Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

published	2007 by South End Press
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0896087794 (isbn13: 9780896087798)
ebook
pages	304
description	Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning marks an important moment in our civilization's thinking about global warming. The question is no l...more [close] Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning marks an important moment in our civilization's thinking about global warming. The question is no longer Is climate change actually happening? but What do we do about it? George Monbiot offers an ambitious and far-reaching program to cut our carbon dioxide emissions to the point where the environmental scales start tipping back-away from catastrophe. <br /><br /> Though writing with a "spirit of optimism," Monbiot does not pretend it will be easy. The only way to avoid further devastation, he argues, is a 90% cut in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions in the rich nations of the world by 2030. In other words, our response will have to be immediate, and it will have to be decisive. <br /><br /> In every case he supports his proposals with a rigorous investigation into what works, what doesn't, how much it costs, and what the problems might be. He wages war on bad ideas as energetically as he promotes good ones. And he is not afraid to attack anyone-friend or foe-whose claims are false or whose figures have been fudged. <br />After all, there is no time to waste. As Monbiot has said himself, "we are the last generation that can make this happen, and this is the last possible moment at which we can make it happen." <br /><br /> George Monbiot is the best-selling author of The Age of Consent and Captive State, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed, and No Man's Land. In 1995, Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics), and East London (environmental science). Currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University, he writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. <br /> [close]
date added	03-14-07 edit book

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Franco rated it:

(review of isbn 0141026626)

09/22/07

Read in September, 2007

Making the choice
After reading on the internet a number of unsatisfactory articles about climate change, I decided to read a good book on this essential topic. I compared them basing my choice on the information I could find about the three books I’d been proposed, and on the need to verify some of my opinions: first, the opinion I had since thirty years ago that the industrial revolution has an important negative effect on climate - this lead me to easily trust those who fifteen year...more Making the choice
After reading on the internet a number of unsatisfactory articles about climate change, I decided to read a good book on this essential topic. I compared them basing my choice on the information I could find about the three books I’d been proposed, and on the need to verify some of my opinions: first, the opinion I had since thirty years ago that the industrial revolution has an important negative effect on climate - this lead me to easily trust those who fifteen years later said that the reduction amount agreement in Kyoto was just a symbolic act because of the irrelevant quantity; second, the opinion that the data published by the FAO about animal farming, which would be responsible of 18% of the CO2 equivalent emissions, is correct and is just a little further confirmation we need to considerably change our lifestyle.

I scannedd 'Heat!' in a library to find the data I was looking for. What I read on the internet about it made me sure it was at least good for an important step: understanding the real needs in terms of reduction.
One of the first things I read were the tables at the end of the book. I got the impression that the book was not very good for me: it seemed not to mention the animal farming contributes, ascribe to the traffic part of the emissions which are probably due to other fuel combustion and one of the first things the author says is he doesn’t want to change his lifestyle. But, he sais, It’s possible and easy to quickly reduce the emissions by 90% and save the human race this way. In my quick search I couldn’t find positive suggestions or solutions, but only the demolition of suggestions made by others, and an apparently useless report on untrue writings. No way to believe it would say the things I wanted to find. Anyway, it certainly said something important. Well then, I thought, I’ll have to read it all.

Surprising though known
Monbiot chose very well his sources and writes very well. He points out that science reports need to be selected by peer review to be considered valid, while politicians and journalists (not scientists) make a tremendous confusion and get victims of false reports especially for a main reason: they attribute the more importance and credibility to a speaker the more he appears in the media. He shows how some big industries like Philip Morris and Exxon can manipulate the public opinion. It’s enough to get the information selected by peer review, that is, all the articles published by scientists’ magazines as Science and Nature to understand what is happening and will happen in the very next decades according to all scientific contributes, none excluded.

At the end of the second chapter, Monbiot even easily explains the psychology that brings scientists to accept politicians’ decisions even if they know they are a simply ridiculous and mad suicide.

Achieved results
The quick reduction of greenhouse gases emission must become the most important task of our governments. We must ask for this. The reduction must involve everybody. Most of it has to take place before 2012.

Monbiot succeeds in his scopes: convince that in the case of climate change and fighting is worth the trouble, and find the most politically efficacious ways to reduce our energy need and its CO2 content. His comparison among all the suggested solutions brings to evidence which are the best solutions for behaviours and policies in the main fields to take into account: energy production and use, transport and building trade. Only in one sentence, though, it speaks about animal gases production, and as in the case of Al Gore not a word is spent to say how important vegetarianism among the necessary solutions. We can forgive him just because of its starting point (I don't want to change my lifestyle), which he thought so important to attract readers. He got me, and I'm happy about that.
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Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

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