Such comfort!

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There's no lack of books on climate change. I've read many of them, some of which are frightening, as well they should be. Many focus on the potentially horrific changes that will play out over the coming decades. "Rough Winds" takes a different approach by asking whether we've seen enough evidence in the last few decades to accept that global warming is already in play. If the climate is changing, and in fact, if it's been changing for many years now, then we should see certain impacts, particularly in the area of extreme weather events. In this book, Powell methodically review these events - hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, rain and snow, floods, tornados, and temperature extremes in various locations around the world. This recitation makes for gripping reading. You can perhaps deny what might happen in the future, but you can't deny what has already happened and what's happening right now.

As Powell says, "In the last two years, our planet has undergone a series of extreme weather events that have broken tens of thousands of records. . . . The earth has experienced record high daytime temperatures, droughts, wildfires rainfall, floods, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, and cyclones, exactly the events that climate scientists have predicted global warming will make more common and more extreme. To this author, there is simply no question that this collection constitutes a 'preponderance of evidence' that global warming has well and truly begun and the time to act is now."

Because this book is an ebook, Powell was able to post it in an especially timely manner: I read it shortly after Hurricane Irene devastated the US east coast and he opens the book with a discussion of Irene. I hope he will consider issuing revised editions as the inevitable future weather extremes occur.