Never Mind the B#ll*cks, Here's the Science - Luke O'Neill ***

This is a real 'neither fish nor fowl' book. On the one hand it is trying to look edgy with that presumably Sex Pistols inspired title and chapter headings like 'What makes you think you are in control of your life?' and 'Why aren't you in jail?' - but on the other hand the text is clearly written by an academic, being somewhat over-heavy on giving us facts with limited narrative and a stodgy writing style to accompany it.

The confusion begins with the very first lines of the book. We are told at the start of the introduction 'The title captures exactly what this book is about' - but actually the title tells the reader nothing about what this book is about. The subtitle helps more. It's 'A scientist's guide to the biggest challenges facing our species today' - and to make sure we know this is a real scientist writing it, the author's name is given as 'Professor Luke O'Neill.'

A more accurate subtitle might have said 'some of the biggest challenges' as it's very much oriented to medical/psychological challenges plus climate change - there's very little about any of the physics-based challenges, say. By far the biggest of these is climate change which, presumably because it's outside O'Neill's usual remit (he's a biochemist) gets only 18 of the book's 281 pages. 

Entitled 'Why are you wrecking the planet?' the climate change section provides quite a good summary of the problems but is decidedly skimpy on solutions. We get solar and wind, a passing mention of the need to change to electric vehicles (without any suggestion of how to make them affordable) and a touch on means to extract carbon from the atmosphere. No mention of, for example, nuclear, the pointlessness of little countries taking action if the big players don't, or, for that matter, the way that academics like O'Neill need to stop flying around the world. And to top it all, there's an effusive mention of environmental campaigners including Extinction Rebellion without seeming to understand how their actions turn people against the message. Overall, not very well handled.

There are some good points in other sections, notably the timely one on vaccination, and it's interesting to get an Irish viewpoint (the 'international' part of the 'international bestseller' on the front cover) rather than the usual US or UK worldview. But overall, this book didn't really engage me as much as the topics suggested it would.

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Review by Brian Clegg