Description

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A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2011 title

A bold, far-reaching look at how our actions will decide the planet's future for millennia to come.

Imagine a planet where North American and Eurasian navies are squaring off over shipping lanes through an acidified, ice-free Arctic. Centuries later, their northern descendants retreat southward as the recovering sea freezes over again. And later still, future nations plan how to avert an approaching Ice Age... by burning what remains of our fossil fuels.

These are just a few of the events that are likely to befall Earth and human civilization in the next 100,000 years. And it will be the choices we make in this century that will affect that future more than those of any previous generation. We are living at the dawn of the Age of Humans; the only question is how long that age will last.

Few of us have yet asked, "What happens after global warming?" Drawing upon the latest, groundbreaking works of a handful of climate visionaries, Curt Stager's Deep Future helps us look beyond 2100 a.d. to the next hundred millennia of life on Earth.

About the Author

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CURT STAGER is an ecologist, paleoclimatologist, and science writer with a Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University. He has published more than numerous climate- and ecology-related articles in major journals, including Science and Quaternary Research, has written for popular audiences in periodicals such as National Geographic and Fast Company as well as in his book Deep Future, and co-hosts a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio. Curt teaches at Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York and holds a research associate post at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, where he investigates the long-term history of climate in Africa, South America, and the polar regions.

Praise For…

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“Amid all the ranting, confusing, and contradicting books on climate change, at last here's one that does something truly useful: Clearly and engagingly, scientist Curt Stager guides us back into the atmosphere's history, letting us compare it to the present and draw informed ideas about what to expect in the future. It's heartening to know that he expects us to have one.” —Alan Weisman, author, The World Without Us

“Deep Future is a richly informative and deeply persuasive book--one that will be relevant for generations.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

“Deep Future is like one of Jared Diamond's magisterial accounts, except set in the future, not the past.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Eaarth

“A highly entertaining, carefully balanced, and deeply sobering look at our climate future.” —William F. Ruddiman, author of Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum

“Fascinating and measured - at last someone is taking the long view.” —Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees

“This intriguing and thought-provoking view of the far future is an essential read for all interested in the full force of climate change.” —Paul Andrew Mayewski, Director of the Climate Change Institute, and author of The Ice Chronicles

“A probing exploration of the impact of climate change over geological time. ... Essential reading.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A thoughtful, if controversial, approach to an over-heated subject.” —Publishers Weekly

“Deep Future is a clear, concise, and thought provoking work, one that takes a refreshingly frank look at the science behind global warming and, more importantly, what is coming next. In a field where hyperbolic claims and bitter skepticism prevail, the clarity and unflappability of Stager's account is like a breath of fresh, slightly heated air.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Eaarth

“Maintaining a casual style and providing vivid metaphors, he makes his account entertaining and easy for nontechnical readers to understand.” —Science