"Chapter 1: Present Danger

Nineteen ninety-nine was the most violent year in the modern history of
weather. So was 1998. So was 1997. And 1996. Anybody who glances at a
weather report from time to time can see that something extraordinary is
happening. But exactly what that is remains a matter of controversy.

For twenty years, we have been bombarded with warnings that global warming
is a real and present danger. Equally, there have been claims that it's all
nonsense.

On March 15, 1999, scientists at the University of Arizona and the University
of Massachusetts reported on their construction of a thousand-year record of
earth's average temperature. The results were shocking. What has happened
is that a nine-hundred-year-long cooling trend has been suddenly and
decisively reversed in the past fifty years. Due to the rise in heat-trapping
greenhouse gases, ferocious warming is under way. The scientists predicted that the earth will shortly
be warmer than it has been in millions of years.

A climatological nightmare is upon us. It is almost certainly the most dangerous thing that has ever
happened in our history. However, there is a surprising amount that we can do about it. Some of it
involves personal action. Some of it involves the whole society. None of it is particularly difficult or
expensive, and none of it will place a cost burden on government, business, or the individual.

How effective will it be? That remains to be seen. So far, the fact that we cannot answer the question
of just how dangerous global warming actually is, has meant that nobody is doing anything very
decisive. But the situation is getting more and more serious. It has become clear that the deterioration
of the atmosphere -- indeed, of the whole biosphere -- is happening a lot faster than even the most
concerned climatologists imagined just a short time ago.

What does this mean? What might happen? We must find a way to understand. We must, because we
have to empower ourselves to prevent it. Could it be that the worst climate disaster of all -- an event
barely whispered about -- is actually happening right now? Could we be at the edge of runaway climate
change -- an event so devastating that it could abruptly leave the world unable to feed itself, perhaps
even visit it with unimaginable destruction?

To find out, we must take a journey not only through the shocking record of current climate change, but
also into the amazing history of the world's weather.

At this point, almost any violent change in climate will batter our civilization because it is so enormous
and makes such a massive demand on the environment. Even the unthinkable could happen: our
civilization could fall.

Earth's climate works like a rubber band being stretched and suddenly released. For years, eons even,
the stresses slowly build as the chemistry of the air changes. And then, in a matter of a few years or
even a few months, there is a shift so vast that we can scarcely begin to imagine it.

Earth, it seems, has a powerful regulatory mechanism built into its climate. Heat increases to a certain
point, and then the whole system breaks down. Cold air comes roaring down from the north, flooding
the previously overheated Northern Hemisphere.

Suddenly, a new era of cold weather begins. We know, generally, how this happens. But not even
science has as yet faced the fact that this change must be accompanied by an absolutely massive
release of energy, as earth's climate strives to reorganize itself. In other words, this great shift of
climate is almost certainly accompanied by a great storm or series of storms, a weather upheaval
outside of contemporary human experience. We believe that it has happened before, and that traces of
what we are calling the superstorm exist in the fossil record. We believe that it comes on suddenly and
that it is so destructive that it has the potential to end our civilization.

These are sensational claims, but we can prove that nature pulls the trigger suddenly and, therefore,
that the rebalancing of the climate that follows must also be very sudden and involve titanic energies.
This suggests that our present situation may be extremely perilous.

Over the past three million years the earth has been locked in an unusually harsh climate system.
During this period, our climate has flipped from warm to cold conditions and back again many times.
Again and again, earth has warmed up, getting hotter and hotter until -- very suddenly -- the glaciers
have come back and entombed a quarter of the planet in ice for upwards of a hundred thousand years.
Sometimes, the cooling event has not resulted in a long-term buildup of ice. Sometimes, as happened
around 8,000 B.C., sudden cooling has not led to the return of the ice, but has only interrupted the
warming process for a short time.

All of the factors that have caused sudden climate change in the past are lining up right now. This
change, which we will show is part of a vast natural cycle, has been sped up this time by human
activity. When the change comes, it is likely to be much more violent than ever before, and we will offer
evidence from recent and unexpected climatological data that indicates why this would be so.

We will look at the last great upheaval through the eyes of the people who were living then. Examining
the fossil record, we will identify the season in which it took place. And we will see why that particular
event did not result in a new ice age and learn exactly how to tell if the changes the next one brings
will cause one or not.

What will this climate change be like for you and your family? This depends on where you live. The
farther north your home, the more likely you will have to move quickly south.

When the warm ocean currents that now flow north cease to do so, our whole climate will change. It is
our contention that the energy necessary for the superstorm will be created at that time.

Say you live in Dallas or Madrid or Rome. Your first indication that the superstorm is building might be
weather reports to the effect that a series of cold fronts are moving down from the Arctic, one after
another. This could happen at any time of the year. You would hear that more northern places --
Toronto, Stockholm, Beijing -- were receiving extremely heavy weather -- extraordinary rain in the
summer, unprecedented blizzards in the winter. This would continue for a week or more, always building
in intensity. Across the northern plains of the world -- the American High Plains, the central Asian
steppe -- wind gusts of upwards of one hundred miles an hour would start to be recorded. We believe
that it would get worse, and we will make our case over the course of this book.

Places like Edmonton and Semipalatinsk, then Minneapolis and Moscow, would cease to communicate
with the outside world. Alaska and northern Siberia would have gone silent before.

From Europe to Asia to America, whole populations would be desperately attempting to move south.
Because the same changes that affected currents in the North Atlantic would alter the movement of
currents in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand would also be affected. There, summer
would have turned to winter, or normal winter would have become extremely cold. Heavy seas would
devastate the southern coasts of the continent. Typhoons, blowing up suddenly, would smash into the
Philippines, Japan, and the Pacific islands.

The farther north you were, the more extreme conditions would be. Day after day, the storms would
continue, becoming more complex and organized, larger, taking on forms never observed before.

All over the Northern Hemisphere, massive population movements would be taking place. There would
be mass disorganization, and many, many people would be overrun by the superstorm.

After the superstorm was over, it would gradually become clear that a catastrophe of breathtaking
proportions had occurred. The only reports from Europe would be coming from Portugal, southern Italy,
and southern Spain. The entire American Midwest would be under a sheet of ice, one that would extend
across Siberia and northern Europe as well. This ice would reflect vast amounts of sunlight and heat
back into space.

If the storm -- as the last one appears to have done -- hit in summer, the ice would probably melt. It is
possible that this happened the last time and, as we shall see, was recorded in myth all over the world.

If the storm took place in the fall or winter, then the ice could conceivably compress so much in the
next few months and reflect back so much heat and light that the next summer simply would not be
warm enough to melt it. The winter that followed would be the coldest in history.

The ultimate and ironic effect of global warming would have become clear to the survivors: a new ice
age would have begun. "