Product Description

Mayer Hillman, one of Britain's most original and influential thinkers, here offers the reader both a stunning analysis of the looming environmental catastrophe and a blueprint for avoiding it. The blueprint is practical at a personal level but the challenge he throws out is to governments and business: do they have the political courage to take the necessary steps to avert the end of the world? He anticipates the counter-arguments and gives the reader the ammunition to challenge the prevailing inaction in these areas. Stimulating, challenging, frightening but also practical, this is a book that will help you make a difference.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #223471 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

New Scientist, 24th July, 2004
A small classic on a big topic

About the Author
Mayer Hillman is Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute. He is the author of numerous reports and books and has made significant contributions to policy debates on a huge range of issues from transport to daylight saving. Lord Young of Dartington has described his work as 'outstanding' and 'formidable'. To mark his 70th birthday the Policy Studies Institute published a book of essays about him called Ahead of Time. He lives in West Hampstead, London. Advance quote from Wayne Hemingway (co-founder of Red or Dead): 'A welcome non-alarmist, well explained approach to a subject that should cause individuals, institutions and governments to be alarmed.'

Customer Reviews

Uplifting action
The first two thirds of this book force you to realise that this problem isn't going to go away if we do carry on ignoring it. The final third of this book makes far more heartening reading.

There are steps we can take: as individuals, as electors, as members of pressure groups, etc. I would recommend it to anyone who thinks that they know the issues (I thought I did, but there was a lot here that I didn't know), anyone who prefers not to look too closely because they know there is a problem but don't want to think too hard about it, or anyone that thinks that technology will solve the problem eventually and we can carry on regardless.

My favourite quote from the book is: "We didn't move out of the Stone Age because we ran out of stones. We won't move out of the oil age because we have run out of oil."

The section which enables you to work out your own contribution to the problem is a real eye-opener. Few of us are as 'green' as we think we are! Few of us know which reductions really make a difference. Now there is no excuse not to.

A clear, practical and urgent call for action.
In an easy to understand, yet comprehensive account of global warming, Mayer Hillman sets out the problem, explaining how global warming is happening, and why it must be avoided. The current strategies, mainly of the UK government and industry is described, and presented as woefully inadequate.
Finally, the book explains a fair and just system of reducing our CO2 emissions, and how we as a society and as individuals can track and reduce our own contribution to the problem.
Mayer Hillman adopts just the right tone, neither being too overbearing nor too patronising. The message comes through loud and clear: we are all responsible for climate change due to CO2 emissions, and we must all do something about it.
Required reading for everyone on planet earth.

Wake up world and smell the coffee
This is a sobering update on the current state of play with global warming, and things are indeed serious. The remedy is a global setup involving "contraction and convergence". This means we gradually end up generating less co2 per person, and also gradually move to a situation where there is an even distribution across the worlds population, in other words rationing per individual. There are no blank pages in this book. In fact every inch of surface of the recycled paper pages is used to hammer home the argument. Individual level as well as political solutions are outlined in detail. Everyone should buy it.