THE CLIMATE BOOK
Reviewed 8/22/2023
THE CLIMATE BOOK
Greta Thunberg
New York: Penguin Press, February 2023 |
High
|
| ISBN-13 978-0-593-49230-7 |
| ISBN 0-593-49230-7 |
446pp. |
HC/BWI |
$30.00 |
Excerpts from Selected Articles (Greta's Greats)
In lieu of a review, I'll mention here some articles from Greta's book that strike me as especially worthwhile. Note: these are merely selected from the ones I have read, because they caught my interest. All I have seen tells me Greta Thunberg has assembled an awesome group of contributors that cover all aspects of the complex problem of climate change. What I summarize here is in no way a comprehensive picture of the book's contents. My aim is to push a sampling of its contents to a wider audience, and to provide links to additional information.
| 1.04 |
Elizabeth Kolbert |
Civilization and Extinction |
"Most species alive today have persisted through multiple ice ages; clearly they were able to survive colder global temperatures. Whether they can handle warmer ones, though, is unclear; the world hasn't been much hotter than it is today for millions of years. During the Pleistocene, even very small creatures, like beetles, migrated hundreds of miles to track the climate. Today, countless species are once again on the move, but unlike in the ice ages, their way is often blocked by cities, highways or soy plantations. 'Certainly, our knowledge of their past response may be of little value in predicting any future reactions to climate change, since we have imposed totally new restrictions on [species'] mobility,' Russell Coope, a British paleoclimatologist, has written. 'We have inconveniently moved the goal posts and set up a ball game with totally new rules.' "
The implications should be clear: Our new rules are making it harder for many other species to survive; and if they go, there's a good chance that we will go too. Elizabeth Kolbert examines this aspect of the climate crisis in her 2015 book
The Sixth Extinction. See also
Driven To Extinction by Richard Pearson.
| 1.07 |
Naomi Oreskes |
Why Didn't They Act? |
"When future historians ask, 'Why didn't people take action to stop the climate crisis when they had known about it for decades,' a prominent part of the answer will be the history of denial and obfuscation by the fossil fuel industry, and the ways in which people in positions of power and privilege refused to acknowledge that climate change was a manifestation of a broken economic system."
"What's this 'broken economic system' guff?," some will retort. "Are you trying to destroy the economy?" Remember that this is Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University historian. It is not Naomi Klein, whom so many love to deride as "communistic." (I'll get to her.) It is a fact that capitalism's traditional goal of unending growth cannot continue on a planet with finite resources — and insisting that unending growth continue is a recipe for disaster. Read the work of economist Joseph Stiglitz, whom Naomi Oreskes mentions in this article. Or read Robert Reich's 2015 book
Saving Capitalism.
| 2.02 |
Katherine Hayhoe |
Heat |
"Heatwaves are one of the most obvious ways climate change is loading the weather dice against us. Extreme heat now begins earlier in the year and stretches later. Heatwaves have grown hotter and more intense, and scientists can even put numbers on how much worse climate change is making them. In 2003, a record-breaking heatwave baked Western Europe with temperatures more than 10°C hotter than average. This heatwave caused flash floods from melting glaciers in Switzerland, triggered forest fires that burned down 10 percent of Portugal's forests and led to more than 70,000 premature deaths. Scientists found that climate change doubled the risk of that heatwave occurring."
As this article explains, it's not very complicated. As Earth's average temperature gets higher, heat waves get more common and cold snaps get less common. That is why the term "global warming" has value. It does not mean temperatures everywhere will steadily rise, however. This is why Dr. Hayhoe suggests "global weirding" as a label: it conveys a sense of the wild weather that can occur — that is occurring. Back when climate change was more in dispute, someone came up with another label: HIRGO, or Human-induced rapid global overheating. Whatever we call it, it's here and it's deadly. Read Jeff Goodell's aptly named 2023 book
The Heat Will Kill You First.
| 3.04 |
Drew Shindell |
Air Pollution |
Air pollution results from a great many things: windblown dust, burning of agricultural waste; freeway traffic. But the largest sources are fossil-fuel power plants. Coal-fired plants are especially noxious: they produce not only soot, which leads to respiratory diseases, but a variety of toxic heavy metals and even radioactive elements. Also, burning any fossil fuel, including natural gas, produces carbon dioxide which warms the planet. This article reports that 13.2 million people worldwide die prematurely from outdoor & indoor air pollution each year.
"What's tremendously important about clean air and climate change mitigation is that they complement each other extremely well, and policies should attempt to maximize both simultaneously. Clean-air benefits occur rapidly since air quality responds quickly to emissions changes, as we saw in the blue skies that appeared following [COVID]-19 lockdowns in normally smoggy cities such as New Delhi, Guangzhou and Cairo. In contrast, climate change mitigation benefits typically take a long time to occur as the climate system responds at a slower pace, but they are crucial to the long term. Similarly, the spatial extent[s] of these two environmental changes [are] complementary. Air pollution is a problem primarily on a national to regional scale, so countries that reduce their emissions are the ones that receive the bulk of the clean-air benefits. In contrast, climate change is a global problem that requires global cooperation to reduce emissions, which then provides benefits to the entire world. Paying attention to the clean-air benefits highlights the fallacy in arguing that others should be the first to act or that any nation should not act until all others agree."
One thing to remember is that fossil-fuel companies do not pay for the adverse impacts of their businesses. Taxpayers pick up the tab for those impacts.
| 3.05 |
Felipe J. Colón-Gonzánlez |
Vector-borne Diseases |
There is a "Goldilocks zone" for many of the organisms, like mosquitoes and ticks, that spread diseases to humans. Climate change is expanding that zone of optimum temperatures, not only in Africa, as the late Dr. Paul Epstein reported in the 2011 book
Changing Climate, Changing Health, but in Europe and the United States.
"The range and spread of vector-borne diseases might also change as a consequence of climate change. Malaria and dengue may spread into temperate areas such as France, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany and the eastern coast of the United States extending from south of Atlanta to north of Boston (Fig. 2). If public health systems identify and suppress infections effectively, these shifts might not translate into an increased number of cases. However, [COVID]-19 has demonstrated how fragile our public health systems are, even in the wealthiest countries."
A word to the wise, eh? But, alas, there exists substantial doubt as to whether our species is wise enough to act.
| 3.07 |
Samuel S. Myers |
Food and Nutrition |
Climate change is also affecting the quantity and quality of the food crops we depend on — and not in a good way. Experiments show that crops grown in higher levels of CO2 are less nutritious
"So how do these nutrient reductions in zinc, protein, B vitamins and iron affect human health? In modeling studies, we found that these nutrient shifts would likely push 150-200 million people into having deficiencies of zinc and protein, in addition to exacerbating existing deficiencies in roughly 1 billion people. Zinc deficiency leads to increased mortality from infectious diseases in children, and protein deficiency leads to increased child mortality as well. When we analyzed the impact of reductions in B vitamins in rice, we found that just the effect in rice alone, even assuming no effect in other crops, could lead to an increase of 132 million people suffering from folate deficiency, which causes anaemia as well as neural tube defects in infants."
I've omitted that part of the paragraph about iron deficiency, which is well known to cause anemia. It also brings greater mother and child mortality, and reduces work capacity in the affected populations. Perhaps that last factor will sway our Republican politicians. For the rest, following Sting, I can only hope they learn to love their children too.
| 4.05 |
Bill McKibben |
The Persistence of Fossil Fuels |
Bill McKibben freely credits fossil fuels with the success of industrial civilization and the many benefits that flow from it. I know of no one who disputes that. However, too much of most any good thing can be bad. So it is with fossil fuels: they pollute the air; they cause respiratory ailments; and they are overheating the planet. We have the technologies to replace them, so why do they persist? Convenience is one reason, McKibben finds; these concentrated forms of ancient sunlight are just so good at powering civilization. Another reason is inertia; a gas-powered car lasts ten years; a home furnace lasts 30 or more, and so does a typical coal-fired power plant. But there is a third reason.
"But inertia is not the biggest problem. The other trouble — the third reason that we're moving too slowly — is vested interest. Renewable energy obviously makes more sense that fossil fuel; it's cheaper, it's cleaner it's available everywhere. But these arguments don't hold for one group of humans: the people who own oil wells or coal mines. For them, the advent of renewable energy is a disaster, because if it happens too fast they will never get to dig up and sell their remaining stocks of hydrocarbons."
Naomi Oreskes, Michael Mann, Bill McKibben and many others have written volumes about what the fossil-fuel industry has done to block progress. I'll put it simply: they have lied to the public for decades in order to block the switch to clean energy. They are still doing it, and many politicians are helping them. That is why we need political action as well as individual action on climate change. Good books on these political battles are:
| 4.08 |
Niclas Hällström, Jennie C. Stephens, & Isak Stoddard |
What about Geoengineering? |
A formal definition of "geoengineering" is any artificial means of altering a planet's environment toward a desired end state. It is equivalent to the term "terraforming," commonly used to mean establishing a shirtsleeve environment on Mars or Venus: a much more difficult project than reversing Earth's excessive warming. Still, all geoengineering methods proposed have their downsides.
"Many scholars, experts and activists have concluded that such technologies cannot be managed equitably and safely. Advancing solar geoengineering assumes the existence of stable global systems of governance that could function without failure for hundreds or thousands of years — an impossible requirement. Allowing the development of these technologies also leads to the frightening prospect of powerful states, organizations or even wealthy individuals exerting unilateral control of them, deepening today's inequalities in power and financial access, and escalating the risk of wars over attempts to control the Earth's climate systems. Around the world, there are growing calls for an immediate international ban on the advancement of solar geoengineering technology (see www.solargeoeng.org), and many are working to strengthen the existing geoengineering moratorium under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity."
Geoengineering includes "direct air capture" — pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it somehow. But the leading contender is a way to reflect more sunlight back into space by seeding the stratosphere with sulfur dioxide particles. This would cost less than other methods — but would still cost a lot. Its chief pitfall, as this article explains, is that it allows carbon dioxide to continue building up in the atmosphere and acidifying our oceans. To learn more about the pitfalls of geoengineering, read Oliver Morton's
The Planet Remade.
| 5.12 |
Michael Mann |
Resisting the New Denialism |
Michael E. Mann, along with Raymond S. Bradley & Malcolm Hughes, published the 1998 paper commonly known as the "Hockey Stick" that showed global mean temperature spiking in the twentieth century and drew so much ire from those who refused to believe we were changing our climate. These Denialists claimed the changes were natural and spent a lot of money to confuse the public about the facts. Now that extreme weather happens all the time, they've shifted to claiming it's too late to fix things — another way to block serious action and keep fossil-fuel profits flowing. As Dr. Mann points out in his 2021 book
The New Climate War, this is untrue.
Much can still be done — and should be.
| 5.16 |
Naomi Klein |
A Just Transition |
One of the foremost economic reformists of our time, Naomi Klein has long argued that capitalism as currently practiced is incompatible with either a just society or a healthy environment. It is easy to see why the fearful and the profiteers call her a communist. But labels are lazy. Look at what she proposes: a way to solve our interlocking problems all together, instead of piecemeal. A way to improve lives in the third world with clean energy. A just transition.
"A just transition begins with recognizing that the bottomless quest for profits that forces so many to work upwards of fifty hours a week with no security, fueling an epidemic of isolation and despair, is the same quest for bottomless profits that has pushed our planet into peril. Once we recognize that, it becomes clear what we need to do: insist that, as we respond to the climate crisis, we create a broader culture of care-taking in which no one and nowhere is thrown away — in which the inherent value of every person and every ecosystem is foundational."
Imagine! We put the health of people and the environment above ever-increasing profits for a small group of elite individuals. Does that sound dangerous to you? It is dangerous to the wealth of that small group. For a fuller explanation of Naomi Klein's views on capitalism, see
This Changes Everything.
| 5.18 |
Wanjira Maathai |
Women and the Climate Crisis |
It is often true that the people hit hardest by a problem are the source of the solution. Jeff Goodell suggests in his latest book that Phoenix, hard-hit by recent heat waves, may point the way to cooler and more livable cities. Africa, more affected by climate change since it depends more on low-tech agriculture, may lead us to more sustainable food supplies. In 1977, the Kenyan woman Wangari Maathai began the Green Belt Movement that inspired women to plant native trees in their local communities, restoring forests to large parts of Kenya. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. Her daughter Wanjira Maathai carries on her work.
"As Wangari Maathai so aptly said, 'In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is forced to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground . . . A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.' As breadwinners, entrepreneurs, and providers of food, shelter and education for their children, women will not surrender their livelihoods to climate change. They will prepare. They will adjust, and they will adapt. They just need the means to do so. It is incumbent upon governments to ensure that policies, laws and financial institutions support the backbone of our societies to the fullest because, if they break, we all will."
It is no mystery that the members of our society most dedicated to nurturing and sustaining humanity would both inspire and invent sustainable ways to respond to the climate crisis. It behooves the rest of us to listen to what they have to say.
Wrapup
So here's what I want you to take away from all this. The climate crisis is an existential threat to civilization, quite comparable to global thermonuclear war. Solving this crisis will be difficult, but possible. It will be expensive, but not nearly so costly as doing nothing about it. We won't get back the climate we enjoyed in 1950 — at least, not for a century or three. However, we will be able to preserve our civilization substantially intact. That's important to us, obviously, but also to the other species on this planet because if civilization ends, it most likely will end in fire. We need those other species, and at this point they need us.
Saving civilization is a three-part puzzle. It requires actions by individuals, corporations and governments. Greta Thunberg explains in her comment at 5.01:
The most effective way to get out of this mess is to educate ourselves
"The answer to the question of whether we should be focusing on individual or systemic change is: yes, definitely. We cannot have one without the other. We need both. Solving the climate crisis cannot be left to individuals, nor can it be left to the market. To stay in line with our climate targets — and thereby avoid the worst risks of initiating a climate catastrophe — we need to change our entire societies. To quote the IPCC, 'limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.' There is no way that such a transformation can be achieved just by individual lifestyle changes, by individual companies finding new ways of manufacturing green cement, or by individual governments raising or lowering taxes. Because it will not be enough. But then again, it is equally impossible to bring about such a transformation without individuals; in particular, they need to lead the way at a grassroots level. Individual people, individual movements, individual organizations, individual leaders, individual regions and individual nations need to initiate action."
As Greta notes, individuals are the key to success: by their private acts of conservation: driving less, wasting less food, insulating their homes, and other measures, they show us what works. But corporations also need to manufacture the products they need to go green: the heat pumps, the insulation, the solar panels and storage batteries — a whole panoply of products. And governments need to provide the incentives for corporations to make these things, as well as providing financial help to those who cannot afford to do things like insulating an attic.
Which brings me to the single most important thing individuals can to in the near term: vote! Vote for leaders who understand the problems we face, who will not mouth platitudes while serving some corporate special interest. Vote as if your lives and the lives of your children depend on it. Because they do.
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Contents of this page were last modified on 29 July 2024.