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The Burning Question by Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark

The full title of this book by Mike Berners-Lee and Duncan Clark is

The Burning Question: We can’t burn half the world’s oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit?

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Four Stars. This means it is Good and Well Worth Reading.

Here is my book review.

The world is in big trouble

I used to be sceptical about climate change but the more I read, for and against, the more I started to believe that we face a devastating problem that could destroy the world as we know it.

This book starts really strong and pulls together the reasons why there is little talk and even less action to correct the carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

As the book says, it’s hard to imagine a less convincing argument than the future of the world will be destroyed by something that we can’t see, taste or hear but gradually, second by second, the problem builds.

Then there are the vested interests with the big wallets (the existing carbon industries) who are able to buy political and media power far in excess of the climate change campaigners.

Then add in the fact that we have a natural tendency to avoid talking about bad, scary stuff. It’s more comforting to pretend that a problem doesn’t exist than to recognise it and face up to making changes needed.

Those changes are mainly negative in the short term, sacrificing the way of life we know and want to carry on.

This makes it hard for any politicians with moral fibre to act in the right way. Until the groundswell public opinion builds to be strongly in favour of acting on the climate change problem, it’s hard for our leaders to lead.

The book doesn’t mention it but one fundamental issue is that the problem, on the surface sounds trivial. The idea that a temperature increase of just two degrees centigrade must be stopped doesn’t sound serious.

As someone who feels the cold badly and is rarely warm enough in Britain, an increase of 2C sounds very modest and without the scary end of the world stuff, I’d vote for a 10C increase. Then we might have proper summers.

I realise it’s not that simple but there needs to be a much better job of putting across the doomsday scenarios of what climate change means in the future. We need major blockbusting novels and films to make the general public understand how serious it is and how close we are to the tipping point where it becomes too late. After that, all we can do is try to minimise the problems.

The book is excellent on explaining the current inertia and it needs to be read. It’s ideal for anybody who is aware of both sides of the argument and wants to understand the unequal battle being waged. It gently introduces various technologies that I was unaware of.

It’s weaker on how to build critical mass amongst the disinterested, let alone the climate change deniers who are winning much of the popular debate at the moment.

It is very well written but it made me realise just how much the odds are stacked against effective action. I’ve come away feeling more depressed than hopeful that politicians will reach agreement to limit carbon emissions.

It is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

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