Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century

by Burton Richter

Global climate change is one of the most important issues humanity faces today. This book assesses the sensible, senseless and biased proposals for averting the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions on switching to more sustainable energy provision. Burton Richter is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who has served on many US and international review committees on climate change and energy issues. He provides a concise overview of our knowledge and uncertainties within climate change science , discusses current energy demand and supply patterns, and the energy options available to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Written in non-technical language, this book presents a balanced view of options for moving from our heavy reliance on fossil fuels into a much more sustainable energy system, and is accessible to a wide range of readers without scientific backgrounds - students, policymakers, and the concerned citizen.

Genres: Environment, Science, Climate Change, Chemistry, Nonfiction

242 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Burton Richter was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory team led by Samuel Ting for which they won Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976.

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Repent you sinner humans, because the end is near! A very old message, this time attributed to another god, the god of the new prophets.

[André Pinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good and detailed overview of the climate change problem(s), from origins, data we have, projections to its solutions and non-solutions.

The author tried to provide a factual voice to a subject filled with noise. Worth reading for anyone wanting to cut to the facts.

[Kanishka Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has some great ideas but they are sparsely spread across arranged in an almost academic style.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nobel Prize winning Physicist Burton Richter has served on many climate committees and in this brief book outlines the science, the risks, and various solutions to climate change. He notes how conservative scientist have been on the issue but that "warming is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global avg air and ocean temps." It is not a hoax.
He explains all the various ways to limit carbon emissions, and is not shy about calling out the self-serving greens who are as detached from reality as the deniers. From a fuel source perspective, Nuclear seems to be a critical piece of the puzzle, made so much more challenging post-Fukushima. From the political side, the balance of responsibilities between the developed and developing countries seems an almost intractable problem.
That said, something must be done, even unilaterally, and soon. The time for denial is over. He notes near the end, "since I hav become involved in energy and proliferation issues I have learned one new thing - politics, particularly international politics - is much harder than physics."

[Joe Callingham · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was my hope with "Beyond Smoke and Mirrors" that I would be exposed to a comprehensive scientific analysis of climate change and an outline of different methods to minimise its impact. However, what I ended up reading was the ramblings of a scientist that was writing about a field that was not his own. Many claims found in the text are unsupported or so loosely supported that you are often left wondering how a scientist could have justified writing such an assertion, with many cases made via Richter's "gut-feeling". While some of the details about the role of natural gas in combating climate change was new to me, ultimately the text was a jumbled mess of internalised thoughts of a Nobel prize winning physicist that was writing about a field he did not spend his professional life researching.

[Mike_dangerous · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very boring book. Nonetheless, it gets five stars for sure. I would recommend this book to anybody who thinks they might have an interest in energy or environmental issues. The author is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who knows a lot about science and politics, by experience. My estimate is that it took a lot of effort and experience to be able to write such a brief book (200 pages) for a general audience (it would be far easier to write a fat book with less focus and more fanning of emotional flames). The whole book is effectively a summary of global warming and energy policy, together with several clearly marked opinions on various policy issues.

[Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

the author offers a smart and careful survey of the problem and a dose of sobriety on real solutions. The book is well-informed yet accessible and written in elegant prose. The core of the study is a series of short yet far ranging chapters on all the world's major energy sources and their opportunities for improvement. Richter's masterful study is teeming with optimism about solving the global warming problem, but it is also realistic about the scale of the effort that will be needed. And he warns that today, governments are falling far short in devising the required policies. Two of the alternative energy that were disused are hydro electric and nuclear energy.

[Glenton Jelbert]

Thoroughly enjoying so far. Burton Richter is a nobel prize winning physicist, who's a relative new comer to climate change. His take, like that of MacKay (Sustainable Energy without the hot air) is delightfully numbers based, and he goes further than MacKay by including economics in the discussion, rather than just technical feasibility.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was hoping that the rest of the book would be as clever as the title and was disappointed. Still, a pretty easy to read and straightforward look at climate change and possible solutions, it can get biased and opinionated at times, but he's pretty open about it when he is.

[Jani-Petri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factually accurate no nonsense book