THE HOT TOPIC
What We Can Do About
Global Warming
By Gabrielle Walker
and Sir David King
Douglas & McIntyre,
276 pages, $15.95
GLOBAL FEVER
How to Treat Climate Change
By William H. Calvin
University of Chicago Press,
337 pages, $22.95
BRING ON THE APOCALYPSE
Essays on Self-Destruction
`By George Monbiot
Random House, 242 pages, $22
RISING POWERS,
SHRINKING PLANET
The New Geopolitics of Energy
By Michael T. Klare
Metropolitan, 340 pages, $29
A PASSION FOR THIS EARTH
Writers, Scientists, and Activists Explore Our Relationship with Nature and the Environment
Edited by Michelle Benjamin
GreyStone/David Suzuki Foundation, 230 pages, $21
AN EXPLORER'S NOTEBOOK
Essays on Life, History
and Climate
By Tim Flannery
HarperCollins, 284 pages, $21.95
THE BILL McKIBBEN READER
Pieces from an Active Life
Holt, 442 pages, $20
These seven worthy books, crackling with intellectual heft, lead inexorably to an eighth. This eighth book, written almost a quarter of a century ago, is The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, by the venerable historian Barbara W. Tuchman.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Tuchman made a career of tracking human idiocy across the millennia. Her thesis in The March of Folly is that even when political leaders have the information they need to make an intelligent decision, and know what decision ought to be made, they consistently fail to make it. They act against both common sense and self-interest.
"A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. ... Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?" Tuchman writes in her opening paragraph.
Her prototype, and metaphor, is the Trojans taking in that wooden horse filled with treacherous Greeks. The Trojans know the horse is a ruse. They bring it in anyway. Troy falls. The Greeks triumph.
From the ancient Trojans to the louche Renaissance popes who provoked the Protestant secession, to the British who lost America in the 18th century, to the Americans who made their fatally poor decisions in the Vietnam War of the 20th century, Tuchman painstakingly catalogues the information the political leaders were aware of and could have used to make better decisions, but didn't.
Were she alive today, Tuchman would be twitching to write another chapter and this one would follow the grandest folly of them all. It is the story of rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and ocean and the global political establishment's utter inability to cut them down.
Unlike Tuchman's other exemplars of folly - the Trojans were slaughtered wholesale, the popes unleashed centuries of bloody religious persecution across Europe, perhaps 100,000 souls perished in the American Revolution, and likely millions died in the Vietnam fracas - this current act of ineptitude could come at the price of human civilization. If nothing is done, our generation of politicians will have the blood of billions of human lives on their hands and may even alter the evolutionary course of the planet.
Some of the authors of these seven books might cringe at that statement.
Gabrielle Walker, a respected British journalist, and Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the British government (and the man who is said to have convinced the Queen several years ago that climate change is real) warn against what they call "climate porn" in their marvellous guide to our planetary crisis.
So, for example, they say there's no use talking about Antarctica sliding into the sea because its eastern bits seem solid and "we can probably save most of [the more vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet]from melting if we act quickly." Better, they say, to focus on what can be done than sink into despair.
This is a lucid, gorgeously written, important book that aims to steer citizens away from panic, while setting out the best science, and inspire both action and hope. The message is that it's not too late to do something.
William H. Calvin's Global Fever takes a similar, beautifully reasoned tack. Here, he knocks off, one by one, all the reasons not to act and lists many of the practical solutions that could help cut concentrations.
But, as Tuchman would say, that's not really the main point. Of course there is reason to hope. Of course there are practical solutions that we know we could start with today. The point, though, is that, despite all that we know about the dangers of increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and ocean, despite the solutions already at hand, despite the solemn international treaties and earnest pledges of leaders to cut emissions, concentrations are rising at a higher rate now than they have in recorded history. Since 2000, concentrations have risen at almost double the rate every year that they did during the 1990s.
It's the march of folly. We are letting in the Trojan horse.
George Monbiot knows this. The British columnist and author of the bestselling Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning is witty, satirical, brave, hopelessly cynical and strategically shrill in his new book, Bring on the Apocalypse. He is Cassandra, the Trojan princess who prophesies the butchery and is not heard. But while the historical Cassandra submits to rape, despair and ultimately suicide, Monbiot dances gleefully on our foolish species' grave. And who can blame him?
By far the scariest book of this lot is Michael T. Klare's Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. In some ways, it also provides the best rationale for global cynicism, although Klare undoubtedly doesn't mean it to. Klare is a defence analyst and director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass.. Instead of looking at the world and its crisis as a scientist, sociologist, politician, activist or journalist, he analyses it geopolitically.
In other words, how are world political leaders reacting to the death of what Klare calls the "petro-civilization?" By scrambling to clinch the planet's remaining, dwindling fossil fuel reserves, that's how. As he finds, this involves risky, expensive, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring between energy-rich and energy-poor states. So, all of a sudden, energy-saturated Russia is an immense world power, resurrected from its humbled position of the early 1990s and doggedly - and rather unsuccessfully - wooed by the energy-importing United States, Japan and China.
Other "surplus" states, meaning those that have more fossil fuels than they are using, are vulnerable to military blandishments and other coercion and bribes from the have-nots. African states are among those at risk here.
Still others are more than ever subject to overt foreign interference in their domestic affairs, a gambit meant to ensure the oil taps will continue to flow to the countries that put the local leaders in power.
"While it is still too early to foresee the full impact of these arrangements, there is no doubt that a global political realignment of historic proportions - all pivoting around the vigorous pursuit of energy - is now under way," Klare writes.
This jockeying is still relatively polite (if you leave aside Iraq and Iran and the general tragedy of the oil-rich Middle East), but that's before the projected vast increases in economic growth across the world in newly developed countries such as China and India, in tandem with the increases long-developed nations such as the United States have come to demand as their right.
Today, world oil consumption is about 84 million barrels a day. Oil analysts expect demand to reach 104 million barrels a day by 2020 and then climb considerably higher. Oil production, however, is expected to stall at below 100 million barrels a day by 2012. Ergo, not enough to go around. What will happen, then, when demand outstrips supply, the reserves are even tougher to get at, and worth yet more than the $140 a barrel they fetch today? Fortunes, nations, coalitions, empires and regimes are at stake.
The cynicism sets in at the glimpse of how hard and how covertly all these political leaders are running to secure what's left. They have all read the same reports we have about carbon dioxide concentrations. No doubt the persuasive Sir David has personally briefed some of them.
They know the litany of consequences of emissions that keep increasing, and that if we continue to burn fossil fuels, emissions will inevitably rise. They have probably even read the latest musings of Jim Hansen, the lead NASA climate scientist, who has concluded that atmospheric concentrations must be no more than 350 parts per million for us to avert dangerous climate change. Today, they are 387.
Yet political leaders spend enormous time and money on fossil fuels, at the expense, alas, of finding other sources of non-carbon energy to keep the economy going.
Trojan horse, anyone?
Like some of these other authors, Klare presents a cogent how-to for averting catastrophe. Among the terrific ideas are for China and the United States to start collaborating instead of competing. He advocates a new industrial paradigm that would consume less energy of all kinds, not just carbon-based.
It's all very sensible, just like the other solutions skillfully presented in this batch of intelligent books. It's not that we can't avert catastrophe, but really, given human proclivities, is it likely?
In this spirit, Tim Flannery's wonderful essays, Bill McKibben's brilliant career archive (with a superb essay from 1993 on NASA's Jim Hansen) and the lengthy ode to David Suzuki by many writers seem almost like an extended elegy for our species and our planet.
Again, they were probably meant to inspire rather than lament. Certainly they could be interpreted as love songs to the wonder of the planet and humanity, as gentle reminders of the fantastical mysteries of biology. Certainly they are excellent examples of the creative and intellectual heights humanity is capable of.
Perhaps, given today's biological, chemical and geopolitical reality, these essays and the other books are something else altogether. Could they be a sly nod at Tuchman and her march of folly, an acknowledgment that politicians consistently muck things up and that a better strategy is to get as much good information out to the public as possible so they can subvert their feckless leaders?
Are they an appeal to the wisdom of the Trojans themselves, who, it could be argued, have the power to tell their leaders to keep the damn gate shut?
Alanna Mitchell is a journalist and author whose second book on the environment, Seasick, is to be published internationally over the next several months.
Guides for greens
THE GREEN BOOK
The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time, by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, Three Rivers, 210 pages, $16.95
Hundreds of small, quotidian choices you can make to have an impact on our environment.
ECOPRENEURING
Putting Purpose and the Planet Before Profits, by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, New Society, 211 pages, $17.95
Part small-business manifesto, part personal finance primer, a guide to harnessing the drive that created global warming and using it for a greener purpose.
GREENJOBS
A Guide to Eco-Friendly Employment, by A. Bronwyn Llewellyn, James P. Hendrix and K. C. Golden, Adams Media, 234 Pages, $14.50
A comprehensive handbook to "green collar" employment - jobs that are environmentally friendly, and to how to get a better sleep at night.
THE GLOBAL WARMING SURVIVAL HANDBOOK
77 Essential Skills to Stop Climate Change - Or Live Through It, by David de Rothschild, Rodale/Melcher Media, 160 pages, $18.50
A colourful, highly practical compendium designed to accompany the Live Earth concerts.
FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING NOW
The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community, by Bill McKibben, Holt, 203 pages, $16
An activist guide from the Step It Up team and green guru McKibben.
GREEN FOR LIFE
200 Simple Eco-Ideas for Every Day, by Gillian Deacon, Penguin Canada, 266 pages, $13.50
Former CBC-TV host offers hints about greener travel, food, hygiene and even death.
GREEN
Your Place in the New Energy Revolution, by Jane Hoffman and Michael Hoffman, Palgrave Macmillan, 254 pages, $17.95
The politics, polemics and ecology of sustainable development.
THE VIRTUOUS CONSUMER
Your Essential Shopping Guide for a Better, Kinder, Healthier World, by Leslie Garrett, New World Library, 214 pages, $19
Ethical consumerism for everything from appliances to pet food, plus tips on transportation, gardening etc., from the author of a syndicated column.
EASY GREEN LIVING
The Ultimate Guide to Simple, Eco-friendly Choices for You and Your Home, by Renée Loux, Rodale, 396 pages, $28
A comprehensive guide to making the best choices in a huge variety of categories.
GREEN FROM THE GROUND UP
A Builder's Guide, by David Johnston and Scott Gibson, Taunton, 330 pages, $29.95
A full-colour guide to every aspect of green home construction.
THE PLOT TO SAVE THE PLANET
How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming, by Brian Dumaine, Crown, 280 pages, $30
How and why green technology will be the Silicon Valley of the 21st century.