BOOK OF NOVEMBER

                                                                            

Title      :The Climate Fix:

           What Scientists and Politicians

                 Won't Tell You About      

                 Global Warming  

Author    : Roger Pielke      

Publisher : Basic Books
Pages      : 288

Price        : $26   

ISBN     : 9780465020522

Why has the world been unable to address global warming? The world's response to climate change is deeply flawed. This book is where we begin to get it back on track. Science policy expert Roger Pielke says it's not the fault of those who reject the Kyoto Protocol, but those who support it, and the magical thinking that the agreement represents. In his latest book, The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell You About Global Warming, Pielke offers a “commonsense approach” to climate policy.

The relationship between humans and the earth system that we inhabit is two-way - humans affect the planet and the earth system processes affect us. This symbiosis is characterised by empirical complexities and uncertainties, the most intense of which is the global climate change debate in recent years. These debates are often characterised by a considerable amount of heat, but unfortunately too little light. Roger Pielke, recommends we should first comprehend why the current approach is failing and then consider better alternatives.


We are invited to read a widely publicized article in the Journal of Climate titled “Why Hasn’t Earth Warmed as Much as Expected?” written by top-notch atmospheric scientists (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/19/brookhaven-national-laboratory-why-hasnt-earth-warmed-as-much-as-expected/). The article is premised on the conclusion that the Earth hasn’t warmed as much as expected, and asks why. One possible answer to the “Global-warming time-bomb” is that the prognostic models are too large, a second possible answer is that anthropogenic haze could be offsetting the enhanced greenhouse effect.


Both of those answers are in fact allowed by IPCC-endorsed science, as is the possibility that the net anthropogenic effect has actually been close to zero, and thus global temperature change observed in the last century was largely a natural fluctuation, driven by mechanisms unappreciated back in 1982. All this uncertainty about what has been happening in the past century contributes to uncertainty about what will happen in the next, and, as Pielke points out, research in the coming decade is likely to reveal more uncertainly, not less.


In carefully crafted chapters that rely heavily on widely acknowledged truths, he examines everything from carbon dioxide emissions to the recent climategate controversy. From Kyoto to Copenhagen, Gore to George W. Bush to Obama, he addresses the changing political winds, the myths used to justify political will. For revealing the treacherous field of Climate Politics Pielke deserves much praise. Copious endnotes and sourcing material included.


While tearing down the venomous politics that have surrounded the debates, Pielke calls for an alternative to the various wishful proposals, typified by the Kyoto Protocol, that hold essentially that ordering climate change to go away will make it go away. The conventional wisdom on how to deal with climate change has failed us, Pielke argues, and it's time to change course. Pielke provides a comprehensive exploration of the problem and its resolution - such as investing to create a more carbon-efficient economy and cost-efficient carbon-capture technologies.


According to Pielke, the Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success, he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an oblique approach supporting causes, such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than consequences. Pielke's focus on adaptation to climate change opens up the possibility for effective action that places human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.


With the goal of advancing the discussion on climate change and contributing to the ongoing national debates in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, India, China, and other developed and developing countries, "The Climate Fix" offers something new to the climate-change discussion - a common sense perspective. A thought-provoking yet pragmatic discussion of the interaction between science and politics, "The Climate Fix" proposes a means for digging ourselves out of this climate-change mess that we have created.


Review Text Courtesy:http://www.amazon.com/, http://sppiblog.org/, http://www.changinghands.com/, http://www.powells.com/, http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/