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Art of the Wild
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Hell on Earth
Raising the globe’s temperature by a few degrees may not seem like a very big deal. But it is.
By Hillary Rosner
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
By Mark Lynas
National Geographic Books, 335 pages, $26
Though the visible impacts of global warming are adding up, much of what we’ve set in motion still lies ahead. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts global average temperature increases of between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, depending on whether—and by how much—we can rein in greenhouse-gas emissions in the meantime. But what exactly does that mean? What happens if the planet warms one or two or five degrees? To most people, higher temperatures on their own do not seem like cause for concern. “To most of us,” writes Mark Lynas, a British journalist whose previous book was High Tide: News From a Warming World, “if Thursday is six degrees warmer than Wednesday, it doesn’t mean the end of the world, it means we can leave the overcoat at home.” But to Lynas, who read “tens of thousands” of scientific papers on climate change and distilled them into a readable 300-page book, six degrees is nothing less than apocalyptic.
Lynas has arranged his book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by degree of temperature increase, using this peer-reviewed research as a road map to a future earth. As Lynas writes, despite the occasional finding that makes headlines, the bulk of the projections about climate change “are buried in obscure specialist journals, destined to be read only by other climatologists.” Indeed, many papers are not even read by scientists in other disciplines unless they end up in a general research journal like Science or Nature. So Lynas holed up in Oxford’s Radcliffe Science Library and molded all the information into the mother of all synthesis reports. If you want to understand what’s in store if we don’t take drastic action, Lynas has the answers. But be warned: It’s not pretty.
If the planet warms by one degree Celsius, we’re in for prolonged drought, landslides from melting mountains, devastating coral bleaching, species extinctions, and the disappearance of several island nations. In other words, more of what we’re already witnessing. Turn the thermostat up another degree and, in just a few decades, “large areas of the Southern Ocean and part of the Pacific will become effectively toxic to organisms with calcium carbonate shells.” Unfortunately, the creatures on which the entire marine food chain rests—plankton—have just such shells. “Wiping out phytoplankton by acidifying the oceans,” Lynas writes, “is rather like spraying weed killer over most of the world’s land vegetation.” The result will be marine deserts, empty underwater wastelands where nothing can survive.
At two degrees we’ll also see a rise in deadly heat waves, like the one that hit Europe in 2003; crippling wildfires; faster-melting glaciers; disappearing coastlines, polar bears, and vital urban water supplies; and the obliteration of “a large swath of natural biodiversity.”
Suffice it to say that the horror story only worsens from there, with most of the planet becoming virtually unrecognizable, and leaving millions of humans—those of us who don’t starve to death or perish in the inevitable nuclear battles over the last remaining resources—to desperately roam the planet in search of food. The lucky ones among us could survive on tiny islands of productive land—“reserves” akin to those we create for endangered species today.
Lynas’s book can be a tough read, to put it mildly. But it’s also a gripping page-turner, a tale of ecological unraveling that would seem like apocalyptic allegory if not for the fact that it’s firmly grounded in the latest science.
The impacts themselves are terrifying, but what’s most disturbing is that once we pass the two-degree mark, the likelihood of sliding toward six degrees—or higher—increases. This is because of what Lynas calls “an unstoppable feedback of runaway global warming.” Unleash the methane locked up in the world’s oceans, for instance, and atmospheric greenhouse-gas levels will soar, sending temperatures even higher.
Scariest of all (and that’s saying something) is that in order to avoid global temperature increases of two degrees, we can’t let CO2 concentrations rise above 400 parts per million. Currently, they’re at 382 and rising by 2 parts every year, meaning we’re only nine years away from our day of reckoning. The European Union has set a target of 550. Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth are aiming for 450. But this won’t save us, Lynas says. By his count—a point echoed in a December declaration by 200 top international climate scientists—global emissions must peak by 2015, and by 2050 they must be 85 percent lower than today.
Is this possible? Lynas wants to believe it is, though he can’t quite convince himself (“I am the first to admit that this target looks hopelessly unattainable,” he says)—concluding that it’s feasible with some drastic yet not totally preposterous actions. These include: halving the distances we drive, doubling fuel economy, covering five million acres of the globe with solar panels, constructing two million wind turbines, halting deforestation, and instituting mandatory “carbon rationing”—an intriguing idea along the lines of World War II food rationing. “So should we despair about the prospects for reaching the two degrees target?” Lynas asks. “No, but nor should we base policy on wishful thinking.” A carbon-constrained society, he argues, might look completely different than the way we live today. But unless we make these significant changes, “life will very largely not go on at all.”
The prophesies and revelations in Six Degrees are so alarming that it’s easy to simply dismiss them as alarmism. The line between these two words prompted hundreds of posts on the climate science blog RealClimate.org after geochemist Eric Steig praised the book for doing “an admirable job” of explaining the scientific literature and then raised an important question: If the sum total of all these studies is just as unnerving as Lynas makes it out to be, then are scientists being “too provocative” in explaining their findings, or “too cautious” in discussing the implications?
But while the climate scientists reflect on this, global emissions keep rising, and time continues to run out. Which is why you should buy this book for everyone you know.
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Editor's Choice
Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy
By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Island Press, 397 pages, $25.95
Of all the arguments for curbing global warming and investing in a clean economy, Apollo’s Fire puts forward one of the most compelling: We can make a lot of money at it. That’s the heart of this provocative book inspired by the Apollo Alliance, a movement started in 2003 to unite environmentalists, trade unions, and business. “Done right, solving our crises of climate change and oil dependence can create tremendous opportunity for America and the world,” write Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks. They cite an academic study showing that investing $30 billion in renewable energy—such as solar, wind, and biofuels—each year for the next 10 would add $1.4 trillion to the gross domestic product, create 3.3 million jobs, and generate $953 billion in personal income. The book’s title comes from the Apollo space program, which put a man on the moon in eight years, and alludes to the other idea at the heart of this book (and the movement): Where there’s a will, there’s a way. There is, however, a difference between these two undertakings. The first was a difficult project with a clear goal. The second is an overhaul of our carbon-based economy that would require us to essentially end our use of fossil fuels. Even so, the first Apollo program was largely political—a Cold War space race. The stakes are much higher today as the earth’s temperature rises.—Frank Bures
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The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird
By Bruce Barcott
Random House, 315 pages, $26
The scarlet macaw stands out among the lush green canopies of tropical jungles in Central and South America, thanks to its bright red, blue, and yellow plumage. But habitat destruction and the exotic-pet industry have taken their toll, and, in Belize, researchers estimate that fewer than 200 of the birds remain. When Bruce Barcott, a contributing editor to Outside magazine, learned that a proposed hydroelectric dam in that country could destroy the population’s last remaining habitat, he traveled south to meet the activist hell-bent on stopping it. Barcott’s narrative centers on Sharon Matola, an American who formerly trained tigers in a traveling Mexican circus and started the Belize Zoo with little more than a jaguar named Maya and a makeshift sign. “The Zoo Lady,” as locals call her, regularly paddled up the Macal River to observe the macaws and record their numbers. Her passion for Belize and its wildlife drive her battle with big business to save the species she loves. Matola gathered a diverse group of locals to protest and legally challenge the plans of a Canadian utility, Fortis, for the 150-foot concrete Chalillo Dam. Barcott keeps the reader hanging in suspense as the battle rages on, but in the end it is the Zoo Lady’s indomitable spirit that forms the soul of this engaging book. “You don’t stop,” she tells Barcott. “If you lose a battle, that doesn’t mean you stop. The work to save what’s left of nature is endless.”—Shawn Query
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Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future
By Peter D. Ward
Smithsonian Books, 242 pages, $26.95
Paleontologists generally agree that 65 million years ago a meteor six miles wide slammed into what is now the Yucatán Peninsula. The impact sent dust high above the earth, blocking sunlight and causing firestorms, acid rain, and tsunamis. Animals that had survived for ages, including Tyrannosaurus, died out, setting the stage for the rise of mammals. In fact, the meteor theory explains extinction so cleanly that some paleontologists believe that the earth’s other mass extinctions must also have their origins in outer space. But Peter Ward, a paleontologist at the University of Washington, believes that another culprit is to blame: global warming due to geologic processes like increased volcanism. As he theorizes in this fascinating but complex book, atmospheric warming has triggered all other past mass extinctions by gradually altering ocean currents, reducing the amount of life-giving oxygen dissolved in water, and eventually releasing poisonous hydrogen sulfide into the air. Paleontologists can deduce what events triggered changes in the earth millions of years ago, and Ward believes humans are creating the same environmental conditions that killed off the planet’s life multiple times before. If we continue on the current trajectory of rising greenhouse gases—today caused largely by human activity rather than geologic processes—global warming, Ward asserts, will lead to “raging storms, failing crops, and human famine . . . a stark portrait of a world entering a long, slow slide into mass extinction.” Ward’s theory holds that a glimpse of our future resides in the earth’s ancient past.—Kristin Elise Phillips
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Art of the Wild
Before photographs and film rendered wildlife’s beauty and diversity so accessible, drawings, paintings, and sculpture provided the only window through which to view the animals of the American landscape. From New World biological sketches to modern sculpture, David J. Wagner’s American Wildlife Art (Marquand Books, 395 pages, $85) compiles the images created by some of the nation’s most important wildlife artists, including John James Audubon. In “The Cragmaster” (above), an oil on canvas painted by self-taught artist Carl Rungius about 1912, the wide, coarse brushstrokes blend colors into one another to create the textured image of a sure-footed mountain goat rounding the bend of a jagged slope. This and more than a hundred other works reveal an age-old appreciation for wildlife that is magnified through today’s lens.—Shawn Query
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Short Takes
From Our Contributors
A selection from current books.
One of the most important lessons Merle taught me was that, just like us, dogs can change their minds about things and alter their behavior. This lesson occurred after I had thrown a stick for Merle’s young protégé, Brower. A golden retriever, he leapt into the river and brought me the stick instantly.
Merle, who had never shown the slightest interest in retrieving, now stepped before me as I raised the stick again for Brower, his eager eyes saying, “I can do that.”
“Are you really going to retrieve?” I asked him. He shook in readiness.
I threw the stick, he plunged into the water and fetched it expertly, dropping it at my feet with a nonchalant toss.
“I am stunned, sir,” I told him. “What gives?”
“Ha-ha-ha,” he panted. “No big deal.”
I threw the stick again, and he retrieved it. I threw it once more, and he looked at me with disappointment. He actually sighed. Not hiding his reluctance, he walked slowly into the water and fetched the stick. Walking up to me, he flung it at my feet with an “enough of this nonsense” toss of his head.
When I threw the stick once again, he simply watched it float away.
“Fetch,” I told him. “Go get it.”
He turned to me with one of the most expressive looks I’ve ever seen on a dog. His head was cocked to the side with wry indulgence, and his eyes hung on mine with tender reproach: “I showed you I can do this, but it’s really not my game.”
Evidently, he had wanted to demonstrate to me that his unwillingness to retrieve was not a lack of proficiency but a lack of desire. Yet he never let my shallow expectations of what a dog should do or be diminish our closeness. Until the day he died, his eyes hung on mine, as mine did on his, saying, “I just want to keep looking at you.”
—Ted Kerasote
From Merle’s Door: Lessons
From a Freethinking Dog
Harcourt Books
Fish are every bit as beautiful and colorful as birds, but few environmentalists ever see them because few are anglers. For instance, when you log on to the website of the Adirondack Council you hear the vocalization of a common loon—the symbol of wilderness. The council sees and hears loons, but it doesn’t see or hear the brook trout that sustain loons and that are also symbols of wilderness. Wild brook trout in the Adirondacks have declined by roughly 97 percent. Today only about three percent of the park’s brook-trout habitat still sustains brook trout, and the figure would be only 0.5 percent had not the state used rotenone to reclaim ponds infested with alien fish. But the council, which chooses not to learn about rotenone, has basically blocked its use in park wilderness.
Other vanishing icons of American wilderness include westslope and Rio Grande cutthroat trout and Gila trout. But a group called Wilderness Watch, which doesn’t see them as such or see them at all, is perfectly willing to sacrifice these beautiful creatures by blocking use of rotenone and the equally safe and even shorter-lived organic piscicide, antimycin. “Poison has no place in wilderness stewardship,” proclaims Wilderness Watch. But fish and plant poisons are essential to wilderness management. Without them all hope of restoring native ecosystems takes wing. According to Wilderness Watch, restoration of imperiled salmonids is only about sport: “The purpose [of Gila trout restoration] is to remove stocked trout and replace them with the listed Gila trout, in an effort to boost the population to a level that will allow delisting and resumed sport fishing of the species.” That’s like saying that the recovery program for the California condor is only about birdwatching.
—Ted Williams
From Something’s Fishy: An
Angler Looks at Our Distressed
Gamefish and Their Waters—
and How We Can Preserve Both
Skyhorse Publishing
And finally my friends brought me back from the reveries of the distant and the impossible to the steamy jungle of the present, where, they said, we were wasting time. The eagle would not appear, they said, and there were hundreds of other birds that we should be seeking.
So we went to seek those other birds. We found many of them, and we watched them and listened to them and wrote notes and made sketches and did everything we could to make those birds a part of our experience. And it worked, for a while. We got to feel as if we knew some of them fairly well.
But that was only until we went home to the States. Within a few weeks or months, despite our best intentions, the memories would begin to blur. Then we would have to struggle to remember anything about that little flycatcher or woodcreeper or antbird, whatever its name was, that we had seen in the forest.
But we would never forget the eagle we had not seen. In the jungles of our dreams the great bird would come in again, gliding through the maze of the highest branches, its head hunched back onto broad shoulders, huge wings starting to tilt and push back against the air, long tail spread wide to brake the glide, massive talons reaching and grasping, settling onto a limb, the big head turning with crest raised high as the eagle peered down through the shadows at the puny earthbound humans standing so far below . . . again, over and over, forever in the imagination.
—Kenn Kaufman
From Flights Against the Sunset: Stories
That Reunited a Mother and Son
Houghton Mifflin
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