Monday, February 18, 2008

Under a Green Sky: Global Warming & Extinctions

Along with numerous other eye-catching titles on the new book shelf (come by and browse!), we have Peter Ward's latest monograph on mass extinction:

Under a Green Sky - Global Warming, Mass Extinctions of the Past and What They Can Tell Us About the Future.

Here is a snippet from the Booklist review:
"Paleontologist and science writer Ward combines tales of his own punishing fieldwork with a piquant history of the controversies that have dogged scientists seeking the cause of the "mother of all extinctions" in the Permian period. This provides the foundation for a stunning discovery: evidence of past greenhouse extinctions. As Ward carefully parses the data and its implications, he observes, 'the key to climate change seems to be both the level and the rate at which carbon dioxide rises in the atmosphere,' no matter its source."

The library owns several other books by Ward, equally useful for understanding the relationship between global climate and biodiversity.

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