Energy orgies herald Stone Age

By Wan Lixin  |   2008-7-5  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

TALKING about the weather used to be a painless way to start conversation for some Westerners, but the weather is increasingly an unpleasant topic.

Shanghai experienced an unusually strong gale on Wednesday, leading to casualties, power outage, and disruptions of traffic.

A month ago, South China experienced unprecedented heavy rain, leading to heavy losses of life and property.

Earlier this year, the region had suffered unusual heavy snow and sleet, which disrupted power supply and transportation for a long time.

Tim Flannery's "The Weather Makers - How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth" provides the historical and global background against which these extreme weather events occurred.

Flannery explains how global warming is wreaking havoc, and more important, what you can do to help avert the planet's common destruction.

Paradoxically, as global warming is a shared problem, few choose to confront it at all.

The rich nations find it impossible to kick their addiction to carbon-rich lifestyles, and the poor are catching up in their carbon emissions.

"One of the biggest obstacles to making a start on climate change is that it has become a cliche before it has even been understood," Flannery claims.

Some of the well-heeled are even flirting with "carbon-free" as a newfangled concept.

We have heard of some scholars who fly halfway around the globe to attend an environmental seminar, and then pay a few dollars to buy back their carbon emissions, and are declared carbon-free.

Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas. A greenhouse allows sunlight to come in, and prevents it from going outside.

Similarly, the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere allow the sunlight to reach the earth, but absorb the energy that has been captured and reradiated by the earth's surface.