The Coming Global Superstorm
by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber
Original edition
Updated edition
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The Coming Global Superstormby Art Bell and Whitley Strieber |
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Original edition
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Updated edition
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The Coming Global Superstorm
and How To Prevent It
by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber
Published December 1, 1999 (Paperback with new preface December 2000;
Updated edition 2004)
Killer tornadoes. Violent tropical storms. Devastating temperatures.
Are these just the prelude to an unprecedented environmental disaster
in our near future?
Two of America's leading investigators of unexplained phenomena – Art Bell, the top-rated late-night radio talk-show host, and Whitley Strieber, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of Communion and the legendary Nature's End – have made a shocking discovery based on years of research with top scientists and archaeologists from around the world. Now, they reveal what powerful interests are trying to keep hidden: rapid changes in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gases have set humanity on an incredibly dangerous course toward a catastrophic change in climate in the immediate future. It will begin with a massive, unprecedented storm that will devastate the Northern Hemisphere. This will be followed by floods unlike anything ever seen before – or perhaps a new Ice Age. They also unearth evidence that this has happened in the past – in fact, that it has occurred regularly throughout geologic history, but so infrequently that our only record of the last such storm is contained in ancient myths and flood legends.
From El Niño to the African droughts, to the shrinking of the polar ice caps, Bell and Strieber identify the warning signs to those willing to see. They point out that the Earth's regulatory system is like a rubber band: you can stretch it just so far before it snaps back – with a vengeance. Since 1995, each successive year has set new records for violent weather. In 1999 a major climatological study predicted that the Earth will soon be warmer than it has been in millions of years. Bell and Strieber tell us why they believe a rebound is imminent – a rapid and violent cooling that will cover the Northern Hemisphere in a sheath of choking ice and snow.
But it's not too late to reverse our destiny. No mere harbinger of an inevitable doomsday, The Coming Global Superstorm is instead a spirited call to action that offers a wealth of viable solutions to this mammoth challenge to humankind. Through a careful and impressively researched dissection of the myths and legends of ancient cultures and an insightful examination of the best of modern environmental science, Bell and Strieber guide us on an intellectual journey as dark as the murky origins of man and as bright as the promise of an interstellar future.
Life as we know it is about to change.
Two of America's leading investigators of unexplained phenomena reveal what powerful interests are trying to keep hidden: the United States could lose three-fifths of its population to...The Coming Global Superstorm.
It's building right now. 1998 was the most violent year in the history of weather, and ended as the hottest year ever recorded. Global warming is about to cause the North Atlantic Current to suddenly drop to a more southerly route. This will cause an explosive change in climate, spawning a massive storm as cold Arctic air is freed to pour south, clashing with overheated air in temperate zones.
What will it be like?
Blizzard conditions. Sustained winds in excess of 100 miles per hour. Massive snowfalls. Death rates approaching 100 percent beneath the interior of the storm. If it happens in the summer, massive flooding will occur. If it ignites during the winter, it will bring the dawn of a new ice age.
How likely is it?
According to data found in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, it has happened many times before. By causing global warming, we have sped up the process by several hundred thousand years.
What can we do to stave it off?
Plenty. Art Bell and Whitley Strieber offer a wealth of viable solutions to this mammoth challenge. But the “wait and see” approach perpetuated by oil and chemical companies must be abandoned first.
A spirited call to action, The Coming Global Superstorm is a careful and impressively researched examination of the best of modern environmental science in the most compelling and necessary book of the millennium.
We welcome scientific comment on our book. We are aware that it is speculative in nature. But we are not scientists; it is our job to speculate and to warn. In the best of all possible worlds, The Coming Global Superstorm will lead to the development of an effective means of monitoring ocean currents that are crucial to our climate and predicting changes in them.
If we could do this, we might gain months or even years of warning of a pending sudden change in the world's climate. The stakes are high. With sufficient advanced warning, there is much we could do to save lives. Even if no superstorm occurs in the context of sudden climate change, there will be massive and possibly permanent changes. The ability of the planet to provide mankind with enough food will become a serious issue. Billions of people might be depending on a system of warning that we do not yet possess.
The Coming Global Superstorm
© 2000 Art Bell and Whitley Strieber
Synopsis courtesy of Pocket Books
