Book review: A World Without Ice

Henry Pollack’s book, A World Without Ice (Amazon listing), arrived last year, but it’s still probably “new to you”, since it’s received much less attention than I think is warranted.

Pollack’s focus, as the title suggests, is the cryosphere, basically the ice in the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica that has done so much to stabilize our climate for thousands of years and presents such a harrowing threat if substantial portions of it melt. And on that narrow point, Pollack does a terrific job of addressing ice dynamics and the astounding amount of buffering in the Earth System thanks to the heat and CO2 that’s absorbed by the ocean. He also includes a bit of history about polar exploration, a somewhat surprising addition in a book by a long-time scientist and IPCC member, but one that I thought was very worthwhile. (Just the quotations from expedition members justify the entire chapter. The (too) long (to type in) one from Frank Worsley, captain of Shackleton’s ship Endurance, which almost sounds like hallucinogens were part of the ship’s stores, is particularly memorable.)

But Pollack goes beyond just a narrow view of his topic, and talks about climate change in general in some detail, and even takes up the subject of deniers, whom he refers to a “climate contras.” If you’re looking for the gnashing of teeth and a blood-curdling battle cry from Pollack at such times, you’ll be disappointed; he’s as calm as a mountain lake, even while he dismantles one ridiculous denier line of argument after another. I had to wonder if this demeanor was a by product of his being a professor at the University of Michigan for over 40 years.

He also mentions several times the third rail of climate change discussions, population. While he doesn’t spend a lot of word count on the topic, he leaves no room for doubt that more people will have a greater environmental impact (and, therefore, impact on humanity) than fewer people, all other things being equal. For example, on page 96 he says:

By 1800, Earth’s population had grown to 1 billion people, some 250 times bigger than only 10,000 years earlier. The human population today is nearly 7 times bigger yet than in 1800, and with far greater technical capabilities. Because of human activities, ice, the force majeure of the planet only 20,000 years ago, is today in retreat, and perhaps on a trajectory to disappearance. No longer are humans passive adapters to the natural world — today we have become the principal agents of large-scale changes in the global environment.

Similarly, he doesn’t shy away from talking about politics, in that he urges people to become involved, but keeps the message concise and direct. His view on what it will take to deal with the climate change challenge will sound quite familiar to readers of this site; he says we need participation at all levels of economic activity, including public policy, and we don’t have much time to waste. He acknowledges the difficulties this creates in the face of the growing urgency of our situation (page 246):

If we are to have a chance of averting the worst of the consequences of climate change and ice loss, policymakers must make major decisions soon, even without answers to many important questions. Serious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, described earlier in the more aggressive alternative to the business-as-usual scenario, must take place over the next few decades. Why? Because the lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is long, and a few decades of delay will impose centuries of consequences.

One portion of the book I found particularly pleasing was his discussion of the natural events we have been and continue to monitor that demonstrate climate change, a field called phenology. He talks about the shifts in seasons as evidenced by the date of flowers blooming, when birds lay eggs or migrate, the migration of insect populations, the persistence of some insects over no-longer-harsh winters (the borers that have already wiped out millions of acres of trees in the western US and Canada), etc. He points out that the best natural indicator of all is ice, and reminds us,

“Ice asks no questions, presents no arguments, reads no newspapers, listens to no debates. It is not burdened by ideology and carries no political baggage as it crosses the threshold from solid to liquid. It just melts.”

Throughout A World Without Ice Pollack sees the big picture and describes it to the reader in a calm, professional, and highly accessible way that should awaken readers to the urgency of our climate mess without devolving into cheap alarmism.

Very highly recommended for both my fellow climate geeks seeking a slightly different perspective on familiar topics, as well as newcomers trying to get up to speed on a complex topic.