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THE timing of the release of Greenhouse: Coping with climate change
—a hardback collection of Antipodean papers on the science, impact and
response to climate change—could hardly be better. Launched yesterday, it
comes only a few months after the first definitive statement from the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that humans are influencing climate,
and an even shorter time since the Australian Government acted as if Greenhouse
was no urgent problem at the Geneva summit conference. The book consists of 38
papers running to nearly 700 pages on topics ranging from the changing
composition of the atmosphere, through the impact on pests, weeds and diseases,
to how to plan more efficient cities in response to the greenhouse effect. It was
edited by Willem Bouma and Graeme Pearman of CSIRO Atmospheric
Research and Martin Manning of the National Institute of Water and
Atmospheric Research in New Zealand and is available for $89.95 from
CSIRO Publishing, PO Box 1139, Collingwood, Victoria 3066.