lnetzel 's review for:

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew H. Knoll

5.0

---

I gave this book 5 stars because of the concise way in which the author handles very difficult material and makes it mostly readable. He also does us the favor of providing "approachable" additional readings for each of the 8 chapters. Chapter 7 was my favorite on Catastrophic Earth where he shares details of the likely causes of the previous 5 great extinction events. This is the set up for the chapter on Human Earth where he matter of factly discusses how we are artificially creating similar climate changes that occurred naturally during the previous 4+ billion years that either prevented life as we know it or destroyed life that existed at the time. He handles this topic deftly and without self-righteousness. Climate change is real and our delayed acceptance and incorporating meaningful change mean that our own children and grandchildren will pay the price.
I would also recommend any books by Elizabeth Kolbert who also does a great job of distilling complicated climate science with fascinating examples and with humor. Even though the topic is no laughing matter.