Forecast

The Surprising—and Immediate—Consequences of Climate Change

Stephan Faris

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780805087796
• eBook ISBN: 9781429956260
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

A vivid and illuminating portrayal of the surprising ways that climate change will affect the world in the near future—politically, economically, and culturally
While reporting just outside of Darfur, Stephan Faris discovered that climate change was at the root of that conflict, and began to wonder what current and impending—and largely unanticipated—crises such changes have in store for the world.
Forecast provides the answers.
Global warming will spur the spread of many diseases. Italy has already experienced its first climate-change epidemic of a tropical disease, and malaria is gaining ground in Africa. The warming world will shift huge populations and potentially redraw political alliances around the globe, driving environmentalists into the hands of anti-immigrant groups. America's coasts are already more difficult places to live as increasing insurance rates make the Gulf Coast and other gorgeous spots prohibitively expensive. Crops will fail in previously lush places and thrive in some formerly barren zones, altering huge industries and remaking traditions. Water scarcity in India and Pakistan have the potential to inflame the conflict in Kashmir to unprecedented levels and draw the United States into the troubles there, and elsewhere.
Told through the narratives of current, past, and future events, the result of astonishingly wide travel and reporting, Forecast is a powerful, gracefully written, eye-opening account of this most urgent issue and how it has altered and will alter our world.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 - “THINGS WILL BREAK LOOSE FROM THE HANDS OF THE WISE MEN” DARFUR, SCARCITY, AND CONFLICT
• 2 - “WE’RE THE FAR COUNTRY” THE GULF COAST, WARMING WATERS, AND THE FLIGHT FROM PARADISE
• 3 - “A SPECTACULAR BIT OF GROWTH AS TIMES GET HARD” EUROPE, MIGRATION, AND POLITICAL BACKLASH
• 4 - “AT A NEW FRONTIER” BRAZIL, UNSETTLED ECOSYSTEMS, AND DISEASE
• 5 - “BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY” THE WEST COAST, HOTTER SUMMERS, AND THE GRAPE HARVEST
• 6 - “EVERYTHING IS LATE IN CHURCHILL” THE ARCTIC, MELTING ICE, AND THE NEW LAND GRAB
• 7 - “AN ELEMENTAL KIND OF EXISTENTIAL THREAT” SOUTH ASIA, DISAPPEARING GLACIERS, AND REGIONAL CATASTROPHE
• EPILOGUE
• NOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INDEX
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Copyright Page