Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Every decade since 1950 has seen more floods and more wildfires on every continent. Deserts are expanding, coral reefs are dying, fisheries are declining, hurricanes are strengthening. The debate about climate change is over: there's no question that global warming has made the Earth sick, and the outlook for the future calls for ever-warmer temperatures and deadlier results. Something must be done--but how quickly?
With Global Fever , William H. Calvin delivers both a clear-eyed diagnosis and a strongly worded prescription. In striking, straightforward language, he first clearly sets out the current state of the Earth's warming climate and the disastrous possibilities ahead should we continue on our current path. Increasing temperatures will kill off vegetation and dry up water resources, and their loss will lead, in an increasingly destructive feedback loop, to even more warming. Resource depletion, drought, and disease will follow, leading to socioeconomic upheaval--and accompanying violence--on a scale barely conceivable.
It is still possible, Calvin argues, to avoid such a dire fate. But we must act now, aggressively funneling resources into jump-starting what would amount to a third industrial revolution, this one of clean technologies--while simultaneously expanding our use of existing low-emission technologies, from nuclear power to plug-in hybrid vehicles, until we achieve the necessary scientific breakthroughs.
Passionately written, yet thoroughly grounded in the latest climate science, Global Fever delivers both a stark warning and an ambitious blueprint for saving the future of our planet.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 The Big Picture (p. 3)
• 2 We're Not in Kansas Anymore (p. 13)
• 3 Will This Overheated Frog Move? (p. 21)
• 4 "Pop!" Goes the Climate (p. 33)
• 5 Drought's Slippery Slope (p. 41)
• 6 Why Deserts Expand (p. 59)
• 7 From Creeps to Leaps (p. 71)
• 8 What Makes a Cycle Vicious? (p. 87)
• 9 That Pale Blue Sky (p. 101)
• 10 Slip Locally, Crash Globally (p. 111)
• 11 Come Hell and High Water (p. 127)
• 12 Methane Is the Double Threat (p. 151)
• 13 Sudden Shifts in Climate (p. 163)
• 14 A Sea of CO[subscript 2] (p. 173)
• 15 The Extended Forecast (p. 189)
• 16 Doing Things Differently (p. 205)
• 17 Cleaning Up Our Act (p. 219)
• 18 The Climate Optimist (p. 227)
• 19 Turning Around by 2020 (p. 239)
• 20 Arming for a Great War (p. 273)
• 21 Get It Right on the First Try (p. 279)
• Read Widely (p. 295)
• List of Illustrations (p. 301)
• Notes (p. 307)
• Index (p. 333)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Calvin (emer., Univ. of Washington School of Medicine), a well-published scientist degreed in the biophysics arena, brings his medical background to bear on the diagnosis of Earth's malady--the inevitable runaway rise in global temperatures. After studying the scientific literature, Calvin renders a physician's diagnosis: Earth's health is so seriously degraded and beset with clear evidence of planetwide warming that it will take immediate aggressive action to stop the raging "global fever." He reviews the planet's "symptoms," including drought, expanding deserts, rising sea levels, erratic weather phenomena, increasing levels of atmospheric methane, and the widely touted rise in carbon dioxide. Without serious intervention, he believes that by 2020 the Earth's fever will rage out of control. He points an accusing finger at the abdication of responsibility by the political arena, though he acknowledges that Europe began corrective programs nearly 30 years ago. Calvin's experience-grounded explanation of the symptomatic evidence of the warming problem distinguishes his book from others. His conclusions are optimistic. He supports fourth-generation nuclear power technology and carbon-free vehicles and believes that the world's history of scientific invention holds hope for a positive future. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates; technical program students. M. Evans emeritus, SUNY Empire State College