Skip to main content

Atmosphere of Hope - Tim Flannery *****

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.

Paperback:  

Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the Fringe - Michael Gordin *****

This little book is a pleasant surprise. That word 'little', by the way, is not intended as an insult, but a compliment. Kudos to OUP for realising that a book doesn't have to be three inches thick to be interesting. It's just 101 pages before you get to the notes - and that's plenty. The topic is fringe science or pseudoscience: it could be heavy going in a condensed form, but in fact Michael Gordin keeps the tone light and readable. In some ways, the most interesting bit is when Gordin plunges into just what pseudoscience actually is. As he points out, there are elements of subjectivity to this. For example, some would say that string theory is pseudoscience, even though many real scientists have dedicated their careers to it. Gordin also points out that, outside of denial (more on this a moment), many supporters of what most of us label pseudoscience do use the scientific method and see themselves as doing actual science. Gordin breaks pseudoscience down into a n
Post a Comment
Read more

A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - Henry Gee *****

In writing this book, Henry Gee had a lot to live up to. His earlier title  The Accidental Species was a superbly readable and fascinating description of the evolutionary process leading to Homo sapiens . It seemed hard to beat - but he has succeeded with what is inevitably going to be described as a tour-de-force. As is promised on the cover, we are taken through nearly 4.6 billion years of life on Earth (actually rather more, as I'll cover below). It's a mark of Gee's skill that what could have ended up feeling like an interminable list of different organisms comes across instead as something of a pager turner. This is helped by the structuring - within those promised twelve chapters everything is divided up into handy bite-sized chunks. And although there certainly are very many species mentioned as we pass through the years, rather than feeling overwhelming, Gee's friendly prose and careful timing made the approach come across as natural and organic.  There was a w
Post a Comment
Read more

Michael D. Gordin - Four Way Interview

Michael D. Gordin is a historian of modern science and a professor at Princeton University, with particular interests in the physical sciences and in science in Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of six books, ranging from the periodic table to early nuclear weapons to the history of scientific languages. His most recent book is On the Fringe: Where Science Meets Pseudoscience (Oxford University Press). Why history of science? The history of science grabbed me long before I knew that there were actual historians of science out there. I entered college committed to becoming a physicist, drawn in by the deep intellectual puzzles of entropy, quantum theory, and relativity. When I started taking courses, I came to understand that what really interested me about those puzzles were not so much their solutions — still replete with paradoxes — but rather the rich debates and even the dead-ends that scientists had taken to trying to resolve them. At first, I thought this fell under
Post a Comment
Read more