FORECAST

Reviewed 6/08/2010

Forecast, by Stephan Faris

Access to this book courtesy of the

FORECAST The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley Stephan Faris New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2009				Rating: 5.0 High
ISBN-13 978-0-8050-8779-6
ISBN-10 0-8050-8779-6	242pp.	HC	$25.00

Errata:

Page 33:	"Glass window cases display hats and pipes, bongs and thongs, t-shirts stamped 'Marilize Legjuana' and..."
	Cute! But I think it ought to be "Marilize Legajuana". There's an "A" missing, eh?

Page 83:	" 'Nationalism and environmentalism were linked at the moment the first human being set foot in his country,' he said."
	Missing letter: S/B "in this country".

Page 84:	"Neither Barnes nor Griffin accepts that increased levels of carbon dioxide drives climate change..."
	Number: S/B "drive".

Page 146:	"For the majority of crops, the most important change won't be the simple rise of mercury but the crossing of temperature thresholds."
	He means rise of temperature: S/B "rise of the mercury" or similar (though I doubt any thermometers use mercury today.) He also uses the phrase on page 109, with the article.

Page 152:	"Built on a spit of granite between the Churchill River and the Hudson Bay, the town is..."
	S/B "Hudson Bay". The article is not used unless referring to something related to the geographical feature, such as "the Hudson's Bay Company."

Page 167:	" 'I thought, if that happens with dust particles, why can't we be doing it with gas particles?' "
	The word "that" refers to the cooling caused by volcanic aerosols. The whole sentence is rather imprecise terminology for a scientist to use.

Page 167:	"As the students and scientists on board spilled off the ships and the crew began..."
	Number: S/B "the ship". There's only one ship in port, the CCGS Amundsen, and the singular "crew" confirms the error.

Page 183:	"The [IPCC] estimates that [...] if the world continues to warm at its current rate, the last of the [Himalayan] ice will be gone as early as 2035."
	This is an unfortunate error on the IPCC's part.1

Page 198:	"...water for a region of billions of people, one in five of whom already lack access to safe drinking water."
	Number: S/B "lacks".

Page 199:	"The region is central to India's claims of being a secular state, a keystone the diverse and factious nation feels it can't afford to lose."
	Vocabulary: S/B "fractious". (See page 216.)

1 Much was made of this IPCC error. In typically nonsensical fashion, Denialist outlets tried to use it to discredit the entire IPCC. The correction gets complicated, but the executive summary is that the Himalaya contain some 15,000 glaciers which supply the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra Rivers, feeding half a billion people. Those glaciers are melting, and at accelerating rates, but they will survive long after the year 2035. A better explanation is at Himalayan glaciers: how the IPPC erred and what the science says (Skeptical Science), and for full details see Anatomy of IPCC's Mistake on Himalayan Glaciers and Year 2035 (Yale Climate & Media Forum).