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Contents:

Introduction; 1 - What is climate; 2 - Climate and society; 3 - Climate and geography; 4 - What is climate affairs?; 5 - Use of climate information in decision making; 6 - How we know what we know; 7 - Conclusion.

Review:

It's now acknowledged that the volume of material produced on the topic of climate change is greater than even researchers can hope to review. At the same time there is an increasing demand, in education at least, for an informed citizenship. This poses a dilemma - how to gain quality information and yet still be able to relate it to the broader picture. Just as we've had texts specialising in one specific area of climate-change study so here we have a text linking all key aspects in a more generalist perspective. The sub-title of this book, 'a primer' indicates accurately what the reader can expect.

We start with an introduction that suggests we are entering the 'climate century'. The argument behind this is that climatic events appear to be getting more extreme and the damage caused by such events is increasing. Of course, the damage bill might be related to the cost of repairs rather than the magnitude of the event but still there is the recognition that things are changing. With this is mind the first chapter seeks to find out the actual meaning of 'climate'. One idea is that climate is a statistical artefact which certainly makes one consider what we mean when we talk about atmospheric phenomena! The whole idea is to get us to question what we mean by the notion of climate. Chapter two focusses on climatic events that affect society which means looking at the more extreme events such as flood, drought, storm, ice etc. To add to this there is also consideration of the impacts of these events on people and places and some idea of how they can be mitigated. Chapter three takes an unexpected turn when it looks at regional climates. To this point the emphasis has been on events and not places but now we have a critical overview of climate as it is seen in the 6 continents. Apart from describing the climates Glantz also outlines the variability in climate which is often ignored when dealing with regions. Given that the regions are continents such as Africa it makes sense to highlight these variations. Chapter four turns to address the title of the book. Here we are introduced to the notion of climate affairs which is defined briefly as 'climate in the human context'. This results in a wide range of topics from climate science (what does the public think it knows and how does it feel about this?) to climate politics (who has the power to change/deny change), climate economics (costs of climate events) and ethics. Chapter five focusses on climate information and its uses. The reader is shown a series of examples that highlight its benefits as well as cases of misuse. Rather than dwell on the politics of information (although this is mentioned) Glantz tries a new approach to information basing it on the danger the event might pose. Chapter six examines the limits of our knowledge, the parameters of our certainty and our responses to this. A final chapter sums up the key points, suggests ways forward and the problems we have to face.

Regular readers of Glantz's work know about the quality of his research and ideas. What we get here is a highly readable account which looks beyond the usual material to the applied nature of climate research. This makes the book provoking. It also provides us with a very wide-ranging vision of how climate issues can get into all aspects of our work. The reader is offered not only standard work on climate patterns and events but the far less usual (and thus more fascinating) ideas on decision making, politics and human responses. It's this breadth that makes the book such a good read. Given the accessibility of the writing and the range of topics covered this deserves the widest readership. If you cover any topic on climate change then this book must be seen as key reading.