| IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE The Past, Present, and Future of Climate Change Bridget Heos New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, February 2016 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-544-30347-8 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-544-30347-4 | 231pp. | HC/FCI | $17.99 | |
| Page 2: | "But Earth, with its present climate, is our perfect world because it's the world to which we as humans have adapted and thrived." |
| Missing words: S/B "to which we as humans have adapted and in which we have thrived". |
| Pages 12-13: | "Earth's average temperature is 59°F (15°C), but without the greenhouse effect, it would be 0°F (-18°C)—in other words, we would be a ball of ice. Other planets also have greenhouse effects. Without it, Venus, which averages a toasty 855°F (457°C), would plunge to -63°F (-53°C)." |
| I haven't run the numbers, but it seems counterintuitive that Venus, similar in size to Earth and closer to the Sun, would end up colder than Earth if both planets lose their greenhouse gases. This is especially true since Venus has negligible water and thus would have a lower albedo than ice-shrouded Earth. |
| Page 16: | "Glucose is the primary ingredient in plant fibers, so it makes up the plants themselves." |
| I think this is misleading. Everyone knows that glucose (grape sugar) dissolves in water. Plant fibers are made of cellulose, which is not water-soluble. Wikipedia describes it as "an organic compound with the formula (C6H10O5)n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units." So a better wording would be "in cellulose fibers, which make up the plants themselves". |
| Page 81: | "During dry, hot months, the ice melts into rivers and streams, which are used for irrigation and hydropower. When glaciers melt due to global warming, the meltwater gushes into the ocean instead, cutting down the freshwater supply available each summer." |
| Clumsy wording: S/B "year by year less water is available each summer for use by humans". |
| Page 103: | "Fluorinated gases, or F-gases, refer to to several gases, which vary in potency." |
| Missing words: S/B "The terms Fluorinated gases, or F-gases". |
| Page 109: | The description of problems caused by fracking, aka hydraulic fracturing |
| This should also say that fracking uses lots of fresh water, so it can threaten local availability of water for other uses. |
| Page 125: | "Based on the various scenarios, the 2013 IPCC report estimates that carbon dioxide emissions will rise to between 421 and 936 parts per million by 2100..." |
| Wrong word: S/B "concentrations". |
| Page 150: | "...one such group includes the Heartland Institute, which is funded by Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries (a coal company)." |
| Koch Industries is as much into oil and natural gas as coal (along with various other products), so I would say this S/B "Koch Industries (a fossil-fuel company)". |
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