Gain Your Copy The Burning Question: We Cant Burn Half The Worlds Oil, Coal And Gas. So How Do We Quit? Narrated By Mike Berners-Lee Formatted As Paper Copy
incredibly informative and interesting read, This is not as difficult to get through as some related books are, Highly recommended for anyone who wants a balanced presentation of facts and options,
The book does not fight any one side in particular and so is I think useful for everyone, Als de wereld gevaarlijke opwarming wil vermijden, dan moet het grootste deel van de olie, gas en steenkoolvoorraden onder de grond blijven, Dit is een ontnuchterende realiteit als je weet dat nog steedsvan onze energie uit fossiele bronnen komt,
De auteurs beschrijven de obstakels die deze uitdaging zo duivels moeilijk maken, Het eerste obstakel is psychologisch: zelfs mensen die het wetenschappelijk feit van de klimaatopwarming aanvaarden, zijn bijzonder goed in het verdringen en parkeren van het probleem, Ook het 'bystander effect' speelt, Omdat we weinig mensen echt in actie zien schieten, blijven we zelf ook stilzitten,
De tweede hindernis is politiek, Landen met grote voorraden fossiele brandstoffen zijn weinig happig om ze in de grond te laten zitten, Ze zouden daarmee economisch in hun eigen vel snijden, Enkel onder zware druk van de publieke opinie of internationale verdragen zullen ze de transitie naar koolstofarme energie maken,
De auteurs pleiten er zeker niet voor om de handdoek in de ring te gooien, We moeten er iets aan doen, we hebben geen keuze, Het verfrissende is dat BernersLee en Clark openstaan voor veel oplossingen, Naast een zo breed mogelijke koolstoftaks en het stimuleren van hernieuwbare energie, vinden ze ook de uitbouw van nucleaire energie en CCS 'carbon capture and storage'de afvang van rookgassen bij energiecentrales verdedigbare opties.
Ze vinden bovendien dat we ook een noodplan moeten hebben in de vorm van geoengineering, voor het geval onze klimaatinspanningen toch zouden falen,
Hoewel het boek geschreven is inen klimaatboeken snel verouderen, kan ik het toch iedereen aanraden, Ik ken geen klimaatboek dat zo helder en zo onverbloemd de pijnpunten blootlegt van dit 'burning question', An absolutely essential book. Hits the reset button on the climate debate without flinching, Stone cold analysis without hysteria laying out the situation in a clear and easily digestible way, Narrows the environmental solution to neat and uncompromising simplicity: don't burn fossil fuels, One of those books that future generations might look back on and think 'I can't believe that this got published, and it still took our grandparents so fucking long to act'.
Interesting and scary but also a bit dry in an academic writing sort of way,
Not much to say about it, the information is solid and thoroughly explained but after so many years, its also common knowledge, Its a good book to read if you want to put your thoughts about climate change in order, If I had the power to ask everyone in the world to read just one book, it would be this one, I've read a lot about the science of climate change, what needs to be done and the barriers to those actions but this book clearly and concisely summarises all these topics in a single volume.
The central argument is that neither redutions in fossil fuel consumption or production alone will have an effect, they need to be made in tandem, and after outlining the huge barriers to dong both it moves on to discussing why there is no political will to tackle the greatest threat of our time.
After all the starkness of the previous chapters I found this section both the most optimistic and the most fascinating, as the advice goes against everything I've been doing in my personal life.
The author suggests that the most important thing concerned people can do is talk about the issue and show that there is concern out there, in the hope this will have a ripple effect and show people it's not a strange fringe thing to care about and show politicians and business leaders in turn that this is a priority.
This does actually fit in with my personal experience although I've been interested in evironmental issues in an abstract sense since I was a teenager I first started taking concrete steps to make changes in my own life when a university lecturer of mine, who uses a wheelchair, mentioned to me that he had sold his two storey house with a stairlift and bought a bungalow because he was concerned about the availabilty of electricity in future and the morality of using it.
The fact that an intelligent person I respected was taking this seriously made me take it seriously too,
I realise though that I very rarely talk about the actions I take in my own personal life for fear of coming across as preachy or superior, and for fear of seeming as though I'm judging my friend's lifestyles.
This book has made me realise I need to change that, I'm by no means perfect and I recognise that a lot of what I'm able to do is because I have the time, money and privilege to do it, I cycle, don't fly, try to avoid animal products wherever possible to reduce the amount of land, fuel and water needed to feed me, grow some of my own vegetables, keep my hair short to reduce the amount of water it takes to wash it, use reuseable bags, mugs and a Mooncup and reduce consumption by buying second hand clothes and rebuilding computers.
It's odd how uncomfortable it feels to say that, I can't help feeling that it comes across as smug but I do recognise that simply by living a Western lifestyle my impact is higher than it could be, and the one area I'm not prepared to compromise on is feeding my cat meat.
But this book has made me realise that maybe it is important to say these sort of things, Rather easier to say online than to my friends in person though! BernersLee and Clark have written a stark and challenging assessment of the state of the world's energy usage, our current and projected fossil fuel commitments and the likely implications for the state of the planet being warmed by our relentless extraction and exploitation of these powerful greenhouseloading fuels.
Bill McKibben's foreword is stark:
If the pictures of towering wildfires, devastating droughts and crippling hurricanes haven't convinced you, here are some hard numbers about climate change.
Maywas the hottest month on record for the Northern Hemisphere theth consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the twentiethcentury average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were.
x, a number considerably larger than the number of in the universe,
In a series of accessible and wellargued chapters, the authors lay out our troubles clearly and sharply:
Fossil fuel use and emissions has been growing exponentially for around a century.
Warming from these emissions of evenC now almost inevitable is extraordinarily risky and will likely bring impacts that many species and many nations will find it difficult or impossible to cope with, while warming ofC or more within the century horrifyingly, all too likely on current trends could be catastrophic.
The world simply cannot afford to utilise more than a fraction of the available coal, oil and gas reserves if we are to avoid these catastrophic outcomes, The authors suggest roughlyof available fossil fuel reserves if we want achance of restricting warming to belowC and justof the reserves if we want achance of holding to that limit.
Recent studies suggest that the constraints are even tighter than that,
Humans, therefore, will need to bring about not just a deliberate peak in our use of fossil fuels, but a sharp and unprecedented decline,
Yet, many trends are either pointing the wrong way global emissions continue to increase, international negotiations for a climate deal are faltering, and changes to energy use and increased efficiency seem to just free up space for increased usage or consumption elsewhere the Jevons' paradox.
And powerful national and corporate extractors, exporters and users of these fossil fuel resources along with, probably, a passive majority of people whose current lifestyles depend on burning these fossil fuels are, at best, conflicted and, at worst, openly hostile, to any limits being placed on our fossil fuel use.
They note the difficulty of generating widespread popular concern about climate change but argue that it is only with increased popular pressure that the necessary changes will come about:
If you wanted to invent a problem to induce confusion, disbelief and the turning of blind eyes, it would be hard to come up with something better than climate change.
It's caused by a buildup of gases that we can't see, smell or taste and the effects play out through a weather and climatic system that is by its nature unpredictable and variable.
. . Adding to the abstract nature of the problem is the fact that the most dangerous impacts are many years away, By the time we see climate changes shocking enough to act as a global weakup call, we will be committed to many decades of worsening symptoms and it may be too late to stop runaway warming.
The The Burning Question's final section turns to "six key steps that will help tackle climate change",
Sadly, for all the cleareyed realism of the earlier outlining of the problems and challenges we face, this section is the shortest, sketchiest and
most wishful, We can all agree that overcoming misinformation, striving for an effective global deal to limit greenhouse gas emissions, drastically scaling up lowcarbon and carboncapture technologies, and reducing deforestation are all things to be passionately pursued.
However the chapters on these issues never really grappled with the vested interests or social and political inertias and perils that bedevil these policy and action areas,
I felt like I had a devastatingly accurate map of the energy and climate change landscape I now find myself in for which I am extremely grateful to the authors.
But their guide on how to extricate ourselves from the mess we find ourselves in is a handful of good ideas sketched out on postit notes, .