The Rough Guide to Climate Change

Citation

Manolas, E. (2012), "The Rough Guide to Climate Change", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 346-348. https://doi.org/10.1108/17568691211248766

The first thing which caught my attention when looking at Robert Henson's book The Rough Guide to Climate Change was that it was very cleverly designed not only to catch the reader's attention right from the start but also to create compassion for the plight of the planet as it faces the greatest challenge it has ever faced, that of anthropogenic climate change.

The back page of the front cover displays four photographs accompanied by very insightful captions. The golden toad as an early casualty of climate change, the destruction brought by hurricane Katrina in 2005, droughts and significant reduction of snow coverage in the Himalayas since the 1970s. Each caption ends by referring the reader to specific pages in the book where he can find more information about the issues depicted in the photographs. The same technique is used at the back page of the back cover of the book which displays three photographs, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers, forest fires and a map depicting the areas in Europe struck by the heat wave in the summer of 2003. Front and back cover also unfold from the inside showing a graph displaying climate change since 1880 and a map displaying climate change hot spots. These illustrations are also accompanied by the necessary explanations. The problem is convincingly presented in a nutshell, combining the power of photography, graphics and the written word.

Robert Henson's The Rough Guide to Climate Change is divided into six parts. Part 1: the basics, contains chapters which examine the workings of global warming and the nature of greenhouse gases which are responsible for the problem. Part 2: the symptoms, discusses how climate change has affected and will affect life on the planet. Part 3: the science, looks at the issue of climate change as it has evolved through the ages, how the global warm‐up has been measured and the role of climate models in making predictions about the future. Part 4: debates and solutions, reviews the global climate change dialogue and how we can deal with the problem. These include agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. Part 5: what can you do?, provides advice on what can be done to combat climate change at individual and family levels. Part 6: resources, provides information of other books on climate change and a list of useful web sites.

This is a good introductory book on climate change and as such it is of interest not only to the general readership but also to students taking an introductory course on the subject. The book is 416 pages long. Also, if one takes into account the huge amount of information contained in the book then the title of the book is misleading as this piece of work is certainly not a rough guide. This may sound too much for the general reader but Henson's elegant and inviting writing style together with the book's illustrations and thought‐provoking theme boxes in fact make the book an easy and interesting read.

There is certainly more to be said about the book being used as an introductory book for students. The book comfortably covers the 13 weeks required for the completion of an academic semester. The book presents and discusses all of the important aspects of climate change, i.e. scientific, political, social and economic aspects. The chapters are divided into subsections with all important terms being emphasized in bold letters.

One of the most interesting features of the book is the chapter openings. These openings – for instance, the unprecedented heat from July to early August 2010 in Russia, evidence from the Arctic where global warming leaps from the abstract to the instantly tangible, evidence from tropical and mid‐latitude waters warming up and growing more acidic, examples of extreme weather events such as the typhoons which raked Japan in 2004, the hurricanes Wilma, Rita and Katrina which hit North America in 2005, the Cyclone Nargis which slammed into Burma in 2008 – spark the interest of the reader as they introduce important themes.

The book also offers a variety of photographs, paintings, maps, tables and figures. Each of these illustrations is carefully selected by the author and appears with an insightful caption. Each chapter in the book also contains thought‐provoking theme boxes – for instance, Pollution: heat's hidden partner in crime, What makes the Arctic so vulnerable, The fast‐disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro, Katrina and climate change, What trees tell us about climate, Core value: getting information out of ice, Climate change and the cinema – which not only stimulate interest but also provide the book with greater flexibility because they enlighten in a different way or in different intensity than the main text does, issues which should be particularly emphasized.

The book does provide at the end a list of important books to be read and each book listed is accompanied by a very useful summary of its contents. Other important books which could be added to the list are: Nicholas Stern (2010), A Blueprint for a Safer Planet: How We Can Save the World and Create Prosperity, Anthony Giddens (2009), The Politics of Climate Change, Brian Fagan (2008), The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Emily Boyd and Emma L. Tompkins (2010), Climate Change: A Beginner's Guide, Kerry Emanuel (2007), What We Know about Climate Change and Michael D. Mastrandrea and Stephen H. Schneider (2010), Preparing for Climate Change.

In the last pages of his book Henson also provides a list of important web sites on climate change which is another important innovation of the book if one takes into account the problem of misinformation caused by so many other web sites in the internet. Another idea for enriching the list already provided in the book would be to include web sites containing activities on climate change. Some of these activities may even be of interest to the general reader, e.g. calculating one's own carbon footprint (Activities about Climate Change, 2012; Cervato et al., 2012). Although important terms are printed in bold in the text and accompanied by the necessary definition, nevertheless, it would have helped if the book had a glossary at the end presenting and defining all the important terms alphabetically.

This book is a good introduction to the subject of climate change. It may also encourage the reader to read and involve himself more with the subject.