Deep Future The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth

A Kirkus ReviewsBest Nonfiction of 2011 title A bold, far-reaching look at how our actions will decide the planet's future for millennia to come. Imagine a planet where North American and Eurasian navies are squaring off over shipping lanes through an acidified, ice-free Arctic. Centuries later, their northern descendants retreat southward as the recovering sea freezes over again. And later still, future nations plan how to avert an approaching Ice Age... by burning what remains of our fossil fuels. These are just a few of the events that are likely to befall Earth and human civilization in the next 100,000 years. And it will be the choices we make in this century that will affect that future more than those of any previous generation. We are living at the dawn of the Age of Humans; the only question is how long that age will last. Few of us have yet asked, "What happens after global warming?" Drawing upon the latest, groundbreaking works of a handful of climate visionaries, Deep Future helps us look beyond 2100 a.d. to the next hundred millennia of life on Earth.

Curt Stager earned his Ph.D. in biology and geology from Duke University and has published more than three dozen articles in major journals, including Science and Quaternary Research. He has also written for popular magazines, such as Fast Company and National Geographic, and is cohost of Natural Selections, a weekly science program on public radio. He currently teaches at Paul Smith's College in upstate New York, and holds a research associate post at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute.

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

“Amid all the ranting, confusing, and contradicting books on climate change, at last here's one that does something truly useful: Clearly and engagingly, scientist Curt Stager guides us back into the atmosphere's history, letting us compare it to the present and draw informed ideas about what to expect in the future. It's heartening to know that he expects us to have one.”
—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us

 “Deep Future is a richly informative and deeply persuasive book -- one that will be relevant for generations.”
—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe

“Deep Future is like one of Jared Diamond’s magisterial accounts, except set in the future, not the past.”
—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Eaarth

“A highly entertaining, carefully balanced, and deeply sobering look at our climate future.”
—William F. Ruddiman, author of Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum

“Fascinating and measured - at last someone is taking the long view.”
—Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees

“This intriguing and thought-provoking view of the far future is an essential read for all interested in the full force of climate change. ”
—Paul Andrew Mayewski, Director of the Climate Change Institute, and author of The Ice Chronicles

"A probing exploration of the impact of climate change over geological time. ... Essential reading."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A thoughtful, if controversial, approach to an over-heated subject."
—Publishers Weekly

"Deep Future is a clear, concise, and thought provoking work, one that takes a refreshingly frank look at the science behind global warming and, more importantly, what is coming next. In a field where hyperbolic claims and bitter skepticism prevail, the clarity and unflappability of Stager’s account is like a breath of fresh, slightly heated air."
—The Faster Times

"Maintaining a casual style and providing vivid metaphors, he makes his account entertaining and easy for nontechnical readers to understand."
—Science