Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World's Changing Weather

As a student of Prof. Bryson in the '60s, I greatly appreciated his insight into both the constancy of climate change and the impact of human populations on macro climates. It is important in this day when so many have discovered climate change and think it is a recent phenomena that there is a voice, like Prof. Bryson's, to remind us that climate change has always been part of the planet. Bryson's view today is raised along with many paleoclimatologists against the voice of panic and those preaching the doom of the planet due to a modest increase in CO2 (no where near historic levels). Bryson's wisdom and decades of study is the voice of reason today and needs to be listened to.

Reid Bryson, a premier prof. at the premier climatology program wrote this for non-technical audiences in 1978. The "Global Warming" apostles need to go back to this book, because climate change is not just warming. Bryson connects the dots between regional climates in a global pattern, based on shifting jet streams. Warming in one location occurs simultaneously with cooling in another. Drought in one location occurs simultaneously with increased precip in another location. Since climate is ephemoral, the history of climates is read in ice cores, tree rings, plant and animal paleontology, written history, crop yield records, and parish birth and death records. A rigorous approach in any of these areas could only reach a small and specialized audience; the population ready for such an approach in all these fields doesn't exist. Climates of Hunger uses case studies drawn from the best rigorous climate science of the day; for less 'sketchiness', refer to the references. Bryson "wrote the book" in the 70s; public interest needs the depth of understanding beyond 'warming' now.

This book is pretty good. It describes man's impact on climate with some case studies to back it up. Additionally, the book goes into attempting to reconstruct past climates through different methods. Although some of the conclusions that were drawn could be considered sketchy, it's an excellent book and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in climates, history, or global warming.