Citation
(2003), "Climate change", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 12 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2003.07312cae.005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Climate change
The End of Development? Global Warming, Disasters, and the Great Reversal of Human ProgressJonathan Walter and Andrew Simms200220pp.Free
Unsustainable use of natural resources such as fossil fuels, coastal development pressures, and population growth, combine to impact the world's hydrological cycle and weather patterns. These changes will result in more frequent sudden-impact hazards, such as tropical cyclones, that will cause disaster-related costs to increase. This report examines the pitfalls of "development as usual" and makes the case that a new development paradigm for the world is needed, one that includes a long-range understanding of risk and vulnerability.
Available from New Economics Foundation, Cinnamon House, 6-8 Cole Street, London, SE1 4YH UK. Tel: 44 (020) 7089 2800; WWW: http://www.neweconomics.org/default.asp?strRequest=pubs&strContext=pubdetails&intPubID=119
A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate ChangeWilliam H. Calvin2002341pp.$25.00
According to the author of A Brain for All Seasons, abrupt climate changes are driving engines for brain evolution. As a neurobiologist, Calvin has studied the mechanisms of the brain for decades. One thing he puzzled over was why our ancestors' brain sizes increased in size so drastically during the Ice Age. Calvin identified a correlation between abrupt climate change (of which the Ice Age is a primary example) and brain evolution. He puts forth a theory that these "whiplash" climate changes require entirely new modes of thinking, communicating, and learning. Because abrupt shifts in climate change ecosystems, they force humans to invent or relearn ways to survive.
To purchase a copy, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Fax: (773) 702-9756; WWW: http://www.press.uchicago.edu
Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World-North America. Professional Paper 1386-J2003400pp.$76.00, plus $5.00 shipping
This report is a review of historical and on-going changes in North American glaciers using Landsat imagery acquired primarily during the 1970s. Long-term observation of fluctuations of glaciers provides an important indicator of changes in regional and global climates as well as monitoring of volcanoes capped by glaciers that pose significant threats in the forms of lahars and jokulhlaups (mudflows and glacier outburst floods). This book is the result of a collaborative effort between the USGS, the National Park Service, US and Canadian universities, the Geological Survey of Canada, and the International Glaciological Society of the UK. It provides an accurate regional inventory of glacier ice in Canada, the conterminous USA, and Mexico.
To purchase a copy, contact the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Information Services, Box 25286, Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225, USA. E-mail: infoservices@usgs.gov; Tel: (888) 275-8747
The atlas is also available on-line at: http://pubs.usgs.gov/prof/p1386j/