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This is a very interesting book that is written by two very interesting men. The authors present a comprehensive and compelling argument for a global catastrophe in the near future. The world history that they promote has little substantiation, but the many thousands of years that they discuss has little or no written record.
Entertaining, but poppycock. My apologies to my friend Art Bell, but this book is pure poppycock.
It does digress a bit and talk about ancient civilizations and even postulates a bit about ancient and future life forms, but overall the beginning of the book serves as a good background for anyone interested in the science behind global warming triggering a future ice age due to disruptions in ocean currents. This book does a good job of explaining the science behind the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, and how it drives modern climate, and along with the description, it interjects the scenes from the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, that are based (sometimes accurately, and sometimes loosely) on those facts. I teach earth science, and spend a great deal of time instructing my students on how to critically view the materials they see on tv and in the movies. Most of them have seen the Hollywood sensationalistic movies like Armageddon, The Core, Dante's Peak, and The Day After Tomorrow, but they often have questions about what is fact and what is fiction for the sake of selling a movie.
Just watch the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." I think it was inspired by this book.Lastly, there is a quasi-scientific attempt to explain how a rapid and drastic change in the global climate could occur. This would happen in a matter of months and not years (or decades).Mildly interesting but, keep in mind: neither of these authors has any real credentials. There are three different aspects in this book. This would produce a global storm of biblical proportions that could usher in a new Ice Age. I don't have much confidence in the science behind the claims but it's not a complete waste of time, if you like end-of-the-world books. Part of it is an argument that a technological human society previously existed and was wiped out something like 15,000 years ago. In this regard, the book borders on the absurd, not much better than the works by the "aliens-built-the-pyramids" crowd.The second aspect is the end-of-the-world fictional narrative.
If you are following the global warming debate and are also, like me, interested in ancient mysteries, you will find this an entertaining read. Although I find the evidence presented by Bell and Strieber not particularly compelling, climate science has many grey areas and I do not think such an event can ever be ruled out. We normally think of rapid climate change occurring over decades, but could it happen in a matter of hours. The premise behind this book is that global warming could shut off the Gulf Stream and plunge the whole world into a new ice age.
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