Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate (New in Paper) (Princeton Science Library)

241 Pages·2010·1.83 MB·English

by  William F. Ruddiman

Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum
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Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum
how humans took control
of climate
With a new afterword by the author
William F. Ruddiman
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
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Copyright © 2005 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
First printing, 2005
First paperback printing, 2007
First Princeton Science Library edition, with a new afterword, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-691-14634-8
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Ruddiman, W. F. (William F.), 1943–
Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum : how humans took control of climate /
William F. Ruddiman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-12164-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Climatology. 2. Climatic changes. 3. Global temperature changes.
4. Greenhouse effect, Atmospheric. I. Title.
QC981.R763 2005
363.738'74—dc22 2004062444
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Garamond
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Ginger, Alysha, and Dustin
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xiii
Part One
What Has Controlled Earth’s Climate?
Chapter One
Climate and Human History 5
Part Two
Nature in Control
Chapter Two
Slow Going for a Few Million Years 17
Chapter Three
Linking Earth’s Orbit to Its Climate 25
Chapter Four
Orbital Changes Control Ice-Age Cycles 35
Chapter Five
Orbital Changes Control Monsoon Cycles 46
Chapter Six
Stirrings of Change 55
Part Three
Humans Begin to Take Control
Chapter Seven
Early Agriculture and Civilization 65
Chapter Eight
Taking Control of Methane 76
Chapter Nine
Taking Control of CO 84
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viii CONTENTS
Chapter Ten
Have We Delayed a Glaciation? 95
Chapter Eleven
Challenges and Responses 106
Part Four
Disease Enters the Picture
Chapter Twelve
But What about Those CO “Wiggles”? 119
2
Chapter Thirteen
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Which One? 127
Chapter Fourteen
Pandemics, CO , and Climate 139
2
Part Five
Humans in Control
Chapter Fifteen
Greenhouse Warming: Tortoise and Hare 151
Chapter Sixteen
Future Warming: Large or Small? 159
Chapter Seventeen
From the Past into the Distant Future 169
Epilogue
Chapter Eighteen
Global-Change Science and Politics 179
Chapter Nineteen
Consuming Earth’s Gifts 190
Afterword to the Princeton Science Library Edition 195
Bibliography 215
Figure Sources 219
Index 223
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1. Two views of the history of human impacts on Earth’s climate
and environment 6
2.1. The sequence that led to modern humans during the last
4 million years 22
2.2. Over the last 5 million years, as modern humans evolved, Earth’s
climate slowly cooled 24
3.1. Gradual changes in the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to its orbit
around the Sun at a cycle of 41,000 years alter the amount of
solar radiation that arrives at high latitudes 29
3.2. Gradual changes in the eccentricity (‘out-of-roundness’) of Earth’s
orbit around the Sun occur at a cycle of 100,000 years 30
3.3. The combined effect of changes in the eccentricity of Earth’s
orbit and in its slow wobbling motion causes changes in the
amount of solar radiation received at low and middle latitudes
at a 22,000-year cycle 32
4.1. The last major ice sheet on North America slowly retreated from
the northern United States into far northeastern Canada between
20,000 and 6,000 years ago 38
4.2. Large ice sheets first appeared in the Northern Hemisphere nearly
2.75 million years ago and grew and melted at the 41,000-year
cycle of orbital tilt until about 0.9 million years ago 41
5.1. Tropical monsoons are driven by changes in summer solar
radiation at the 22,000-year orbital cycle 48
5.2. Summer insolation values 8 percent higher than today produced
summer monsoons stronger than today nearly 10,000 years ago
across North Africa and southern Eurasia 51
5.3. Releases of methane (CH ) from tropical Eurasia confirm the
4
orbital monsoon theory that stronger solar radiation at the
22,000-year cycle produces stronger monsoon rains, which emit
more methane 52
7.1. Agriculture originated independently in several areas, with the
earliest known occurrences in the Fertile Crescent region of the
Near East and in northern China 66