Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate

Table of contents

• Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum i
• Title Page iii
• Contents vii
• List of Illustrations ix
• Preface xiii
• Part One - What Has Controlled Earth's Climate? 1
• Chapter One - Climate and Human History 5
• Part Two - Nature in Control 13
• Chapter Two - Slow Going for a Few Million Years 17
• Chapter Three - Linking Earth's Orbit to Its Climate 25
• Chapter Four - Orbital Changes Control Ice-Age Cycles 35
• Chapter Five - Orbital Changes Control Monsoon Cycles 46
• Chapter Six - Stirrings of Change 55
• Part Three - Humans Begin to Take Control 61
• Chapter Seven - Early Agriculture and Civilization 65
• Chapter Eight - Taking Control of Methane 76
• Chapter Nine - Taking Control of Co2 84
• Chapter Ten - Have We Delayed a Glaciation? 95
• Chapter Eleven - Challenges and Responses 106
• Part Four - Disease Enters the Picture 115
• Chapter Twelve - But What About Those Co2 “wiggles”? 119
• Chapter Thirteen - The Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Which One? 127
• Chapter Fourteen - Pandemics, Co2, and Climate 139
• Part Five - Humans in Control 147
• Chapter Fifteen - Greenhouse Warming: Tortoise and Hare 151
• Chapter Sixteen - Future Warming: Large or Small? 159
• Chapter Seventeen - From the Past into the Distant Future 169
• Epilogue 175
• Chapter Eighteen - Global-Change Science and Politics 179
• Chapter Nineteen - Consuming Earth's Gifts 190
• Afterword to the Princeton Science Library Edition 195
• Bibliography 215
• Figure Sources and Credits 219
• Index 223

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