A Brain for all Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change; - 1st Edition/1st Printing

Name: A Brain for all Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change; - 1st Edition/1st Printing
Rating: 3.78 (49 reviews)
Author: Calvin, William H.
ISBN: 9780226092010

Calvin, William H.

49 ratings by Goodreads

Language: English

Published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago And London, 2002

0226092011 / 9780226092010

First Edition
Hardcover
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A first Printing of the First Edition in Fine condition in a Near Fine dust-jacket that bears some wear from life on a shelf; In the span of a human life, we go through many highs and lows. Our environment and the natural world around us can shape how we experience these ebbs and flows. In A Brain for All Seasons, William H. Calvin argues that the human experience of climate change is shaped by the same forces as all other aspects of our evolution. We are a species that has evolved in response to rapidly changing environments, and our response to climate change is no different.; 8vo; 341 pages.

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Title: A Brain for all Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change; - 1st Edition/1st Printing
Author: Calvin, William H.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago And London
Publication year: 2002
Condition: Fine
Dust jacket: Near Fine
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
ISBN 10: 0226092011
ISBN 13: 9780226092010
Edition: First Edition; First Printing.

One of the most shocking realizations of all time has slowly been dawning on us: the Earth's climate does great flip-flops every few thousand years, and with breathtaking speed. In just a few years, the climate suddenly cools worldwide. With only half the rainfall, severe dust storms whirl across vast areas. Lightning strikes ignite giant forest fires. For most mammals, including our ancestors, populations crash. Our ancestors lived through hundreds of such abrupt episodes since the more gradual Ice Age began two and a half million years ago - but abrupt cooling produced a population bottleneck each time, one that eliminated most of their relatives. We are the improbable descendants of those who survived - and later thrived. William H. Calvin's marvellous "A Brain for All Seasons" argues that such cycles of cool, crash and burn powered the pump for the enormous increase in brain size and complexity in human beings. Driven by the imperative to adapt within a generation to "whiplash" climate changes where only grass did well for a while, our ancestors learned to cooperate and innovate in hunting large grazing animals. Calvin's book is structured as a travelogue that takes us around the globe and back in time. Beginning at Darwin's home in England, Calvin sits under an oak tree and muses on what controls the speed of evolutionary "progress". The Kalahari desert and the Sterkfontein caves in South Africa serve as the backdrop for a discussion of our ancestors' changing diets. A drought-shrunken lake in Kenya shows how grassy mudflats become great magnets for grazing animals. And in Copenhagen, we learn what ice cores have told us about abrupt jumps in past climates. Perhaps the most dramatic discovery of all, though, awaits us as we fly with Calvin over the Gulf Stream and Greenland: global warming caused by human-made pollution could paradoxically trigger another sudden episode of global "cooling". Because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the oceanic "conveyor belt" that sends warmer water into the North Atlantic could abruptly shut down. If that happens again, much of the Earth could be plunged into a deep chill within a few years. Europe would become as cold and dry as Siberia. Agriculture could not adapt quickly enough to avoid worldwide famine and wars over the dwindling food supplies - a crash from which it would take us many centuries to recover. With this warming, Calvin connects us directly to evolution and the surprises it holds. Highly illustrated, conversational and learned, "A Brain for All Seasons" is a fascinating view of where we came from and where we're going.

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