Book review: Behind the Curve, by Joshua Howe
Forgive the puns, but global warming has been a heated topic of debate for the past couple of decades, and one that has generated a lot of hot air in academic circles and the media, while spawning many books on the contentious subject.
by Joshua Howe
University of Washington Press
3.5 stars
Forgive the puns, but global warming has been a heated topic of debate for the past couple of decades, and one that has generated a lot of hot air in academic circles and the media, while spawning many books on the contentious subject.
Among them is by US professor Joshua Howe, a specialist in environmental studies, who examines the concept and politics swirling around the issue.
The title refers to the Keeling Curve, a graph that has been used for monitoring and plotting the changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1958. This upward-trending curve is based on measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, and began under scientist Charles David Keeling.
The earliest measurements were the first significant evidence of rising carbon dioxide levels. Since those first statistics were taken 56 years ago, the response to his research has been sluggish, contentious and fraught with complexities, both politically and on a practical level.
This book examines those complexities and much else. Particularly fascinating and insightful is the chapter on the 1950s cold war roots of global-warming study, when, at times, the Soviet Union enjoyed a modest scientific lead over the US.
