From Publishers Weekly
Don't be fooled by the similarity between the title of this new book by journalist Reiss and The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. The books have little in common beyond the broad conclusion that the increased atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, resulting from human activity, threatens to unleash extremes of weather and climate never seen on earth in the history of our species. Many have found that Bell and Strieber embraced both science and pseudo-science equally. In contrast, Reiss writes in the urgent yet reasoned voice of a person sounding an alarm while there is still time to act. Tracing both scientific and policy debates year by year from 1988 through 2000, he recounts the drama of deadly winter storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, killer heat waves, melting glaciers and thinning polar icecaps, while relating the parallel stories of scientists, politicians, lobbyists and industrialists and their clashing views in the face of mounting evidence and conflicting national interests. As Reiss describes it, the worst human disasters of this new century may result not only from storms in the geophysical climate but also from crises in the geopolitical one. It's time for the world to make plans if only we can agree what to plan for. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Eugene Linden, author of The Future in Plain Sight and The Parrot's Lament
"...Bob Reiss shows how a series of freakish and colossally destructive weather events awakened...people to...a changing climate..."
Ted Conover, winner of the National Book Critic's Circle Award for Newjack
". . . The Coming Storm is the layman's guide to global warming -- fair, urgent and deeply unsettling . . ."
Book Description
Tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, heat waves -- acts of God or the results of man's actions? To answer that question, this riveting book places readers in the eye of today's deadliest storms.
If you think the world's weather catastrophes are becoming more frequent and more powerful, you're right. Ten of the last eleven years have been the hottest on record, filled with dozens of record-breaking hurricanes, floods, and droughts. Is this a coincidence, or is our civilization wreaking havoc on global weather? Journalist Bob Reiss shares America's growing fascination -- and concern -- with the phenomenon of extreme weather, a series of interlocking human stories that together create an ominous forecast for the twenty-first century. The Coming Storm presents a frightening, enlightening, and fascinating portrait of an ecosystem off track.
About the Author
Bob Reiss is a former Chicago Tribune reporter who has written for the Washington Post, Outside, Parade, Smithsonian, GQ, and Rolling Stone. He was a National Magazine Award finalist for his reporting on the Amazon and is the author of ten novels and two books of nonfiction. He lives in New York City.
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