Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations

by Anthony J. McMichael, Alistair Woodward, Cameron Muir

When we think "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to its vicissitudes. Tony McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal guide to this phenomenon, and in his magisterial Climate Change and the Health of Nations, he presents a sweeping and authoritative analysis of how human societies have been shaped by climate events.
Some have theorized that natural environment determines the fate of communities. McMichael does not go that far, but he emphasizes that it does have vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. After providing an overview of the dynamics of global warming and the greenhouse effect, McMichael takes us on a tour of the entirety of human history, through the lens of climate change. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved to adapt to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too evolved in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. McMichael dubs this mankind's 'Faustian bargain, ' because the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable; in order for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the 'Goldilocks phenomenon.' Now, with global warming, the bill is coming due-not that it was ever far out of mind. Climate-related upheavals are a common thread running through history, and they inevitably lead to conflict and destruction. McMichael correlates them to the four horsemen of the apocalypse: famine, pestilence, war, and conquest. Indeed, they have precipitated food shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and even civilizational collapse. We can see this in familiar historical events-the barbarian invasions of Rome, the Black Death in medieval Europe, the Irish potato famine, maybe even the Ten Plagues-that had their roots in natural climate change.
Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the terrifying future of climate change is already here? The story of mankind's survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, in fact could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also a clarion call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Climate Change, History, Environment, Health, Medicine

392 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2017

About the author

(1942-2014) Epidemiologist.
See: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-a290/

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many thanks to NetGalley and Oxford University Press for my DRC of this book


I wanted to see what the world has done to challenge us as hard as unchecked climate change is doing at this very moment. With a startlingly immense grasp, the scope of Humankind's long fight to survive despite the ways Earth changes is calmly but urgently expressed by Author McMichael. Anyone who loves to learn the ins and outs of a complex topic with a master teacher will lap this book up. The regime change due in the US on 20 January 2021 is the perfect time to learn why we should force our lawmakers to focus on climate's many effects on health, wealth, and food security.

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

While still absorbing the statement in a recent book that humans are now the most populous mammal on the planet, I find the claim in this book that humans and their livestock now account for almost 98% of the vertebrate biomass on the planet. Edit: the book is not clear, but I'm going to say land animals, based on what I find elsewhere, so that excludes ocean life.

Climate written records were kept first in Europe and China, regularly from the fourteenth century. Other records have been discovered in ice cores, soil deposits, tree rings, cave speleothems like stalactites, coral growth and lake and seabed sediments. The records are now also findable in DNA of creatures, such as the human louse which separated from ape lice and came to share our caves and fur garments. The author McMichael looks back over climate shifts in the past, warmer and cooler periods, to see how they affected social order, health and the fate of nations. Later he mentions that Egypt kept records of the Nile floods which enriched their farms.

The author lives in Australia and is an epidemiologist, so his focus is on human health and indeed, expansion, and how climate changes will affect humans in the future. As far back as the 1950s warming was mentioned as a threat to social stability, and a 2009 quote is given from Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute, warning that a four degree rise would make Earth's carrying capacity probably below one billion people. The IPCC is a great source of information. If the increasingly sheltered, artificial, net-dependent society is to survive it will have to prepare; Superstorm Sandy is one example of what is to come.

Nitrous oxide from fertiliser and carbon dioxide have been pumped into the atmosphere by humans at a rate never before seen. We have been clearing forests and killing off animals for thousands of years. Yet when we started farming ten thousand years ago, there were only about five million of us. When the Roman empire was prospering there were 200 million of us. During the twentieth century the world population quadrupled to six billion. By 2100 bar disaster, we are on course for 11.2 billion. How can we possibly grow and distribute enough food for all these people, and given that the rate of human growth increases to match the food available, my thought is, why should we? Why not make aid distribution dependent on contraception? As fertile deltas sink under a swelling ocean and dropping land mass through aquifer extraction, and desertification spreads, while heavily pregnant women with several children do the hard farm labour, it's clear that populous countries are already on the move. Men are moving first.

McMichael takes a look at the atmospheric distribution of heat. The equator, bulging towards the sun, heats and warm air expands so moves towards the poles. The air had been moving east a bit slower than the land, so creating the trade winds. As it arrives at the 40 degree latitude, the fast-moving equatorial air has more velocity than the slow-moving higher latitude land, so it arrives as wind from the west. Giant cells in constant motion opposite to one another keep the atmosphere moving and shedding or gaining moisture; the Polar cell, the Ferrell cell and the Hadley cell at the equator. The Sahara is in a dry band, generating heat that crosses the Atlantic gathering moisture for instance.

The monsoon in India was seen around 1900 by a man called Walker who studied records, to be a result of a larger climactic pattern from the El Nino. And the ocean currents, thermohaline as we now call them, circulate heat and salt or fresh water. We're accustomed to thinking of the Polar caps as heat reflectors; McMichael calls the Pacific our planet's solar panel. I am sure experts love to champion their own version but McMichael says the warming of the seawater in the Gulf of Mexico drives the North Atlantic Conveyor, whereas I have seen elsewhere that the plunge to the depths of the light saline water when it meets the cold, dense melting freshwater from the Arctic is the engine dragging water north across the sea surface. Probably a combination of the two. The latest I have seen about the Antarctic (not mentioned) is that seawater meeting the cold shore freezes out water into sea ice, so the seawater below is supersaturated with salt and this dense water has to drop, pulling the ocean after it and starting a deep seabed current full of nutrients back to the north. I was pleased to see the rubber ducks which washed off a cargo transport ship in 1992 mentioned, as these provided invaluable evidence about global currents.

After a look at droughts, we go to climate change science, much of which can be read elsewhere. Temperate zones now see spring arriving two weeks earlier than it used to, with movement of species to higher latitudes where cooler conditions than near the equator suit them. Other species are migrating up mountains after fast-shrinking glaciers, or in South Africa, down to the toe of the continent. Many primate species are already endangered and can't survive the predicted warming and habitat destruction.
Feedback loops mentioned include the shrinking polar ice; the methane bubbling out of permafrost; warming at higher latitudes increasing soil decay gases. Loss of vegetation can create a desert reflecting heat but on the other hand, vegetation locks up moisture and carbon.

Health risks include diseases. I hadn't heard of the Nipah virus, transmitted by fruit bats fleeing forest fires to pigs via fruit orchards, and from pigs to their handlers. This was in Malaysia in 1988 and 100 people died. Heatwaves cause deaths, such as 500,000 deaths in Europe during 2003 as well as forest fires and lost harvests. People fleeing drought, famine and war bring diseases to other populations. People may just be unable to live or work in zones that overheat, Singapore being suggested, and productivity will fall. Bushfire smoke caused breathing problems in Sydney which also suffered dust storms. Glacier melt rivers will shrink. Cholera has been shown to rise among coastal communities when sea water warms. Livestock are getting bluetongue from midges moving north in Europe. The Chinese parasite schistosomiasis, spread by water buffalo, water snails and back to humans, may increase, although the replacement of buffalo with tractors could reduce it.

Each chapter ends with several pages of notes and references, and the later chapters look more at agriculture, our prehistoric past and evolution, the Nile valley and Eurasian Bronze Age, the Romans, the bubonic plague, the Anasazi in southern North America, the Little Ice Age, which caused famine, deaths and social instability leading to the Hundred Years' War, the nineteenth century's potato blight, before going back to the long look at the Holocene. Then we are facing the future. Markets look at GDP and consumption and while this may be partly what got us into this mess, it may also be what will get us out of it. The global economy can put us all to work coming up with solutions. We have been striving to eradicate poverty, yet if everyone consumed at the same rate the planet could not provide nearly enough goods and foods. McMichael briefly mentions retrofitting cities such as Melbourne's planting thousands of trees to lessen the urban heat island effect.

This book is well written with diagrams - a few photos would not have gone amiss - and could be read by a reasonably advanced reader of natural or social history. The terms used could occasionally have had more explanation for those unfamiliar with them, but that is what Google is for. There is a distinct focus on past eras and less on disease than I'd expected. Students will find a lot to learn, neatly encapsulated. Why should the rest of us read it? Because it's the climate, stupid.

I downloaded a copy from Net Galley for an unbiased review.

[Rosemary Standeven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the most important non-fiction book that I have read for at least a decade – if not ever. It is also fascinating, captivating – and incredibly well researched. It should be read by every politician, and every policy maker world-wide, but also by anyone with even the slightest interest in either history, geography, medicine, rise and fall of civilisations, economics, environmental science, weather systems, agriculture, climate change – or just human life in general: past, present and future.
This book shows the myriad ways in which human life on this planet is interconnected with the surrounding environment, which in turn is ruled by climate.
Climate change IS happening. One can debate whether or not it is man-made (this book is pretty clear on the current rise in global temperatures being predominantly due to human activity) – but, what is an undeniable fact, is that climate change (global, continental, and/or more localised) has historically brought about catastrophic changes to human societies. It has directly or indirectly caused wars, plagues, starvation, mass immigration/emigration, natural disasters, … Climate change has also, occasionally, lead to human progress (advent and spread of agriculture, the rise of empires and civilisations …), but the negative effects of climate changes are often more pronounced and tragic.
What we need to do, is to look at how we can ameliorate climate change now, stop the desecration of the planet, and actively plan for a viable future. This is not just about the extinction of a number of animal or plant species – it is about the continuation of the human species. In particularly, creating a future human society/civilisation that we would want to be part of – not merely an existence.
I started reading this book on my Kindle – highlighting so many passages, and making many, many notes of fascinating facts, and links between various occurrences. I decided early on that I had to have a hard copy of this book – and bought one as soon as it was published. The graphs and tables are difficult to read on the Kindle, so it was a real advantage to have the hardcopy at hand to see them more clearly.
I would recommend this book to everyone who cares about our past and future – and even more to those who don’t yet.
Some (few) of the quotes I highlighted:
Agriculture had allowed civilisations to flourish during the Eurasian Bronze Age but it also left many of these societies more vulnerable to climatic shifts.This is probably the most important non-fiction book that I have read for at least a decade – if not ever. It is also fascinating, captivating – and incredibly well researched. It should be read by every politician, and every policy maker world-wide, but also by anyone with even the slightest interest in either history, geography, medicine, rise and fall of civilisations, economics, environmental science, weather systems, agriculture, climate change – or just human life in general: past, present and future.
This book shows the myriad ways in which human life on this planet is interconnected with the surrounding environment, which in turn is ruled by climate.
Climate change IS happening. One can debate whether or not it is man-made (this book is pretty clear on the current rise in global temperatures being predominantly due to human activity) – but, what is an undeniable fact, is that climate change (global, continental, and/or more localised) has historically brought about catastrophic changes to human societies. It has directly or indirectly caused wars, plagues, starvation, mass immigration/emigration, natural disasters, … Climate change has also, occasionally, lead to human progress (advent and spread of agriculture, the rise of empires and civilisations …), but the negative effects of climate changes are often more pronounced and tragic.
What we need to do, is to look at how we can ameliorate climate change now, stop the desecration of the planet, and actively plan for a viable future. This is not just about the extinction of a number of animal or plant species – it is about the continuation of the human species. In particularly, creating a future human society/civilisation that we would want to be part of – not merely an existence.
I started reading this book on my Kindle – highlighting so many passages, and making many, many notes of fascinating facts, and links between various occurrences. I decided early on that I had to have a hard copy of this book – and bought one as soon as it was published. The graphs and tables are difficult to read on the Kindle, so it was a real advantage to have the hardcopy at hand to see them more clearly.
I would recommend this book to everyone who cares about our past and future – and even more to those who don’t yet.
Some (few) of the quotes I highlighted:
“Agriculture had allowed civilisations to flourish during the Eurasian Bronze Age but it also left many of these societies more vulnerable to climatic shifts.”
“Sometimes the changes were too rapid for successful adaption, and famine, disease and conflict were the result.”
“Then, during the 1340s, continental European populations suffered a decade of climatic extremes, crop failures and hunger. Crop—stripping plagues of locusts occurred in three successive summers in Hungary, Austria, Bohemia and Germany, followed by the “millennium flood” of 1342 that destroyed vast areas of crops and in 1344 a severe hot drought that caused harvest failure, famine and tens of thousands of deaths. This confluence of climate-influenced factors must have increased the spread and lethality of the Black Death”
“Less well understood but more serious are the threats to population health and survival caused by disruptions of the biosphere’s life-supporting system, especially as they affect food yields, water sufficiency, patterns of infectious diseases, and the stability of the physical environment.”
“Further, the economic and social consequences of environmental disruption and degradation often lead to job loss, impoverishment, migration, and perhaps violent conflict, all of which are causes of injury, disease, under-nutrition, misery, depression and premature death.”
“We can expect climate change to act as “force multiplier”, exacerbating many of the world’s health problems.”
“The world is now experiencing an upturn in the frequency and intensity of floods, fires, heatwaves and other weather disasters. In contrast, there has been virtually no increase in geological disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions).”
“Yet the world may well be heading towards an average global warming of up to 4°C by later this century, with even larger rises in polar and sub-polar regions. The projected rate of global heating outstrips anything in the geological record: the last time the planet’s temperature rose by 4°was 56 million years ago, but that change occurred over thousands of years, not over a single century.”
“Both significant cooling and warming, acting via biological, ecological and social impacts, may endanger food yields, contribute to infectious disease outbreaks and spread, affect water quality and availability, and exacerbate social disruption, impoverishment and displacement.”
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but also bought the hardcopy.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

McMichael sets out to see if there are lessons from the past that can help us understand what challenges climate change is likely to bring. I liked this - McMichael explores how climate works, and how it has fluctuated in the past, and then he looks at how climate has affected humans since the dawn of agriculture. Finally, in one chapter, he offers some solutions about what we might do.

Because climate has naturally fluctuated by 1-2 degrees Celsius across the millennia, McMichael argues, we can see what might be in store for us. McMichael explores a range of societal collapses, famines and plagues that he links to climate fluctuation. He suggests that there is a Goldilocks temperature, and any up or down deviation can lead to things like more rain, which can bring more mosquitoes, which can bring more disease. Or less rain, which leads to famine, which can lead to civil unrest or wholesale migration. It's an interesting book, and the chapters of historical examples were the ones I found the most engaging.

McMichael goes on to suggest that climate change is difficult to comprehend, and does not inspire the same terror as a big storm, because it is not right in front of us. His suggestions on how we might adapt to and begin to mitigate climate change are pretty standard if you've done any reading in this space: re-orient economies away from constant growth as the only positive metric, reduce poverty to increase resilience, and explore geo-engineering solutions to increase carbon capture. Still, it's a concice, accessible summary.

This was reasonably dense, and I'd only pick this up if you're pretty interested in the topic. Though McMichael's prose is clear and accessible, this is not light reading. But if you are interested in climate change, and what we can learn from the past, give this a go.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was dense, and packed with history, much that the average person would already know, but then extrapolated and shown from a different angle, from how climate change has affected our past.

The reality of the earth is that the climate is always shifting and changing and has naturally since it's birth. The difference, the book points out, is that historically, any changes since Homo Sapiens have averaged around the 1.5 degree mark over hundreds to thousands of years. Our current climate is warming at a rate that is unprecedented in history.

What the book aims to do is show how when natural changes have occurred at a much lower rate, what happens? Most times throughout history the change brings about terrible disease, famine, displacement, and war, and while the book doesn't mince words about how dangerous our current situation is, it does reflect on the fact that we have the power to make a change, if we can change our perception of Climate Change from a big, vast threat looming in the distance, to something that is already affecting the personal health of the individual, an aspect that hasn't been focused on as much as say sea-level rise spoiling waterfront livability.

Very interesting read, but very heavy at times (in tone and in content).

[Jemima Pett · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Climate Change and the Health of Nations, Anthony McMichaels starts by reviewing the issue of climate change, man-made and natural, and giving a two-chapter overview to bring your earth science up to speed. He covers how weather is related to climate, how climates are related to the perturbation of the ocean currents, the natural emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the effects of other atmospheric pollution, and the timescales over which major changes in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere (and hence the global temperature changes) occur and have occurred over geological timescales. He then gives a brief overview of how catastrophic failures of civilisations tend to occur - war, famine, pestilence and disease - since his concern as an epidemiologist is the effect of climate change on human health.

In this magnificent book, he addresses the impacts of climate on the evolution of the human, using archaeological and geological evidence, and brings us forward in stages, examining different ancient civilisations and the climate record. Once we get to written records, the timescales start to shorten. If, like me, your science outweighs your history, you are likely to be astounded by the connection between plagues you've heard of and know roughly when they happened, and variations in the climate such as failure of monsoon rains causing century-long droughts, and the Indonesian super-volcano, which would have caused a 'nuclear winter', coinciding with periods of intense cold and famine in northern Europe. You may find it confusing with all the various tribal invasions, but the logical connection with shifts in weather patterns is repetitive and persistent.

I found the older periods easier to connect with than the post 14th century ones, partly because it was on a macro scale; the geographical spread was immense, with all civilisations in a three thousand year span dealt with in a not necessarily easy to follow way; I found the narrative jumped forward two thousand years and then back again on more than one occasion. In later periods, rich with written evidence, the author explains the role of rats and other disease vectors, linking to the ideal conditions in which the two main plague organisms multiplied; one in cold and dry, one in hot and wet. These conditions, found at opposite ends of trading routes, and the disease records in the settlements, mapped well onto the fluctuating influence of El Nino on both Atlantic- and monsoon- driven temperatures and rainfall.

Although I was irritated on several occasions by the author dropping in unsupported and sometimes unconnected items--such as the effect of the Great Smog in London in December 1952 in a section on air pollution in summer--the overall effect of the book is to give a clear connection between not only the direct health of the populations affected by extreme weather, but also the social unrest caused by it: riots, loss of confidence in leaders, overthrow of dictators and/or wars were inevitable conclusions.

It obviously helps if you have a good grasp of at least one of the sciences involved in this book, but it is a fairly easy read for anyone with a good grounding in general science, and a must for anyone with more than a passing interest in climate change and society.

Summary:
A serious book with a long-range assessment of the effect of climate change on the diseases, famines, social unrest and rise and fall of civilisations. Great for anyone who has a partial perspective on any angle of the subject and wants to integrate with a systems view. Really good overview of the relationships between climate and weather to update anyone with a vague understanding of ocean circulation and El Nino/Monsoon impacts.

Summary chapter really adds the same as others like Stern, Gore, the Dalai Lama - but if we don't keep saying it....

[Joshua Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book. This book puts together a lot of things including history, climatology, epidemiology and economics. It transcends millions of years to provide evidence of how climate change has caused many deaths and attributed these climate change to have indirectly caused civilisations to fall. It is a brilliant piece of work which was pretty heavy on climatology terms at the beginning and a number of repeats throughout the book.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations by Anthony McMichael is a historical study of the effects of climate change. McMichael, medical graduate and epidemiologist, held a national research fellowship at the Australian National University, Canberra. He was also Honorary Professor of Climate Change and Human Health at the University of Copenhagen. He was previously Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene, Tropical Medicine (1994-2001), and President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.

Despite the scientific support for climate change it still remains a political issue in the United States. Debates over natural change and man-made change in the environment to even “just the weather” abound. The current administration even stopped agencies from posting climate change information on social media. McMichael doesn’t try to convince the reader of climate change. Instead, he takes a look at the history of man on the planet. There have been obvious and undeniable, climate changes during the last half million years. McMichael examines the impacts of the historical climate changes on man. We think of ourselves as a highly adaptable creature, but we do require a “Goldilocks” zone of climate -- temperature, light, and rainfall.

The history of man is the history of dealing with changes. Climate change is not necessarily the complete problem but acts as an amplifier to existing problems. In this last geological age man has dominated the planet forests have been cleared forests, created farmland and irrigation, domesticated livestock, and powered itself with coal and fossil fuels. With these elements, regional changes are examined from El Nino and volcanic eruptions and the temporary disruption to the environment. The Gulf Stream keeps the British Islands much warmer than Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador which are at the same latitude. The Indian Ocean Dipole is responsible for droughts and flooding in India. Studying the effects and cycles of the natural phenomenon leads to predictions of long-term climate changes.

Climate change is real and even recognized by the Department of Defense, It issued a report that climate change lowers the world’s carrying capabilities which will result in aggressive wars. America’s electrical grid that controls almost every aspect of American lives. It is extremely vulnerable to attack. Even in our temperature controlled lives, a number of people die of heat-related deaths in modern urban cities. Imagine life without in the summer without cooling as the temperatures rise.

Over the past 70,000 years since man began to dominate the planet, we have seen the sixth extinction which is happening as fast or faster than any natural extinction in the history of the planet. The world’s climate is changing and by looking at past changes we can predict the possible effects of future changes. There is more climate change than just global warming. It also involves changes in rainfall and the frequency of droughts. There are also the effects on farmland and animal species. Climate Change and the Health of Nations is not out to prove climate change exists but to show the effects previous changes have had on civilizations. A historical reference to one of today’s most pressing problems.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I appreciate very much what McMichael attempted, in trying to say everything I feel like he didn’t really say anything. At least not anything that new.

Tracing the entirety of human history through the lens of climate change was certainly ambitious, but it ended up just being a collection of dense yet somehow superficial details. I got bored frequently, often lost track of who and where and when was being discussed, and I don’t think I absorbed much beyond the bigger, albeit important, point that climate underlies so much and we are headed towards an unknown future that will likely push our species beyond the limits we’ve evolved with.

But, I accepted that before and personally didn’t get much out of this work. A few choice examples, explored more deeply, might have been more engaging and memorable, rather than a blur of facts.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book back in high school (in 2017 when it was published) and it probably warrants a re-read now that I am older and have a college degree under my belt.

This book is very well written, and as far as I remember well-researched (though I am unsure if any information is now outdated). The discussion of climate change is poignant - especially as such a hot-button issue and with so much misinformation around what what climate change and global warming are. This book gives a very broad look at human history, and how humankind and the climate of the Earth intersect. Any one who enjoys broad histories may enjoy this book - though if you prefer history text with a more narrow focus this one might not be for you.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful and well written. It explores the history of humanity through the lens of climate change, making a convincing case for the need to be doing something about human caused climate change now. This is a must read book for anyone interested in how our warming world could affect the health of human populations based on historical examples across the globe.

[The Inquisitive Biologist · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grand synthesis of environmental history, this book charts the many and complex links between climatic changes and the health of people. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2019...

[Colin]

I don't know why I read books about climate change. They're invariably depressing and I rarely leave with more knowledge than I started with. This one is more of an anthropological survey of how climate has affected cultures across our history. Anthropology is not my thing. So this wasn't really my thing. Not the author's fault, I'm sure this was a banger for anthro-heads.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by his wife, Dr Judith Healey in the Autumn 2017 ANU Reporter Vol. 48 No. 1

[Sarah Al Qassimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an incredibly well-researched and important one. A truimph.

[Alan Eyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard but good historical analysis of climate change on societies

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a presentation of the dilemma we face with the climate change. Over the millennia, as homo sapiens has developed to now, the earth has changed in cycles. With the changes come crises, famines, pandemics, and ruin, along with resilience, ingenuity, innovation, and rebuilding. Look to the present and the future, we as a species are uniquely positioned to effect climate, to destroy or repair the balance... Maybe we have already done irreparable damage. But, if we are to have a future, we must work together to find a way to correct the imbalances of our predecessors.
Very thoroughly researched, with upbeat and hopeful prose, this would be recommended for anyone who enjoys Jared Diamond or who wants a future for our children's children.