Product Description

Started to worry about just how hot our world is going to get, and whether you can do anything about it? As the effect of climate change grows by the day, so does the amount of hot air and bluster spouted by politicians and businessmen on what we should do about it. What with the excuses, the lies, the fudged figures, the PR greenwashing and the downright misinformation on the power of everything from wind turbines to carbon trading, when it comes to saving the world, most people don’t know what they’re talking about. Luckily, George Monbiot – scourge of big business, riler of governments, arch-enemy of climate change deniers everywhere – does. Packed with killer facts and inspiring ideas, shot through with passion and underlined by brilliant investigative journalism, with a copy of Heat you really can protect the planet. ‘I defy you to read this book and not feel motivated to change’ The Times

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42644 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Nicholas Lezard, Papberback choice, The Guardian
'cunning...winning...buy it...read it'

Independent on Sunday
At last the global movement has found a vision.

John Gray, New Statesman
`A book anyone who thinks they know what should be done about
global warming must read'

Customer Reviews

Monbiot's vision of the future will give you nightmares...
George Monbiot of The Guardian is in any ways a more upmarket version of Michael Moore - just as determined to slay the dragons of corporate self-interest and government hypocrisy, but going about it with a little more finesse.

In this uncompromising thesis on global warming, he takes the view that carbon emissions need to be reduced by a whopping 90% if we're to avoid hitting the "tipping point" which will accelerate us towards global disaster. Having laid that on the line and debunked the oil industry- funded naysayers, he goes on to point the finger at the ones who are really responsible - us.

It's our inertia, he says, that keeps emissions so high, because once we're used to our gas-guzzlers, our long-haul flights and our out-of-season luxuries, we're far too loath to surrender them in the name of collective survival. And as long as industry keeps on burning the midnight oil, why should we bother with energy-saving lightbulbs?

Monbiot prescribes a diet of privation. If we want to avoid a forcible return to Neolithic hunter-gathering, we need to elect to ration ourselves: and cutting our energy consumption to the bone is the only way ensure a positive outcome. That means eating what's locally available, keeping our cars in the garage and evolving a workable system of public transport and food deliveries. And most of all, it means an end to globetrotting - because there's no fat and effective way to travel that's acceptably carbon-neutral.

As always, though, everyone is waiting for everyone else to act. "Everyone has to move, or no-one moves," says one supermarket boss. "If we do it and nobody else does, we're lost." The situation as a lot in common with the old cold war, nuclear proliferation and mutually-assured destruction: except in this case, it's a lack of action that will bring on environmental Armageddon.

Where the book is weak is dealing with solutions in areas that are not the haunts of the chattering urban middle classes. Monbiot makes a valuable point when he says that the keys to change are held by exactly those people with most to lose, but that very arrogance is reflected in his own delineation of both problems and solutions. What do you do if you live in a rural area with little or no public transport, the nearest shop is eight miles away and Tesco don't deliver within fifty miles of your home? Such areas could also have much to teach suburban-dwellers about growing vegetables in season rather than importing posh nosh from Costa Rica.

Still, it's a valuable book, if a depressing one. As Monbiot says in his introduction, "I have one last hope - that I might make people so depressed about the state of the planet that they stay in bed all day, thereby reducing their consumption of fossil fuels."

As published at Subba-Cultcha.com

Outstanding wake-up call
This is an outstanding book - a call for action that must happen now if we are to avoid climate change spiralling out of control. Its strengths are that it describes the issues with great clarity and conjures up possible solutions for dealing with them. Not all of these seem politically or practically realistic, but in a way that's not the point: they demonstrate that action can be taken and climate change kept in check.
I would strongly recommend, as a companion volume, The Rough Guide to Climate Change, which in many ways is an easier book to get yourself up to scratch on the science and the issues. It is very clearly written, with excellent diagrams, ranges widely over issues and solutions, and demystifies in the way that Rough Guides are so good at.

Bullseye!
With many politicians and scientists asserting that the Kyoto Protocol emissions levels cannot be met, should we abandon it for an "alternative solution". George Monbiot says that's the wrong question. The proper query is: "Have we really tried?" Monbiot thinks not and lists numerous cases of inattention, indifference and downright dishonesty in why our society continues to pour greenhouse gases into the air we breathe. However, unlike so many viewing our climate situation with alarm, Monbiot is neither a "calamity howler" nor a hand-wringing commentator waiting for somebody else to set a good example. Instead, this book is a catalogue of solutions to the problem.

None of the correctives proposed here are beyond us, either as individuals or nations. Monbiot, with admirable clarity and understanding of how to accomplish them, lines out easily implemented steps we can take and/or propose to our neighbours. After introductory comments on various "alternate" energy options, Monbiot discusses how we reached the energy consumption levels we enjoy. He deems our situation a "Faustian Pact" and heads each chapter with a quote from Christopher Marlowe's play "Doctor Faustus". Like Faust, we have made a deal, but it's with Nature, not with a devil. For Monbiot, Mephistopheles is fossil fuel and our use of it has advanced. The time for settling up on the bargain is now.

After a massive research effort, Monbiot is able to describe the problem in graphic detail and targets the means of continuing our existence. He quickly dismisses the "envirosceptics" as people who are as out of touch as those who believe in magic. There are some imposing numbers involved. The UK uses 400 terawatt hours per year. A terawatt is a one with twelve zeros trailing after it. Why, for a society of that size, is the number so big? The author examines closely and clearly the circumstances he lives in and how those are threatening the future. Housing and other buildings must be built or retrofitted to exacting standards. Most importantly, those standards must be enforced. Roads that expand capacity which is quickly filled is exactly the wrong policy. The same is true for airports, which encourage more carbon dioxide-producing flights.

His chapter on transportation is even more arresting than the one on housing and buildings. He's particularly scathing on the Bush administration's encouragement of "biofuels" to replace petrol. The lands taken up to produce ethanol will reduce even existing croplands and could instead be turned over to reforestation projects. The types of crops that would provide petrol replacement are hugely thirsty, adding to the depletion of an already overtaxed water supply. Air travel is a conundrum even this perceptive observer cannot resolve. Transatlantic flights, the transport of "exotic" foods to our mega-grocers to entice our palates, and the long-distance vacations generate an astonishing amount of pollutants. How many "business" flights can be replaced by teleconferencing? Yes, if you're dealing with somebody in Sydney, one of you will have to arise early. There will be adjustments, but these need not be severe.

Monbiot devises a cute catch phrase to arouse individual sensitivity to the immediacy of the task ahead. He proposes all people be assigned "icecaps". This isn't a cure for hangover, but a weight measured in acceptable carbon emissions per person. The "cap" is the maximum allowable carbon discharge we each produce to keep the planet cool enough for us to survive. From these "caps" Monbiot demonstrates the costs involved in maintaining them. That is the particular advantage of this book over the extensive list of other "climate change" works. Monbiot's cost assessment and value received for whatever investment we can make in protecting our children and ourselves. And children, as Monbiot admits "discovering" in his concluding chapter, is what this book and the circumstances it describes is all about. Having produced an offspring, Monbiot is keen to see her survive in a liveable world. It's a feeling many of us share.

Although this book's focus is United Kingdom, the issues are global. The book should be left in hotel rooms instead of those works of fiction called The Gideon Bible. As my copy is a "Canadian Edition", perhaps a first step has been taken. In his Foreword in this edition, Monbiot notes how poorly Canada is performing in emission control. He almost presciently forecasts the hopelessly inadequate "Made in Canada Solution" introduced by the present Conservative government. Even Monbiot, however, could not have seen our "solution" will require that government to be elected to power eleven times before the provisions come into effect. What is the situation in your country? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]