Climate affairs : a primer /

This is an insipid attempt to define "climate affairs" for "anyone with a passing interest ... in understanding how climate can affect human activities." Glantz (National Center for Atmospheric Research) offers a sloppy pastiche of facts and examples instead of a cogent book-length discussion. Editing and factual errors appear throughout, e.g., long-wave radiation is "reflected" (page 19) by clouds. Figures are not well explained for nonspecialists and do not always match captions or support the text. A small number of case studies and predictions of global warming impacts are recounted repetitively. One third of the book is devoted to the chapter "What Is Climate Affairs?," larded with half-page figures of newspaper headlines, an advertisement, and a cartoon. The chapter "How We Know What We Know" somehow avoids any discussion of global climate models. As a result, Climate Affairs is too plodding for the novice and lacks sufficient content to satisfy climate researchers. A captivating primer on this subject may be needed, but this is not it. Those wishing for better written, more substantive examples of climate-society interactions should turn to Mike Davis's Late Victorian Holocausts (CH, Jul'01) or Reid A. Bryson and Thomas J. Murray's classic Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World's Changing Weather (CH, Feb'78) instead. ^BSumming Up: Not recommended. J. A. Knox University of Georgia