Known Knowns

An earlier, shorter version of this essay by MIT professor of meteorology Kerry Emanuel appeared in the Boston Review. This hardbound edition is still blessedly brief -- a global warming book (by a scientist, no less) that you can read in one go. Most of the text is a clear-eyed, concise summation of (just like the title says) what we know (and don't know) about climate change to date. In the last chapter, however, the tone changes somewhat and Emanuel, who has been drawn into the political fray thanks to his work on global warming and hurricanes, drops the gloves and takes a few well-aimed jabs at both the media and the scientific community, as well as the political camps, left and right. In my opinion, this is the book at its most interesting:

Especially in the United States, the political debate about global climate change became polarized along the conservative-liberal axis some decades ago. Although we take this for granted now, it is not entirely obvious why the chips fell the way they did.

To learn what he means, you'll have to read the book (or at least the Boston Review essay for yourself).

I will only add that, for me at least, the afterword, by political scientist, Judith Layzer, and professor of something or other, William Moomaw, (no bios are given on my copy) is less compelling. But this is something I've noticed in all the books I've read on global warming: The problem as described is daunting and urgent but the prescriptions for dealing with it feel tacked on and hardly commensurate to the task ahead. I feel like I'm being reassured rather than leveled with. Anyone else feel that way?