Book reviews

Book Reviews for New Year Reading

Here are some reviews of books that I highly recommend for grappling with climate change, oil, coal, solar, electric vehicles and political action.  Thank goodness for libraries! I have organized the reviews into four categories, although there is some overlap:

1.  Science of Global Warming

2.  Climate Chaos--what’s happening and what’s in our future

3.  Politics of Climate Change

4.  Strategies for Making Changes

1.  Regarding Science, James Hansen is the leading climate scientist in the U.S.  He warned Congress that global warming was already detectable in 1988.  His latest book, Storms of our Grandchildren, explains why CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are the only viable explanation for the increasing global temperatures.  Sunspots, eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, and other theories are dealt with scientifically and thoroughly.  Arm yourself with this book.

2.  This is the scary part--Climate Chaos.  These books tell of the terrifying situation we are in.  It’s like we’re on the Titanic at the stage where the life boats weren’t getting filled because people couldn’t believe the ship was going to sink.  Actually, all of these authors also discuss what we need to do to get off of fossil fuels, but I think these books are strongest on the consequences of failing to do so.

            I previously reviewed Joseph Romm’s book Straight Up, a collection of posts from his excellent blog, www.climateprogress.org.  For my review see:  http://solarpowerelectriccars.blogspot.com/2011/06/straight-up-by-joseph-rommbook-review.html  I heartily recommend following Romm’s blog for the latest information on global warming.

            Six Degrees, by Mark Lynus.  This book takes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate that temperatures will increase from 1 - 6 degrees Celsius over the next century, and looks at what will happen under each of these scenarios.  Given that we are now at 1 degree, and climate is already out of whack, all of the scenarios are very frightening. 

Two degrees as an upper limit on temperature increase now seems out of reach given the inaction of the past two decades since climate change became scientifically understood.  Still, with two degrees droughts, floods, storms, crop failures and heat waves will be much worse than today. 

Three degrees tips us into the realm of likely positive feedbacks (where melting tundra, for example, emits more methane, which stimulates more melting, . . .)  And all of the effects that come with two degrees become much worse.

Four degrees makes it pretty certain that Greenland, if not major portions of Antarctica will melt, meaning that most of humanity will have to relocate from inundated coastal areas. 

Five degrees and six degrees become so extreme that civilization itself is threatened. 

            Hot, Living on Earth for the Next 50 Years, by Mark Hertsgaard.  I reviewed this book previously; please see:  http://solarpowerelectriccars.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-review-hot-living-through-next.html  Here are some of the likely catastrophes the book points out that we face by 2050:

·         Results of a possible three feet of sea level rise:

o   Shanghai--”one third of the city underwater.”

o   Bangladesh—“20 percent of Bangladesh underwater and 30 million refugees”

o   New York--the probability of extra large floods will increase from 1 in 100 to 1 in 20 annually

o   Worldwide--”$3 trillion in assets are located at or below three feet above sea level”

·         Four more Category 4 and 5 hurricanes each year (currently 13 worldwide per year).

·         “Record drought will become the norm across the western third of North America”

·         Andean glaciers will disappear by 2030; 40% of Himalayan glaciers will disappear by 2050

·         98% of the world’s coral will be gone by 2050

Eaarth, by Bill McKibben.  Bill is the leading climate change activist in the U.S.  Founder of 350.org and organizer of the Keystone XL Pipeline demonstrations at the White House (see:  http://solarpowerelectriccars.blogspot.com/2011/11/report-from-washington-tar-sands.html for my description of this event, including a photo of Bill speaking). His book spells Eaarth differently because the old earth that we knew and loved “is gone” and has been transformed into a rapidly changing and uncertain new world with a volatile new climate.  Here are some points from the book:

·         “In Glacier Park, only 25 of the 150 glaciers that were there in 1850, still exist, and all of them are shrinking rapidly.” (p 43)

·         “The new planet is inherently more expensive than the old one.  The wind blows harder; more rain falls; the sea rises.”

·         “A two foot rise in sea level ‘would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.’” (p 64)

·         He quotes Swiss Re, the world’s biggest insurance company, “parts of developed countries would experience developing nation conditions for prolonged periods as a result of natural catastrophes” (p 67)

·         “Global warming is a negotiation between human beings on the one hand and physics and chemistry on the other.  Which is a tough negotiation, because physics and chemistry don’t compromise.  They’ve already laid out their nonnegotiable bottome line:  above 350 ppm the planet doesn’t work.” (p 81)

·         “The next decade will see huge increases in renewable power; we’ll adopt electric cars far faster than most analysts imagine.  Windmills will sprout across the prairies.  It will be exciting. . .But it’s not going to happen fast enough to ward of enormous change.” (p 52)

·         “We need to build a movement more powerful than the energy industry.” (p 56)

·         “By midcentury. . . as many as 700 million of the worlds’ 9 billion people will be climate change refugees.”

But Bill is fighting the good fight to save us from ourselves.  See his book Fight Global Warming Now, below.



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Tropic of Chaos, by Christian Parenti.  This is a terrifying book.  It combines economic insight along with climate change, and the picture that emerges is one of failed states with banditry, piracy, terrorism, and desperate surges of refugees.  These violently unstable states are unable to compete in the global economy and are battered by crop failures, storms, droughts, and climate chaos.  Meanwhile the developed countries become obsessed with border security--fencing, helicopters, drones, dogs, klieg lights, motion sensors, detention facilities, etc.--to keep out 700 million climate refugees.  Not a pretty picture. 

      One important point is that Parenti recognizes that stopping climate change does not require overturning the world’s economic system.  He points out that it's not a technical problem; we have  the tools—renewable energy, conservation, electric cars, etc.  He argues that it's not even an economic problem--corporations have huge cash reserves that could go to solving the problem.  The problem is the political power of the fossil fuel industry.  From 1998-2008 Exxon spent $23 million to deny climate change.  From 2005-2008 the Koch brothers spent $24.9 million to deny climate science.  While critical of neoliberal economics, he argues, "If we put aside capitalism's limits and deal only with greenhouse gas emissions, the problem looks less duanting." (p 242)  "Either capitalism solves the crisis, or it destroys civilization." 

     

           

3. Politics is the greatest obstacle we face to stopping global warming.  As Bill McKibben said in a speech in Oakland earlier this year, “The scientists have done their job,” i.e. explaining the facts about global warming and that it is caused by fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases.  And “The engineers have done their job,” coming up with solar power, wind turbines, electric cars, and all of the technology necessary to provide clean, green energy.  The problem boils down to politics.  Here are four books that help clarify this:

Big Coal, by Jeff Goodall, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.  This is a very well written and dramatic account of the coal industry--its history and evolution in concert with utility companies.  He tprovides personal accounts ranging from miners deep underground, to mountaintop removal, to immense mining operations in Wyoming.  He shows how coal produces ¼ of the CO2 in the U.S.  He also travels to China to document the destruction caused by coal burning there, although he does point out that China still consumes less than ½ the amount of coal per capita that the U.S. does.  But their power plants are dirtier, and there are a lot more people in China, so that is a big problem.

Crude World, by Peter Maas, Alfred Knopf, 2009.  This book shows that more often than not oil has proven to be curse for the countries where it is found.  He travels to Nigeria where environmental damage is rampant, to Guinea where the oil money lines the pockets of its rulers and the people are destitute, to Iraq where the destruction of the country is apparent for all to see.  One important fact is that Exxon is not in the top ten of those who control the world’s petroleum reserves (top four are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and Iran, in that order).  He also tells how 80% of the former Soviet Union’s hard currency came from oil.  The drop in oil price from $30/barrel in 1985 to $12/barrel in 1986 “doomed the dysfunctional corpus that was the Soviet economy.”  Overall I came away with the impression that the world today is controlled by a ruthless quest for oil where we are all the losers.

Tyranny of Oil, by Antonia Juhasz, This book has lots of history of the oil industry, written in the spirit of Ida Tarbell, the muckraker who helped break the Standard Oil monopoly 100 years ago.  Unfortunately, I can’t find my notes on the book right now, so all I can say is that it is well written and I enjoyed reading it.  Make no mistake, oil companies are a powerful and ruthless opponent, and they will not quietly concede that fossil fuels are destroying the planet, and that they need to find other ways to earn a living.

4.  The fun part is Making Changes.  Here are some books with ideas about how to do this:

Fight Global Warming Now, by Bill McKibben, 2007.  This book describes McKibben’s vision of a creative, loving but insistent movement full of art, music, laughter, and positive energy.  It also has a comprehensive list of links to organizations doing climate change work.

Profit from the Peak, by Brian Hickes and Chris Nelder, 2008.  I was interested to see if this book’s predictions about peak oil would hold true.  In some ways they are right on the mark--i.e. oil prices have spiked since 2007 when it was written; also, I understand that many more new oil well drills come up dry than in the past and that new discoveries are not able to keep up with current demand.  On the other hand, world production has risen from 65.7 million barrels of oil per day in 2006 to 87.5 million barrels per day in 2010 (per wikipedia), so it is possible that we are still not at the peak.  The book argues that tar sands will never be a viable source of oil since the energy return on investment is only about 5:1--much less than the 17:1 ratio for most crude oil supplies today, although better than the heavily subsidized corn ethanol ratio of 1.2:1.  It also argues that the amount of natural gas needed to burn the tar sands to make them into oil is excessive and unrealistic.  However, with $90+ per barrel oil prices, today it seems that tar sands exploitation is profitable (ignoring all the polluted lakes and clear cut forests).  The book explores alternative technologies such as geothermal, biofuels, solar, and wind and takes global warming seriously.  The book points toward companies that are providing alternatives to oil, coal, and natural gas; I found it quite informative in many ways.

Solar Revolution, by Travis Bradford, 2006.  This book convinced me to add solar panels to our house.  It also gives me hope for the future.  The key point is that solar prices are dropping every year, and are already below the peak prices for fossil fuels. In other words, at least in California, if you are paying more than the baseline for your electricity, you can already save money by installing solar panels.  Since that includes most people, I’m not sure why nearly everyone isn’t doing it—right now!  Anyway, Travis is a brilliant economist, masterful with numbers, and has a broad uplifting vision of the industry and the future.  I strongly recommend the book.

Plug-in Hybrids, by Sherry Boschert, 2006.  I picked this up shortly before we bought our Chevy Volt, and found it to be a very fun read.  It talks about people like Felix Kramer and Ron Gremban from http://www.calcars.org/, who have led the movement to transform the U.S. auto industry.  She points out that many conservatives, such as former CIA director R.James Woolsey favor electric cars in order to get the U.S. off of oil imports.  She chides the major environmental groups for being slow to support electric vehicles (although the Sierra Club is on-board now with it’s http://sierraclub.org/electric-vehicles/news.aspx Go Electric project).  And, like me, she cheers for the film “Who Killed the Electric Car”.  





Of course reading books is fun, but making changes is even more fun.  So let's do this--we can get off of fossil fuels and onto clean energy and electric vehicles!