Under a green sky : global warming, the mass extinctions of the past, and what they can tell us about our future / Peter D. Ward.

1st Smithsonian Books ed.

9780061137914
006113791X

New York : Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2007.

English

xiv, 242 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

QE721.2.E97 W384 2007

577.27/6

More than 200 million years ago, a cataclysm known as the Permian extinction destroyed nearly 97 percent of all living things. Its origins have long been a puzzle. Paleontologist Ward, fresh from helping prove that an asteroid had killed the dinosaurs, turned to the Permian problem, and he has come to a stunning conclusion: that the near-total devastation at the end of the Permian period was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide leading to climate change. The story of the discovery makes for a globe-spanning adventure. Here, Ward explains how the Permian extinction as well as four others happened, and describes the freakish oceans--belching poisonous gas--and sky--slightly green and always hazy--that would have attended them. Those ancient upheavals demonstrate that the threat of climate change cannot be ignored, lest the world's life today--ourselves included--face the same dire fate.--From publisher description.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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