NCPR’s Curt Stager goes national with On Point
Curt Stager’s new book “Deep Future” is on shelves — I saw it over the weekend at a bookstore in Vermont — and his very different take on climate change is drawing a lot of attention.
Stager, the Paul Smiths College professor who also co-hosts the popular “Natural Selections” segment on NCPR, projects what we know about global warming tens of thousands of years into the future.
What will the world look like? How will changes that we’re making to the climate now affect human societies into the distant future, long after we In Boxers are mulched into the mythological past?
Stager will be talking about his ideas and his scientific conclusions this Thursday on “On Point” the national program that airs weekdays on NCPR. It looks like he will appear in hour two of the show. This from his Facebook page.
Latest news on “Deep Future:” I’ve been booked to appear on the national call-in show, “On Point,” for this Thursday at 11 AM (with NPR affiliate WBUR-Boston). If you’re near a radio then, I hope you’ll give it a listen…
Tags: Curt Stager, environment
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Here’s a review of Stager’s book that appears today in Publishers Weekly.
[note that the review highlights Stager’s association with the Univ of Maine Climate Change group rather than Paul Smith’s, unfortunately.] -mc.
Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth
Curt Stager. St. Martin’s/Dunne, $23.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-61462-1
Stager (Field Notes From the Northern Forest), a climatologist working at the University of Maine’s Climate Center, provides a long-range view of climate change which is at odds with the “sky is falling” alarmist view of global warming. While not denying the effect of human activity on global climate, Stager is sharply critical of media hype and spin. As a paleoecologist, he draws on biology, chemistry, and geology–including past geological records–to situate current trends in the context of long range effects, as shown by the fossil and geological record of planetary evolution. In other words, in the aftermath of the last ice age, “…it took several millennia of melting for global sea level to stabilize near today’s elevation…” He suggests that we “have prevented the next ice-age”; once predicted to happen in 50,000 years, he states that our climate activity has added another 70,000 years to that estimate. Although Stager thinks a disaster comparable to the biblical flood is unlikely, he doesn’t minimize the potential devastation that could occur from even modest sea level rise or the loss of marine biodiversity. A thoughtful, if controversial, approach to an over-heated subject. (Mar.)
My compliments to Curt for his apparent objectivity.
But remember, if you want to make the big bucks and win the Nobel prize, you have to throw in the pictures of the stranded polar bears and the flooded maps.
not to mention an oscar
The trouble with all long range predictions and projections is how they are safe bets. No one will be around to say you were right or wrong, so you are safe to make your money now.
About ten years ago, Curt was disagreeing with those who first were trumpeting Global Warming.
Time will tell.
Pete, about Curt disagreeing with those who first were trumpeting Global Warming, he still is disagreeing. Read the repost by michael coffey, above. Curt’s a pretty bright fellow.
The effects of climate change won’t be as dramatic as Hollywood would have us believe, and though small, will be real, irrefutable, and long. long lasting.
Who’s worried about the next 50,000 years? It’s my understanding from media “hype” that the disaster in Japan means the second coming is nigh.
Heh, I have a new theory about the “End of the World”. Instead of happening like in the movies…total cataclysm followed by scorched deserts and lawlessness…it will be on a small scale, permanent loss, piece-by piece basis. The end of the world came to Chernobyl a while back. Make a fairly large black mark on the map and move on. If the current problems in Japan get worse, we’ll color the region in and continue. Haiti is already almost gone, and New Orleans is way out ahead in terms of corruption and lawlessness. Put a big map on the wall and cross off the end times areas one by one until it comes to a theatre near you.
Look at what poor, hungry, thirsty, and hopeless people do to each other. Give them enough guns and you get Darfur, Bosnia, Haiti, …Mexico…close enough to get our attention yet?
We did our part to reduce carbon emissions during the hour Curt was on. We stopped work and listened to the whole show.