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From one of the world’s great geopolitical analysts, here is a terrifying glimpse of the none-too-distant future, when climate change will force the world’s powers into a desperate struggle for advantage and even survival. Dwindling resources. Massive population shifts. Natural disasters. Spreading epidemics. Drought. Rising sea-levels. Plummeting agricultural yields. Crashing economies. Political extremism. These are some of the expected consequences of runaway climate change in the decades ahead, and any of them could tip the world towards conflict. Prescient, unflinching, and based on exhaustive research and interviews.
'Like a Stephen King novel, it's scary, but you can't put it down.' G Magazine
'Gwynne Dyer's brilliant analysis, in Climate Wars, of the geopolitical conflicts that may unfold over the next few decades - even if we do get serious about global warming - is almost too fearsome to absorb. When I talk to the scientists themselves, there is a palpable sense of panic, something confirmed by Dyer in his interviews conducted around the world.' The Monthly
'Gwynne Dyer is one of the few who are both courageous enough to tell the unvarnished truth, and have the background to understand, not misrepresent the inputs. This book does a superb job of detailing the emerging realities of Climate/Energy. These realities are not pretty.'
Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist, NASA
'This is a truly important and timely book. No one, not even the IPCC, really knows what the world climate will be ten years from now, but we and our governments have to make intelligent guesses. Gwynne Dyer has made the best and most plausible set of guesses I have yet seen about the human consequences of climate change, of how drought and heat may ignite wars, even nuclear wars, around the globe.'
James Lovelock, British geophysicist, author of The Revenge of Gaia
'The current debate on climate change is mostly on its future effects, but few are brave enough to work out what they might be. Here is a lively, alarming and even entertaining attempt to look ahead. Water and war have always been associated. We need hope as well as good sense in looking at the future. Here it is.' Sir Crispin Tickell, Director of the Policy Foresight Programme, James Martin 21st Century School, University of Oxford
'Anyone still complacent about climate change will find Climate Wars instructive and disturbing. These articulate insights into climate geopolitics by military historian Gwynne Dyer are an important tool for understanding why the climate challenge is big, hard, and vital to human survival - yet soluble if we pay attention now.'
Amory B. Lovins, Chairman & Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute
Random House Canada
Scribe ANZ
Oneworld UK & US (to be published April 2010)
Laffont France
Klett Cotta Germany
Citic Press China (simplified)
Shinchosha Japan
AST Russia
Wealth Press Taiwan (traditional)
Hermes Publishing Bulgarian
Gimmyoung Korea
Uitgeverij Het Spectrum NL.
Material: finished copies of Canadian and Australian editions (256pp); updated for UK edition.
Published in Canada and Australia as THE MESS THEY MADE: THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER IRAQ
‘For chapter two alone, Dyer’s book is worth the money. Dyer writes with easy fluency, with gentle, teasing wit, and with an intelligent balance between the populist and academic that makes his argument all the more persuasive.’ Irish Times
‘Dyer writes with a racy style and provokes as much as he informs. He leaves one amazed at the sheer incompetence of the American and British governments of recent years.‘ The Independent
‘If you read no other analysis, read Dyer’s.’ Ottawa Citizen
'Not only does he place current events in a balanced and historical context, he also examines their significance in terms of the future.' Courier Mail, Australia
McClelland & Stewart Canada
Scribe Australia
Thomas Dunne (SMP) USA
Yale University Press UK
Arab Scientific Publishers Lebanon
Campus Verlag Germany
Material: finished copies of UK and US editions (267pp).