5 Feet of Fury

John Derbyshire reviews ‘Twilight of Abundance’

Archibald’s own studies, supported by findings from Norwegian astrophysicist Jan-Erik Solheim and others, predict that this current 24th cycle will be unusually long, and that this presages further cooling over Cycle 25, taking world temperatures back to those of the post-medieval “Little Ice Age.”

The demographic and geopolitical consequences will be tremendous. In a lip-smacking chapter titled “Populations on the Verge of Collapse” the author tells of the coming food crises in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa), where tens of millions will starve to death. The tone here is refreshingly unsentimental…