Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis

by Tim Flannery

A decade ago, Tim Flannery’s #1 international bestseller, The Weather Makers , was one of the first books to break the topic of climate change out into the general conversation. Today, Earth’s climate system is fast approaching a crisis. Political leadership has not kept up, and public engagement with the issue of climate change has declined. Opinion is divided between technological optimists and pessimists who feel that catastrophe is inevitable. The publication of this new book is timed for the lead-up to the Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015, which aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate from all the nations in the world. This book anticipates and will influence the debates.

Time is running out, but catastrophe is not inevitable. Around the world people are now living with the consequences of an altered climate—with intensified and more frequent storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. For some it’s already a question of survival. Drawing on the latest science, Flannery gives a snapshot of the trouble we are in and more crucially, proposes a new way forward, including rapidly progressing clean technologies and a “third way” of soft geo-engineering. Tim Flannery, with his inimitable style, makes this urgent issue compelling and accessible. This is a must-read for anyone interested in our global future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Environment, Climate Change, Sustainability, Politics, Ecology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2015

About the author

Tim Flannery is one of Australia's leading thinkers and writers.

An internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers and many books. His books include the landmark works The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers, which has been translated into more than 20 languages and in 2006 won the NSW Premiers Literary Prizes for Best Critical Writing and Book of the Year.

He received a Centenary of Federation Medal for his services to Australian science and in 2002 delivered the Australia Day address. In 2005 he was named Australian Humanist of the Year, and in 2007 honoured as Australian of the Year.

He spent a year teaching at Harvard, and is a founding member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, a director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and the National Geographic Society's representative in Australasia. He serves on the board of WWF International (London and Gland) and on the sustainability advisory councils of Siemens (Munich) and Tata Power (Mumbai).

In 2007 he co-founded and was appointed Chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a coalition of community, business, and political leaders who came together to confront climate change.

Tim Flannery is currently Professor of Science at Maquarie University, Sydney.

Reviews

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice book by Tim Flannery trying to shine some hope on the climate crisis. Good to read about some of these initiatives I hadn't heard of before. Sometimes the author can come across as a bit arrogant, but I guess he does have loads of experience working with climate change and solutions.

[RitaSkeeter · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been awhile since I read The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. Since that time, technology has changed and improved, but the crisis we are facing has intensified. Why is it we seem set on ignoring the facts before us? Ignorance is bliss perhaps?

The first half or so of this new book is an update on the situation, with where the planet is at now. Deeply scary stuff. Makes me want to go hide in the corner and rock. But the book isn't all doom and gloom. The second half (ish) of the book walks the reader through some of the new technologies and ideas being developed that may yet save us. Flannery speaks of governments who have been proactive in exploring and exploiting alternate electricity options, such as solar. Go Germany! By contrast, Australia is a backward embarrassment. Hopefully the new PM will have a little more interest in meaningfully addressing climate change rather than just claiming it is "utter crap" like his predecessor.

I'm not sure I found this book as earth shattering as The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth, however this book does give more hope. Still, time is a-ticking and we have an almost insurmountable task ahead. Can we do it? In Flannery's words:

It really is over to you. Every one of you. We can now see the finishing line. Whether we win the race for a better future is your choice.

Should be required reading for all.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A roller-coaster ride...

In December this year, the next United Nations Climate Change Conference will convene in Paris to make decisions on how to cap carbon emissions at a level that will ensure that global temperatures will rise by no more than 2° Celcius compared to pre-industrial levels. This book is a summary of where we are now and an action plan for the future.

The book is heavily polemical, very much Tim Flannery's personal attempt to influence the decision makers. As a scientist and leading environmentalist of long-standing, Flannery is Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, a member of the Australian Independent Climate Council and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council; so he's certainly qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject.

This was a bit of a roller-coaster read for me, both in terms of style and content. In the introduction, Flannery lays out his stall. Taking as his starting point his own earlier book, The Weather Makers, he sets out to show how things have developed over the decade since, where his opinions have changed over the years, and what he now thinks are the best ways forward if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. At this stage, I was concerned I might find the book unreadable. His style is abrasive, self-aggrandizing and arrogant and much of the introduction and early chapters read like a piece of self-advertisement. He mentions his previous book umpteen times, dismissing anyone who has criticised any aspect of it over the years, and spends far too long justifying his then conclusions. In fact, at times there is a sense almost of paranoia – as if he is the victim of a conspiracy of vested interests trying to discredit his work. He is vitriolic about the Abbott government in Australia – still in power when he was writing but now gone. Of course, as the cliché goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...

However, having vented his spleen, Flannery then settles down into a series of well-written chapters where he lays out the current situation very clearly. He starts with a bleak picture of what may happen if temperatures are not contained to the 2°C target – to the Arctic and Antarctic, to forests, wildlife and oceans, and not least to humanity in those parts of the world most sensitive to rising temperatures. It's all stuff we've heard before, but brought up to date with the latest science. Flannery assumes throughout that by this time only those with vested interests in the carbon industries are still denying the link between man's activities and climate change, and so is dismissive and even occasionally virulent about deniers. There is throughout a feeling of urgency – no time left to waste preaching to the unconverted, let's just ignore them and get on with what needs to be done. Fine by me, but this is not a book to win over waverers with charm.

The next few chapters take us through individual aspects of energy production, starting with the dirty ones and moving on to the clean. This was the part of the book that gave me a sense of hope – assuming Flannery's figures are correct, and I see no reason to doubt them, then fossil fuels seem to be losing their overwhelming attractiveness as renewables become both more efficient and cheaper due to economies of scale. We're nowhere near out of the woods, but Flannery made me feel as if perhaps we've spotted the path.

In the final section, Flannery discusses how he believes we should proceed. His position is that, even in the unlikely (but not impossible) event that we reduce fossil fuel use to zero over the next few decades, we will still have the problem of existing CO2 in the atmosphere to deal with. He discusses the difficulties of the task and goes into some detail on some of the schemes that have been put forward. To my unscientific mind, lots of these sound like pie-in-the-sky schemes, or actually poison-in-the-sky, to be more accurate. Flannery himself isn't keen on the kind of geo-engineering scheme that suggests pumping other stuff, like sulphur, into the atmosphere in order to induce cooling, on the grounds that firstly, we can't foresee all the possible implications and secondly, the underlying problem of too much carbon still remains.

He suggests what he calls a 'third way' – a mixture of preparing for climate change by making necessary adaptations at a local level while attempting to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by a variety of schemes, from massive seaweed farms to storing carbon in rocks and plastics, that he feels could be effective without the risks of geo-engineering. To be honest, much of this sounded impractical and a bit like wishful thinking to me, but hey! Most of it was well over my head scientifically and he's an expert, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's always been my opinion that it will have to be the scientists who solve this problem in the end, and the role of governments and the people should be to give them the finances and resources they need, while trying to stop any of them accidentally blowing up the galaxy in their enthusiasm.

However, after cheering me up in the earlier chapters, I'm afraid this final section plunged me back into gloom – the sheer scale of the task and the short-termism of so many governments make it all seem pretty overwhelming. I comforted myself with the thought that perhaps Flannery had done this deliberately, so that no-one would be approaching the Paris Conference feeling over-confident. Overall well worth reading – a good introduction for anyone new to the subject and a thorough update for those with a little more knowledge. Let's hope the politicians attending the Conference will pay attention to the science more than the politics for once... the world will be watching. Won't we?

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grove Atlantic.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've been keeping up with developments in climate science and have a good handle on denier tactics, there won't be much in the first two-thirds of this book that's new to you. If you haven't, this is a solid primer.
The crux of the book is the last third, which summarises efforts to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, looking at their readiness and cost and assessing how much of a part they might play in reducing the impact of climate change. There are lots of numbers, as you'd expect: prices, tonnes of C, tonnes of CO2, tonnes of feedstock and so on. Most of the mature technologies seem not that hopeful, and the most hopeful solutions seem not that mature. But I reckon Flannery's right that we need to start putting some serious effort into researching and developing them, because emissions reduction and adaptation to climate change effects are not going to be enough to save our arses.
There's also a quick rundown of what you, as an individual, can do to support emissions reduction; this isn't your usual 'travel less, eat local food' screed and has some useful suggestions for how you can engender policy change.
Overall, it's not a ripper read or anything, and would probably have been better published as a short book or a Quarterly Essay, but there's some important stuff in here.
(I should check if there's an associated website - it would be good to know the info will keep getting updated, as it's bound to be superseded quickly.)

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pacy and engrossing read. There is a story, with tenuous hope, but still with hope. Some possible solutions to help slow climate change are raised. They all require political will as well as dollars to be successful. There are some good examples of lobbying and advocacy. The science is very readable, and there are lots of references to additional resources. This is a book to read, think about and then take action.

I don't often read books as soon as they are released, there are usually good reasons to delay, like an every growing list of reading. I am going to hear Tim Flannery speak tonight, and I thought reading this book before the talk was a good idea.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2015, Tim Flannery's Atmosphere of Hope is a largely a follow up to his 2005 work, The Weather Makers.

Although I liked the entire book, I especially enjoyed the chapters on adapting and geoengineering. At the risk of sounding naive, I just find stories about scientists mitigating glacial retreat by adding sawdust to their edges or a city that is able to reduce its temperatures by increasing its albedo really neat. The geoengineering chapter also provides a useful overview of the costs, merits, and arguments against any geoengineering strategy. Flannery also likes what he calls third way approaches, which I understand as attempts to draw carbon from the atmosphere by restoring, developing, and expanding carbon sinks. It seems clear that Harvey's portfolio of policies (as opposed to a silver bullet approach) remains the right way to think about responding to climate change. Individual action (for most people, this will mean food and transport) is admirable but counts for little compared to changes in policy.

The subtitle, Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis is telling, perhaps because policy wins have felt too rare. In the Weather Makers, Flannery reported that the three greatest threats to the climate were the collapse of the Gulf Stream, the collapse of the Amazon, and the release of clathrates (methane buried under the Arctic permafrost). Now it seems that scientists are most worried about ocean acidification, the release of methane from the permafrost, and the collapse of the Amazon due to deforestation and forest fires. More broadly, perhaps the greatest worry is that so much progress has been made and yet global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. The scope of the problem is all but overwhelming, hence the title.

Readers would probably do well to read both The Weather Makers and Atmosphere of Hope, especially since they're both efficiently and engagingly written. But given that science, technology, and policy are ever evolving, if one had to opt for one work or the other, I suppose I'd recommend Atmosphere even if Weather Makers is slightly better written.

[Iulia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main reason I bought this book is because I was hoping it would provide solution, practical, day-to-day actions that I could undertake to try to make a change. I also love the fact that this edition is printed on recycled paper.
Now, about the content itself, I must admit that I am disappointed. It's an introductory book at best. After reading Naomi Klein's "This changes everything, Tim Flannery's book just wasn't enough. I felt that half of the time he was just emphasising his own achievements and promoting his other book. When he presented the situation, I found it too simplistic, in the way that it did not present the whole picture. Furthermore, the solutions part was short, towards the end, presenting what large companies could do. I felt like the solutions lacked a critical approach- the downsides to many of them were lacking.
Moreover, I am very upset with the fact that the concept of fracking was introduced in the book as a neutral thing. Fracking is dangerous both to local communities and to the environment. BP's Deepwater Horizon Spill was also absent in the book.
I felt that this book, while well intentioned, tried to be too approachable and in that it only went half the distance. If you were to read only this book, you would get the impression that things are far less complex than they are.
Overall, as Goodreads' two stars put it - "it was okay".

[Text Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

[I]t's now clear that the tools required to avoid a climate disaster already exist, even if some of them require more research and development. Between deep, rapid emissions cuts and third-way technologies, we can do it.

True to his title, Tim Flannery ends on a hopeful note, after cycling through some of the options we have in countering the spectre of climate change.

But things aren't rosy just yet. Read this review of Atmosphere of Hope in the Sydney Morning Herald

[Ned Powell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been meaning to read one of Tim Flannery’s books for a long time. I saw him give a talk at Melbourne Uni after the release of this book, where from memory he talked about the importance of “hope” in messaging and educating in climate change, and about many of the promising technologies currently being considered and developed.

I’m already relatively strong on the science behind climate change (I have a degree in climate science from Melbourne Uni), and I also recently read Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything”, which covers the political and social aspects of climate change in depth, but I was keen to read more about the technological side of things.

To start with, Flannery summarises the science of where things are at today, and how things have progressed (or regressed, as the case may be) since he wrote “The Weather Makers” in 2006. The way he writes is really accessible, you certainly don’t need to be a scientist to follow, but it’s also really informative. I also love the Australian focus, as having lived in Australia for the past 33 years and having followed the politics and observed the environment here, it was interesting to learn the science behind it, and even to understand the effects of various government policies. I recently read an article in “The Conversation” about Tim Flannery, where he was saying he thinks his last 20 years of activism in the climate change area seem like a total waste of time because governments still haven’t acted! I feel frustrated by that the same thing, but given how hard Flannery has worked in this area, and how well he understands the climate situation, it’s hard to understand how frustrating it must be for him. I’m impressed he does still have hope!

Since studying climate change at uni, I’ve also understood the dire situation the world is in, but in the back if my mind I’ve always been comforted by a hope that technology will save us. Given how slow the progress has been and we’re getting to crunch-time, I’m getting gradually more concerned. Though I’ve been more concerned about the lack of political action on the matter; there is so much more that could be done, and we already have the technology to solve the climate problem, if only everyone would behave in the right way!

The book was published in 2015, and interestingly Flannery writes this about the Galilee Basin: “The really big play in coal was supposed to be Queensland’s Galilee Basin. The fate of the basin’s coal resources is of global importance because the reserves are so large that their development is incompatible with the goal of keeping temperature increases within 2 degrees Celsius.” (Page 81). As we have seen with the so-called “Adani” proposal, against all sense and rational argument, the project still just won’t die. And it still remains to be seen what will happen there.

After reading about the technological solutions on the table, my level of hope actually diminished. I guess it’s normal to be initially optimistic, but then when you actually learn in detail about the situation, things aren’t so peachy. Flannery does a great job of explaining how big the problem is, with the help of numbers. He is convinced that we’ve missed the boat to avoid catastrophic warming just by reducing emissions, and we will actually need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. He talks about how many gigatonnes of CO2 we release into the atmosphere each year, and looks at various technologies and their expected ability to be able to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Flannery calls these types of technologies “third-way”, “because they are neither emissions abatement nor geoengineering, but a distinctive third approach” (page 133). He defines it as “Third-way technologies recreate, enhance or restore the processes that created the balance of greenhouse gases which existed prior to human interference, with the aim of drawing carbon, at scale, out of Earth’s atmosphere and/or oceans.” (Page 133). Even when these technologies are developed and scaled up as much as they practically can be, the amount of CO2 they can actually remove compared to the amount we emit is actually quite small. We would have to develop and scale up a whole swathe of technologies to have much impact on removing CO2 from the living carbon cycle, and this will presumably take a long time, when most of the proposed technologies (and Flannery covers a wide range of them) are still in their infancy. Flannery has a good handle on these technologies, because he’s part of the judging panel for Richard Branson’s “Virgin Earth Challenge”, for which Branson offered a 25 million pound prize for the best entry for removing a gigatonne of carbon from the atmosphere. For reference, we would need to remove about five times this much (4.8 gigatonnes of carbon annually) to reduce CO2 concentration by 1 ppm (and we would need to reduce concentrations by 100 ppm to return them to close to what they were before the Industrial Revolution).

I read this book at about the time of the global climate rallies instigated by Greta Thunberg in September 2019. I attended the Melbourne rally, along with around 100,000 - 150,000 other people, from what I read, making it the largest rally every to take place in Melbourne. There has been a lot of media coverage of the issue following these rallies, at least it seems to me. There was great little video circulating from The Guardian afterwards, with Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot, where Monbiot cleverly says: “There is a magic machine that sucks carbon out of the air, costs very little, and builds itself. It’s called...a tree!” Yep, I’m confident trees are an important part of the solution, but as Flannery explains in his book, things aren’t so simple: “The option almost everybody thinks of when it comes to removing carbon from the atmosphere is to grow more trees. Trees, like all plants, grow by drawing in CO2. They are, in fact, little more than congealed atmospheric CO2, with half of their dry weight being composed of carbon drawn from the air. Many of the world’s forests have been cleared or degraded in recent centuries, so restoring them offered considerable potential for sequestration. But the scale of reafforestation required to draw down a gigatonne of carbon is staggering.
Trees grow over a long time, and start out very small, so we must take a 50-year time horizon as we think about this option. Over half a century, we would require an estimated 3-7.5 million square kilometres of land to be reforested (7.5 million square kilometres is roughly an area the size of Australia or the contiguous states of the US). We would need to complete between 70,000 and 150,000 square kilometres (approximately half the area of the United Kingdom) of plantings each year, if we were to sequester on average a gigatonne of carbon annually for fifty years this way. And the trees must be sustained for a century or more if the carbon is to stay out of the atmosphere for a useful period...
As pointed out recently in Nature, reafforestation at this scale can have unintended consequences by changing Earth’s albedo. Trees absorb more heat energy than do paler grasses, and this increase in heat energy captured at Earth’s surface may offset, or even more than offset, any gains in reducing temperatures made by drawing all of that extra carbon out of the atmosphere.” (Page 138)

It’s a fascinating book and I’d love everyone to read it and inform themselves on the matter! It’s not long, and it’s easy to read, certainly much easier than “This Changes Everything” was, at least for me. Good on you Tim Flannery, much respect

[Olga Rujanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve got 40 pages left of this amazing and insightful book, but can’t wait to recommend it to anyone who is conscious and concerned about our planet, climate change, global warming and what are really the causes, potential solutions. The author gives a break down of layers of this issue I would probably only get if I were to take a University semester course on the subject. Each time I read a paragraph, I feel like I am again at Uni, flexing my brain muscles and absorbing new and foreign knowledge to me. Concisely written. Easy to read, but takes time to digest the information. I read it in portioned takes. A certain amount of pages daily or in between a few days of not reading from the book. That worked best to integrate the new knowledge.

Now that I've finished the book, I can warmly recommend it to anyone who wishes to get better informed on various aspects and interrelated causes of global warming and climate change. It's like you go through a course book for basics of understanding what has happened since 1950s until today (or 2015, when the book was published). Also, you will get a very clear understanding of what the future prospects are for us, what fossil fuel is actually the least worse (yes, there is one), and in what to invest when it comes to renewable energy sources or public policies to generate environmental sustainability and just secure our planet and our lives on Earth.

[Mr_wormwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, I didn't find a good deal of hope here. But i'm glad i read it as I know so very little on this subject and really should know more. I found it a good work in providing an introduction to this important topic though

[Angie Reisetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Flannery begins his climate update with, well, a climate update. Where are we now? We've started to see the consequences of global warming, and he focuses on things that are new since his 2005 book. Throughout this new book, he keeps referring back to the 2005 book. I didn't read that one -- my excuse, if I need one, is that I was in graduate school and reading nothing that wasn't astrophysics -- but I still found the comparison striking. His analysis emphasizes how much has changed in just 10 years, and it is sobering to think about how quickly we've gotten used to our new weather patterns and extreme events.

He does spend a portion of the book reviewing why fossil fuels are bad for us, which may interest some readers more than it did me. It was in this section that he sounds most sanctimonious and I was willing to grant him his conclusion before he started his argument, so it felt like a waste of space. But if people are looking to be convinced, this section was probably necessary.

The best part of the book was the reason for the 'Hope' in the title. He includes a survey of what tools are available to us now to start solving our problems. What alternative energies are available? Being developed? To what extent can they solve our problems? His chapters on geoengineering, blocking the sun or sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere to slow things because we can't get off fossil fuels fast enough, are intriguing. These chapters are the ones that are seldom included with this level of detail in other books. I really appreciated the new information here.

Flannery naturally has an Australia-centered outlook, but that only really mattered in his last chapter, when he's listing the ways that an individual can be an effective activist. All that depends on the political realities and the citizen activist groups available, and they're different in the US than in Australia. But the chapter still serves as inspiration for Americans, and we certainly have activist groups that people can get involved in -- the chapter is just unnecessarily detailed if all you're looking for is inspiration. For the rest of the book, we're truly talking about a global issue, so the country of origin of the author really doesn't matter much.

When I read the introduction to the book, I was feeling a little apprehensive that it was going to be more of an I-told-you-so than a useful, informative read, but that was not the case. Flannery has been working on climate-related issues for a while and has the advantage of experience and long-term analysis. Yes, he's a bit frustrated with the lack of progress. Actually, the rate of degeneration. Aren't we all? But the focus is on what we can do now. What's possible? What can be saved? I recommend it, especially with the December climate summit coming up.

I got a copy of this from Net Galley.

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book overall, seemingly providing an update on the author’s best-selling book ‘The Weather Makers’ he published a decade before. Putting aside for a moment the actual aim of the book, it is interesting to note what the path to decarbonization was thought to be 20 years ago — and Flannery recognizes his own honest mistakes brushing aside as minor some innovations which today dominate the Net-zero discourse (e.g., electric vehicles).

One learns A LOT from reading this — each chapter covers the status of an entire industry — but I found this was done at the expense of better story-telling. It was difficult to remember even a tenth of the information because of the sheer pace at which paragraphs glance over sector after sector.

Sure enough, the book’s central pitch is the need for research and investment into “the third way”, in other words, Carbon sequestration projects. I found the topic compelling, but the arguments put forward lacking in substance, and introduced too late in the book. Firstly, the “third way” phrasing is simply opaque and says nothing more than the number of categories to the climate solution.

Moreover, Flannery doesn’t manage to strike the right balance between introducing a technology under a positive light, and mentioning its shortcomings (essentially that the technology is not viable or scalable). Instead, when he critiques a technology he’s just introduced, his initial optimistic stance seems simply misleading. I least liked his chapter on Carbon-neutral or negative concrete — praising particular companies like he does (multiple times) can prove naive in this industry. Many innovations have turned out not to be nearly as promising as they had been presented.

This book is now more than 10 years old. This simple fact means I won’t be recommending it to anyone — pretty much everything in it is now outdated. It’s strange Flannery chose to publish in 2015, the year of the Paris negotiations, *before* they even took place — by the time his book was starting to be read, it was already lacking crucial insight on the impact of the game-changing Paris Agreement on climate policy.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important book to read to get a broad and fairly comprehensive understanding of the climate conversation, though some of the analysis (mostly on politics and I think some tech) has dated surprisingly quickly.

For readers already well versed in the issue of climate change, this won't necessarily provide much new thinking - although the sections on future solutions provide some interested challenges (particularly on geoengineering). It's also interesting to read Flannery's thoughts on climate politics (written before the Paris Agreement of 2015) from a 2019 standpoint, and I imagine readers more familiar with this particular strand will get a lot of out re-assessing the assumptions made on this particular theme.

At times the book is difficult to really immerse yourself in. There is so much information in each chapter it's hard to take in the detail, and there isn't a cohesive narrative that flows through the sections (aside from the overarching theme of "we need to do something here"). However, it acts as a great baseline for readers wanting to get a little more depth on some of the key questions and issues inherent in addressing climate change, even if some of the core information is less useful in 2019 than it was in 2015.

[Lydia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

If you're looking for a book that gets across the gravity of the climate disaster around the corner, whilst still allowing for "hope" as the title suggests, then this is worth a read. The presentation of potential ways to offset emissions and reduce warming whether via geoengineering or giant seaweed plantations was excellent. The only real downsides to this for me were that it had a focus on Australia (for reference I live in the UK) and that some of the climate science is likely out of date given it's publication was in 2015.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should have read this when I first got as it has dated a bit already. Still a good read though and a good way to stay in contact with Australia's feeble attempts to meet its greenhouse gas targets. Andrew Bolt's pathological hatred of Flannery even got a mention! One of the best things about this book is that it is so well referenced. The bibliography has given me a few new titles to hunt down and read. Definitely worthwhile!

[Austin Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I care a lot about the environment and the issue of climate change but felt like I didn't know enough about it. This book really helped me grasp a stronger understanding of the issue and provided some fascinating looks at ways humans might be able to combat the crisis - none of which can work without also reducing the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly up to date take on climate change

Fascinating update on climate change especially the third way technologies, many of which were new to me. Would have liked more information on the geoengineering topic.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked reading this book, it gives a good overview and makes you consider climate change from multiple point of views. I didn't give it more stars because I do not feel hopeful at all after reading this... Maybe I've read it wrong. :)

[Nicola · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whilst some of the information in here is outdated (reading it in 2022 as opposed to when it was released in 2015) it gives a broad outline of different facets of the climate conversation. It wasn’t quite as hopeful as the title led me to believe! An interesting, sombre read.

[Sir Readalot · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A concise and moderately upbeat summary of the current (well, circa 2015) state of play.

[Casey Engstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

-tf spurred RB virgin earth prize
-seaweed
-coral is donezo
Third way
Extreme weather is real: warmer atmosphere holds more moisture
Mega droughts
Pine Island glacier is dead on its feet, 1m

[Thomas Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me feel a lot better about climate change, I’ll say that much. If you’re a fan of seaweed or solar panels you’ll enjoy this.

[mmmm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important book! Stay informed, and don't get overwhelmed. This is a crucial time in climate history.

[Lior Alexandre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant mind saving the future of the earth

[Owen Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but as with all of these books, becomes outdated. Reading in 2022, it did not fill me with an air of hope.

[Daniel Simulescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Dacă vom câștiga cursa către un viitor mai bun este, de asemenea, și responsabilitatea ta."

[Steve lovell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It looks as though I was born just at the right time - lived my life when the living was, relatively speaking, easy - at least for those of us lucky enough not to be a citizen of a third world country. My generation missed the most traumatic events of the last century, saw the Cold War off without nuclear catastrophe, then ushered in the digital age - for better or worse. That being said, we also did just enough to bugger up our planet for the generations that follow. But then, we will be gone before the real crunch hits. Our ineptitude and our belief in deforestation, dirty coal and petrol guzzling machines is now certainly starting to make our atmosphere an unhappy place. And it's already paying us back for that. Those who come after us will need to clean up our mess if humanity is to survive in a manner we've grown accustomed to on our planet. Or find a way to cope with a very altered environment. They'll be able to do that, won't they?

Will those gifted scientists, following the not so gifted ones who were like a wrecking ball for the Earth over the last five decades or so, be able to find a way to suck all that deleterious CO2 out of the sky? Will they find somewhere safe then to put it all - or perhaps even make something useful to humankind out of it?

Tim Flannery thinks that those brainiacs who are working on it now and down the track; the politicians in charge presently and into the future; as well as a more environmentally savvy general populace will have the combined nous to do this. Fingers crossed. There is much to be optimistic about, as reflected in 'Atmosphere of Hope'. In general, though, it does make for some pretty depressing reading. Everything will have to go exactly right. At least, since the tome was written, there has been the hoped for positive outcomes from Paris. The two world leaders who were road-blocking progress for all they were worth - our own head-in-the-sand man Abbott and his mate, Canada's Harper, have both been consigned to the dustbin of history. In Trudeau and Turnbull we at least have guys who think that the science has got it right.

Yes, Flannery reports, this science is on the march, starting to grapple and make some headway with the solutions required. And the greed of the vested interests in the ways of the past? Well, it is now being shown as what it truly has been all along - profit at all costs to benefit a small minority to the detriment of the masses. Despite this, it will still be touch and go.

I must admit, reading this, some of that aforementioned science had me glassy eyed with the plethora of figures Flannery used to make his various cases. He did his best to put it all in layman's terms, but my difficulties with it didn't detract from the impact his writings had on this reader. Some sections I truly found engrossing reading, such as the chapter entitled 'The Great Disconnect', discussing the gap between where the politicians are at as compared to those endeavouring to save us all. It is narrowing, but there's still work to be done. And what's to be done includes this - and it's sobering. 'The latest research...(has) found that more than 80 percent of known coal reserves, 33 percent of oil and 50 percent of gas must stay in the ground if we are to remain within budget.' to get the emissions down to the Paris limits. Can you see the multi-nationals out there, plundering the Earth's resources, laying down and taking that? Well, it'll have to happen.

Geo-engineering seems to be the great hope - but it comes at a ginormous cost in monetary terms - and maybe also in the experimentation to get it right. It seems there are plenty of theories around to cool the planet by this means - from space sunshades to all buildings having white roofs. These range from sensible, no-brainer actions to those worthy of Dr Strangelove. Flannery examines the more plausible of these, declares some to be viable - but the cost, the cost. 'Drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is, at the moment, an extraordinarily complex process involving mind-blowing quantum mechanics.' But the Aussie climatologist is hoping that where there's a will, there is also a way. He takes us through some models for this.

Yep, it seems, there is hope. It's all not lost - but sadly he has given up on the Great Barrier Reef. He reckons it is gone for all money. As for many of the species we share this planet with, mega-numbers are on a quick path to extinction in the wild. They'll find it impossible to adapt to the changes besetting them in the time they have left. We are already seeing it - think polar bears, orangutans, frogs. The list is long and salutary.

Yes, I am glad I read this book. I feel more informed and even a little more optimistic than beforehand. I have a fair grasp on the challenges ahead thanks to Tim F. I know the planet will survive the onslaught we have made on its checks and balances - and hopefully humankind will too, in one form or another.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the Paris summit on climate change just concluded, it's hard to imagine a better time for a new book on the subject, and the subtitle of Tim Flannery's chunky little volume is very encouraging: 'solutions to the climate crisis.' In fact it is just as well he is offering solutions. Not only are the shelves pretty full of titles telling how terrible the impact of climate change is going to be, but (misery memoirs apart) there is quite a strong feeling that doom and gloom books don't sell.

It's not that Flannery begins in cheerful mood. He takes us through the increasingly indisputable evidence that climate change is not just happening but is already having impact on everyday lives, from bush fires in Australia to flooding in the UK. After presenting a picture of increasingly disastrous implications if we choose to carry on as normal, Flannery takes us through the various key means of producing energy, their impact on the climate and where we need to be concentrating. It's fascinating that after concerns in the past about running out of fossil fuels, Flannery thinks that before long we will be moving away from them with plenty left, as the money is divested from the industry.

When it comes to what replaces fossil fuels, he is hugely enthusiastic about wind and solar and brushes aside concerns about their limited availability (e.g. solar at night or in a UK winter) without giving a clear picture of how the balance will be maintained. He is also dismissive of nuclear, in an argument that seems more emotional than logical. One of the most interesting aspects of this section is his admission that in his previous bestselling book, published 10 years ago, he pretty much ignored electric cars, assuming that hydrogen etc. would be the preferred solution, but now he is (sensibly) wholeheartedly behind them.

We then move onto solutions. Flannery is rightly suspicious of the kind of geoengineering that fights fire with fire, for instance seeding the stratosphere with sulfur to mimic the cooling effect of a massive volcanic eruption. But he is very positive about various techniques to take carbon out of the atmosphere (though oddly dismissive of the low hanging fruit contributed of taking carbon dioxide from power station exhausts). He also claims that where once all we could do as individuals was wait for the politicians or dabble with low energy lightbulbs, now we can do much more. However, apart from fitting solar panels (not an option for many of us), this 'action' seems to be limited to joining activist groups, which may be more likely to generate hot air than reduce carbon emissions.

There's much that I really like about this book, and I will be giving my copy to a climate change sceptic friend in the hope of converting him. However, there are some issues. Flannery spends far too much time telling us how important he is and how influential his last book was. This kind of validation of the author is useful in the blurb, but in the content of the book it comes across as irritatingly self-serving. The book is also very Australia/US centric. I suppose I shouldn't complain, since many books by UK authors pretty much ignore Australia, but given this is a UK edition from a UK publisher, the examples could have been tweaked to better fit the market. And the last part of the book is definitely a let down, when we are promised things we can do as individuals and just get 'join a pressure group.'

However, my niggles don't prevent this being an important and thoughtful book, giving up-to-the-minute analysis of our climate situation and what can be done about it. I hope Nigella will be buying a copy for her dad.