The Climate Question

In 2015, annual average atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels surpassed a level of 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in three million years. This has caused widespread concern among climate scientists, and not least among those that work on natural climate variability in
prehistoric times, before humans. These people are known as "past climate" or palaeoclimate researchers, and author Eelco J. Rohling is one of them. The Climate Question offers a background to these concerns in straightforward terms, with examples, and is motivated by Rohling's personal experience
in being intensely quizzed about whether modern change is not all just part of a natural cycle, whether nature will not simply resolve the issue for us, or whether it won't be just up to some novel engineering to settle things quickly.

This book discusses in straightforward terms why climate changes, how it has changed naturally before the industrial revolution made humans important, and how it has changed since then. It compares the scale and rapidity of variations in pre-industrial times with those since the industrial
revolution, infers the extent of humanity's impacts, and looks at what these may lead to in the future. Rohling brings together both data and process understanding of climate change. Finally, the book evaluates what Mother Nature could do to deal with the human impact by itself, and what our options
are to lend her a hand.


"Prior to reading this, I had yet to become more closely familiar with what I now consider to be the irrefutable evidence that drastic action is needed... I liked the longitudinal way in which the author slowly but definitely lays out the evidence�The style in which this volume addresses the reader
is very easy to understand and easy to follow.�" -- Dr Michael Kindler, Asia Pacific Centre for Leadership and Change

"This slim volume is the best possible source for those who wish to understand how much humans and natural forces have changed the climate in the past and present, and what realistic options we have to prevent runaway climate change... solidly based in how climate change and the carbon cycle work in
the real world. It avoids any digressions into hypothetical models or unproven technologies. It should be read by every policy maker whose actions, or lack thereof, affect our planet's future." -- Dr. Thomas J. F. Goreau, Remineralize the Earth