Welcome to the Climate Trek website. This site opens a portal on the whole of our environment, revealing forces that have shaped the world we live in.

Here is a place to delve into natural history, geologic time, the realm of elements, atoms and photons, and Earth systems from the micro to the macro. Our goal is to create a context for you to understand climate change phenomena as part of vast Earth processes, and at the same time share the wonders of our planet’s labyrinthine workings.

Resources

In the following pages are resources in the form of books and timely articles that lead us into the splendors of the natural world. The books have been reviewed and selected for their ability to deliver a straightforward, honest explanation of nature—each is a determined effort to reveal something genuine about our surroundings. The articles are a cross section of the popular press, a snapshot of a society coming to grips with a startling realization: the rapid change of the entire climate within the span of a single human lifetime.

The Climate Trek Book

Here you will also find an introduction to Climate Trek, a book I have written about the nature of the Earth system, and the culmination of my exploration of natural history for the past thirty years. It reveals our planet to be a single unified system that always seeks equilibrium—the delicate balance, the proper proportions between environment and sustainable life. Climate Trek uncovers the mysterious world of atoms and photons, the key to understanding all planetary processes. Climate change is placed in context with the bigger picture, a cosmic continuum of gases, liquids, solids, and solar variations that have been going at each other for billions of years.

A Passionate Journey

My dictionary defines passion as: “Any powerful emotion or appetite such as love, joy, hatred, anger or greed.” I’m not really sure how other people use the word, but I tend to think about it in terms of curiosity, especially as it relates to the “nature of things.” For me, passion describes the intensely curious who are forever eagerly exploring the intrinsic qualities of their surroundings. These investigators—and they can be found in any discipline—like to pit their powers of observation against the greatest show on Earth—the exceedingly complicated phenomena of the natural world.

Playing this game calls for a certain kind of thinking: above all you must accept the ways of nature without judgment, even when you dislike the way it behaves. Nature doesn’t care what you think—it exists in a realm independent of personal preference and cultural bias. This is an arena that challenges your sense of honesty, often forcing you to jettison cherished assumptions, and choose between things held dear or openly accepting the stark beauty of nature. So you strain and burrow and gawk for all you’re worth, hoping to catch a glimpse, for even a moment, of the truth about this strange and beautiful world we live in.

Climate Trek is the outcome of just an effort. Because of my passion for the story of Earth history, I created Climate Trek as a planetary “field manual”—not only to stimulate the imagination of readers to explore on their own, but also to raise awareness about things we shouldn’t be doing on this small planet—such as burning hydrocarbons.

Never in human history has it been more important for us to reconnect with the environment. We can ill afford to isolate ourselves inside a costly cocoon of comfort, and turn our back on the very systems that sustain our lives on a daily basis. Yet it’s nearly impossible to care for something without an awareness or understanding of its existence. Our lives have become so far removed from the essential nature of our planet, our senses so dulled by modern life, that but a few notice the steady creep of change now rippling through the environment, the ever widening fissures appearing in fragile ecologies.

Climate Trek seeks to shed light on the current state of the Earth system, and restore a sense of wonder about our small planet . . . the only place we call home.

I would appreciate your response and comments. Please Email Mike