Global Warming Linked To Worst Mass Extinctions In Planetary History (Review Of Ward's Book)

[hatrack]

Picture this: "Shorelines encrusted with rotting organic matter. From shore to horizon … as far as the eye can see there is an unending purple color, a vast flat oily purple. We are under a pale green sky, and it has the smell of death and poison." This is a scene from the book Under A Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future.

The author, Peter Ward, has spent a career studying fossils. He specializes in catastrophic mass extinctions from the earth's ancient past … what scientists call the 'Big Five.' " that killed off at least 50 percent of the species on earth, and one of them, the Permian, may have killed off 90 percent of the species on earth," he explains.

Ward, a University of Washington paleontologist, details the causes and consequences of these events in Under A Green Sky. He says most scientists embrace the idea that a giant asteroid hit the earth around 65 million years ago, hastening the demise of the dinosaurs. He describes the earth as it goes through a global blackout. "We have falling meteors coming back from the impact sites setting all the forests on fire. We have sulfur going into the atmosphere coming back as sulfuric acid, acidifying the ocean, acid rain in the lakes."

But asteroids do not explain the other mass extinctions. For that, Ward and others have found evidence in the fossil record that prolonged volcanic activity spewed huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere. As he points out, "There was a short-term rapid increase in carbon dioxide. High C02 increases greenhouse temperatures on the planet." Over thousands of years, that spike in CO2 and the resulting worldwide heat wave had nasty consequences. Winds ceased, ocean currents died and most marine life vanished from too much heat and too little oxygen. Ward says things got even worse. "These warm anoxic oceans produced blooms of hydrogen sulfide-producing bacteria. Enough of that went into the atmosphere to kill land animals and land plants and cause the ozone to disappear as well."

EDIT

http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2007-10-09-voa24.cfm

[Kurovski]

1. K&R. (nt)

[greenman3610]

2. if you don't yet have a sense of urgency

about climate, read this book.

It makes a hellish companion to
"With speed and Violence" by Fred Pearce

[hatrack]

3. How is Pearce's book?

I've heard good things but haven't had a chance to get to the bookstore yet . . .

[Systematic Chaos]

4. I dun red that buk last week

It wuznt like Mah Pet Goatz. It dint have no perty pikshers in it and it wuz ful of long werdz and junk sients. Unka Dick cot me reedin it and smaked me upsidez da hed. I has to go now and get Condi to givs me sum asprinz and a big bottel uv Absuloot.

- Dubya

Now, on a more serious note, there wasn't too much in there I didn't already know from my extensive reading here on DU. It does cover a lot of ground, though, and there are a number of passages devoted to the early pioneers of climate science. From what I'm gathering, though, Under a Green Sky sounds like a much more frightening book. I'm going to try and pick it up at the library this weekend.

[greenman3610]

5. harrowing

invaluable