We've heard a lot about climate change – but what can we do about it? Wallace Broecker, the eminent scientist who coined the term global warming way back in 1975, believes in a solution emerging on the horizon: 'artificial trees' designed to remove CO2 directly from the air. Penned by Broeker with award-winning science writer Robert Kunzig, this riveting and important book looks back at Earth's volatile climate history to shed light on the challenges we face ahead.
Ice ages, planetary orbits, a giant 'conveyor belt' in the ocean...it's a story full of extraordinary discoveries and maverick thinkers. Broecker likens climate to a slumbering beast, ready to react to the smallest of prods. And prodding it we are, by pumping 70 million tonnes of CO2 into the air each year. Fixing Climate explains why we need not just to reduce emissions but to start removing our carbon waste from our atmosphere. And in a thrilling last section of Fixing Climate, we learn how this could become reality, using 'artificial trees' and underground storage.
Wallace S. Broecker (1931-2019) was the Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He was awarded the 2006 Crafoord Prize (the 'Nobel for GeoScience'). Robert Kunzig is a contributing editor on Discover magazine and author of Mapping the Deep, winner of the Royal Society Aventis Science Book of the Year.