Product Description

This book not only brings home the imminence of climate change but also examines the campaign of deception by big coal and big oil that is keeping the issue off the public agenda. It examines the various arenas in which the battle for control of the issue is being fought--a battle with surprising political alliances and relentless obstructionism. The story provides an ominous foretaste of the gathering threat of political chaos and totalitarianism. And it concludes by outlining a transistion to the future that contains, at least, the possibility of continuity for our organized civilization, and, at best, a vast increase in the stability, equity, and wealth of the global economy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #767099 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Sobering synopsis of global climate change
Gelbspan is a reporter for the Boston Globe who does a great job of describing the science, economics and politics behind gobal climate change. He does an excellent job of defining the problem (in layman's terms) and discussing the disinformation campaign sponsored by the oil industry.

If you're looking for the nitty-gritty science behind global warming, you will find only a sampling in the appendix. Gelbspan starts with the assumption that the thousands of world class climatologists who make up the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) are correct in their consensus that climate change is real and happening now. From that assumption, he unleashes a barrage of disturbing anecdotal evidence describing the many effects of climate change. He also unmasks the efforts of a few scientists backed by the oil industry to sabotage the findings of IPCC. The book presents a thorough and disturbing expose of this effective PR campaign to neutralize the warnings of the scientific community.

REVERSING AND CASHING IN ON GLOBAL WARMING CATASTROPHE
As evidenced by opposing comments below, media campaigns by the two-plus trillion dollar per year coal-oil industries have effectively confused the public. Even mainstream newspaper editors still ignore the imminent global disaster from the ever increasing, man-made carbon dioxide. Burning fossil fuels increases CO2 in earth's atmosphere, trapping solar energy and unnaturally warming the planet reports Ross Gelbspan in his, "The Heat Is On." As a practicing scientist, I wished to learn more about global warming after listening to Gelbspan's 1998 Oregon lecture, recently re-broadcast on National Public Radio. The Pulitzer Prize winner's book reports on the projected, soon to arrive political and economic turmoil from our increasingly unstable climate. Both the haves and have nots are soon to be increasingly affected by violent storms and droughts lashing our neighborhoods, countries and planet. Making his an even more daunting writing task, Gelbspan includes scholarly reports on the multi-million dollar dysinformation campaign by powerful oil and coal interests worldwide. Their aim: to undermine the credibility of global warming scenarios by the 2,500 scientists working internationally on analyzing the rapidly changing climate, geology and topography. Even the respected conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. recenetly came out in favor of acknowledging global warming and sounded a clarion call to avoid politically polarizing THIS vital issue, Gelbspan reports. Indeed, those eager to cash in early on the big money to be made out of solving the global warming problem (as have British Petroleum and Ford Motor Company) should first become informed by reading the excellent primer, "The Heat Is On," and then by rolling up his and her sleeves for working on the problem ... at least for doing very well by doing good!

The Heat Is On is a wonderful primer
The Heat Is On is a wonderful primer for debating the hype and myriad obfuscation about global climate change presented by highly paid industrial lobbyists and public affairs departments. Engaging and easy to read. It is also, by the way, the book President Clinton read just prior to signing the Kyoto accord.