Climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider (who died in July, 2010) here organizes 49 essays from noted experts to explore the state-of-our-knowledge of "global climatic disruption" and potential related policy initiatives. The essays are scholarly and, in some cases, quite technical, with charts, maps, and detailed sourcing.

There are five main sections. "Impacts of Climate Change" ranges over extinction, ecosystems, water, hurricanes, wildfires, forests of Amazonia, crop production and food security, human health, and unique and valued places. "Policy Analysis" looks at economic impacts, assessment modeling, risk perceptions, political feasibility, carbon taxes/trading/offsets, and the economic cost of reducing COs emissions. "International Considerations" include treaties, EU climate policy, population, inequities and imbalances, ethics and rights, developing countries, the Clean Development Mechanism, and climate change and policy in China, India and Australia. There is a large section (9 essays) on the United States, including an interesting look at California's approach to combating climate change and at the role of media and public education in shaping policy. The fifth section, "Mitigation Options to Reduce Carbon Emissions", discusses renewable energy, hydrogen and nuclear energy, coal capture and storage, "avoided deforestation" policy for tropical forests, and the pros and cons of engineering the climate.

The information presented here, current to late 2009, is quite alarming, even for someone who has been following climate change for some years. I guess someone has to make an effort to pull things together and hope to change the future, but the more I read in this field, the less hope I have that we as a species can cooperate in time and to the extent necessary to avoid changes for which we aren't prepared and wouldn't want if they were to happen today. In addition to the fact that the many, many consequences of climate change are endlessly layered and interconnected, they are also global, the scope of which most people don't fathom. We aren't talking about simple temperature warming, but massive changes in food production and water availability, location of growing seasons, food chain extinctions, and unprecedented illness and death from starvation, lack of drinking water, and political unrest as huge populations can no longer survive within their countries' borders. It doesn't help that industrial countries have the most to lose in lifestyle but the least in safety, at least for the next few decades. It is also possible that some wealthier countries will see short-term benefits from climate change, which will add to the unwillingness to alter our ways. However, the lag time in climate change is several human lifetimes, and it is too easy to indulge our species' short attention span and need to fulfill immediate wants. Add to that the political improbability of international trust and cooperation for what is needed to stop catastrophe, and the future seems quite bleak.

While this book is difficult for the non-specialist to read, it is full of data and the scientific proofs rarely found in more popular books on the topic. This is the book to read to find out exactly why most scientists are extremely concerned and some terrified by what we've set in motion. Most of the writers make an attempt to just present the facts without sounding an alarm, and the effect is perhaps more disturbing: the bald facts lay out a future we really, really don't want but seem incapable of fully grasping. And therein may lie our fate. ( )