2 Rising-The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge by Tyler Volk. This is the ultimate guide to the subject. A basic understanding of the carbon, CO2, and its cycle is necessary in order to understand what is driving global warming. This engaging and compelling book provides everything you need to know. It is jargon-free and easy to follow."(For the full review, visit http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art61998.asp)
—Connie Krochmal, BellaOnLine: The Voice of Women View All Reviews |
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| "Understanding global warming and what to do about it demands that we not only understand climate science but also energy science. Unfortunately, most books about global warming focus obsessively on the former while giving short shrift to the latter. Thankfully, Tyler Volk's CO2 Rising does not make this mistake. In simple, layman's terms, Volk walks his readers through the basic realities of both climate and energy science, and the relationship between the latter and global economic development. What results is a clear and compelling picture of both the nature and scale of the global climate and energy challenge and what will be necessary to address it."
—Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, Breakthrough Institute
"If I had the power, I would assign CO2 Rising to every college freshman in America. It is that good. It is that accessible. It is that important."
—Mitchell Thomashow, President, Unity College
"Tyler Volk is a wonderful expositor who tells is like it is. In CO2 Rising he has some feisty carbon atoms take us along on their vividly and clearly described romp through the bio and geosphere. A journey we most certainly affect."
—Roald Hoffmann, Department of Chemistry, Cornell University, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
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