Forecast

September 1, 2008
The latest communiqué from the emerging genre of traveling the world in the footsteps of climate change is an intelligent, nuanced report on the complex relationships between increasingly unstable weather patterns and politics, ecology and lifestyles. Journalist Faris shows how the genocide in Darfur has roots in desertification and may be “a canary in the coal mine, a foretaste of climatically driven political chaos,” and how the resulting emigration of Africans to Europe is causing economic pressures that are being met with fascistic movements in Italy and Britain. Locals are abandoning Key West and New Orleans due to unsustainable insurance premiums; Bangladesh is likely to be flooded out of existence; and drought may wipe out the Amazon rain forest within 70 years. Faris cites a study predicting a “world depicted by Mad Max, only hotter, with no beaches and perhaps with even more chaos.” But, depressingly, he admits that his travels researching this book released nine times an average person's annual carbon use and that “the world many have opened its eyes to climate change, but we're far from taking effective action.”

If you've managed to maintain your composure about climate change and global warming so far, this book may cause you alarm. In sober, reasonable language, the author lays out an argument that climate change is causing political and economic upheaval that is altering the planet. Narrator Mel Foster has a deep, resonant voice that clearly enunciates the book's themes with credibility and intelligence. His straightforward tone may strike some as monotonous, but he uses effective pauses and emphasis to maintain interest. Foster doesn't change his voice for the quotes in the book; rather, he lets the power and imagery of the words speak for themselves. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine