A brain for all seasons : human evolution and abrupt climate change / William H. Calvin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Calvin, William H., 1939-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human beings--Effect of climate on.

Human beings.

Human evolution.

Paleoclimatology.

Brain--Evolution.

Brain.

Physical Description:

vii, 341 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Summary:

One of the most shocking realizations of all time has slowly been dawning on us: the earth's climate does great flip-flops every few thousand years, and with breathtaking speed. In just a few years, the climate suddenly cools worldwide. With only half the rainfall, severe dust storms whirl across vast areas. Lightning strikes ignite giant forest fires. For most mammals, including our ancestors, populations crash. Our ancestors lived through hundreds of such abrupt episodes since the more gradual ice ages began two and a half million years ago -- but abrupt cooling produced a population bottleneck each time, one that eliminated most of their relatives. We are the improbable descendants of those who survived -- and later thrived. William H. Calvin's marvelous A Brain for All Seasons argues that such cycles of cool, crash, and burn powered the pump for the enormous increase in brain size and complexity in human beings. Driven by the imperative to adapt within a generation to "whiplash" climate changes where only grass did well for a while, our ancestors learned to cooperate and innovate in hunting large grazing animals. Calvin's book is structured as a travelogue that takes us around the globe and back in time. Beginning at Darwin's home in England, Calvin sits under an oak tree and muses on what controls the speed of evolutionary "progress." The Kalahari desert and the Sterkfontein caves in South Africa serve as the backdrop for a discussion of our ancestors' changing diets. A drought-shrunken lake in Kenya shows how grassy mudflats become great magnets for grazing animals. And in Copenhagen, we learn what ice cores have told us about abrupt jumps in past climates.

Perhaps the most dramatic discovery of all, though, awaits us as we fly with Calvin over the Gulf Stream and Greenland: global warming caused by human-made pollution could paradoxically trigger another sudden episode of global cooling. Because of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the oceanic "conveyor belt" that sends warmer waters into the North Atlantic could abruptly shut down. If that happens again, much of the earth could be plunged into a deep chill within a few years. Europe would become as cold and dry as Siberia. Agriculture could not adapt quickly enough to avoid worldwide famines and wars over the dwindling food supplies -- a crash from which it would take us many centuries to recover. With this warning, Calvin connects us directly to evolution and the surprises it holds. Highly illustrated, conversational, and learned, A Brain for All Seasons is a fascinating view of where we came from and where we're going.

Contents:

51[degree]N 0[degree]E Darwin's home: Catastrophic gradualism 13

51[degree]N 0[degree]W Evolution House, Kew Gardens: The Darwinian Quality Bootstrap 21

51[degree]N 1[degree]E Down among the fossils: All of those chimp-human differences 27

49[degree]N 2[degree]E Musee de l'Homme in Paris: The Ghost of Habitats Past 35

50[degree]N 8[degree]E Bockenheim: Tracing roots back to the Big Bang 47

52[degree]N 5[degree]E Layover Limbo: IQ and evolution's package deals 59

22[degree]N 14[degree]E Contemplating the Sahara: Why climate can suddenly flip 65

0[degree]N 22[degree]E Latitude Zero: Population fluctuations and refugia 75

19[degree]S 23[degree]E Okavango Delta: The island advantage 83

25[degree]S 16[degree]E Sossusvlei Dunes: Hominid opportunities in deserts? 97

26[degree]S 28[degree]E Sterkfontein Caves: The big change in hominid diet 103

34[degree]S 18[degree]E Cape of Good Hope: The turning point that wasn't 111

1[degree]S 37[degree]E Nairobi: Creating new species from old ones 117

2[degree]S 36[degree]E Olorgesailie: The easiest tool of all 125

0[degree]S 36[degree]E Kariandusi: A layer cake of handaxes 133

0[degree]S 36[degree]E Lake Nakuru: Where droughts cause a boom time 147

1[degree]N 36[degree]E Lake Baringo: The earliest hominids 151

1[degree]S 36[degree]E Lake Naivasha: Droughts even in good times 155

3[degree]S 35[degree]E Olduvai Gorge: Degrees of separation 169

1[degree]S 35[degree]E Maasai Mara: The Crash-Boom-Boom cycle 177

20[degree]N 15[degree]E Libya by moonlight: The last big step toward humans 193

52[degree]N 5[degree]E Layover Limbo (again): The Little Ice Age and its witch hunts 205

56[degree]N 13[degree]E Copenhagen's ice cores: Slow ice ages and abrupt whiplashes 211

56[degree]N 13[degree]E The plane where it's always noon: How ice age climate got the shakes 221

60[degree]N 11[degree]E High above Oslo: The ocean has a conveyor belt 229

63[degree]N 6[degree]E Out over the sinking Gulf Stream: Dan's coffee cream trick 237

71[degree]N 9[degree]W Jan Mayen Island: Flushing the Gulf Stream 243

72[degree]N 12[degree]W The Greenland Sea: Losing the first Panama Canal 247

74[degree]N 19[degree]W Greenland fjords: What stops the conveyor 253

75[degree]N 40[degree]W Atop Greenland: Why melting can cause cooling 257

78[degree]N 69[degree]W Thule: Rube Goldberg cause-and-effect 261

73[degree]N 95[degree]W Somerset Island: North Poles aren't what they used to be 269

68[degree]N 105[degree]W Crossing the North American coast: How we might stabilize climate 275

62[degree]N 114[degree]W Yellowknife, Northwest Territories: Feedbacks in the greenhouse 283

49[degree]N 123[degree]W Bumpy border crossing: Managing high-risk situations 289.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [312]-338) and index.

ISBN:

0226092011

OCLC:

47201237