| Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning | 
 enlarge | Author: George Monbiot
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £3.68
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New (33) Used (5) from £3.68
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 11173
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141026626
EAN: 9780141026626
ASIN: 0141026626
Publication Date: June 7, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 a very british inconvenient truth January 3, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book takes up where Al Gore leaves off. It is not IF there is climate change, but rather what needs to be done to mitigate the impact. The book looks very muchat UK policy, geography and sociology, and is all the better for this. Too many books yield generalisms or have a strong US leaning. This is a global problem, but each country has to make its own journey to a sustainable future.
Strongly recommended, just don't hope to sleep at night
Wake up call December 6, 2006
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
If you know somebody who thinks all this global warming stuff is a load of rubbish (you definately know someone) then buy them this book for Xmas. Buy it for them anyway.
As soon as we all stop bickering about what to believe, and who spreads the disinformation, then the sooner we can get on with trying to actually DO SOMETHING about the inevitable disaster.
Yes. little old you CAN make a difference.
But beware, the oilmen will fight to the last.
This book will enlighten you. Send shivers down your spine.
Bullseye! November 25, 2006
29 out of 35 found this review helpful
With many politicians and scientists asserting that the Kyoto Protocol emissions levels cannot be met, should we abandon it for an "alternative solution". George Monbiot says that's the wrong question. The proper query is: "Have we really tried?" Monbiot thinks not and lists numerous cases of inattention, indifference and downright dishonesty in why our society continues to pour greenhouse gases into the air we breathe. However, unlike so many viewing our climate situation with alarm, Monbiot is neither a "calamity howler" nor a hand-wringing commentator waiting for somebody else to set a good example. Instead, this book is a catalogue of solutions to the problem.
None of the correctives proposed here are beyond us, either as individuals or nations. Monbiot, with admirable clarity and understanding of how to accomplish them, lines out easily implemented steps we can take and/or propose to our neighbours. After introductory comments on various "alternate" energy options, Monbiot discusses how we reached the energy consumption levels we enjoy. He deems our situation a "Faustian Pact" and heads each chapter with a quote from Christopher Marlowe's play "Doctor Faustus". Like Faust, we have made a deal, but it's with Nature, not with a devil. For Monbiot, Mephistopheles is fossil fuel and our use of it has advanced. The time for settling up on the bargain is now.
After a massive research effort, Monbiot is able to describe the problem in graphic detail and targets the means of continuing our existence. He quickly dismisses the "envirosceptics" as people who are as out of touch as those who believe in magic. There are some imposing numbers involved. The UK uses 400 terawatt hours per year. A terawatt is a one with twelve zeros trailing after it. Why, for a society of that size, is the number so big? The author examines closely and clearly the circumstances he lives in and how those are threatening the future. Housing and other buildings must be built or retrofitted to exacting standards. Most importantly, those standards must be enforced. Roads that expand capacity which is quickly filled is exactly the wrong policy. The same is true for airports, which encourage more carbon dioxide-producing flights.
His chapter on transportation is even more arresting than the one on housing and buildings. He's particularly scathing on the Bush administration's encouragement of "biofuels" to replace petrol. The lands taken up to produce ethanol will reduce even existing croplands and could instead be turned over to reforestation projects. The types of crops that would provide petrol replacement are hugely thirsty, adding to the depletion of an already overtaxed water supply. Air travel is a conundrum even this perceptive observer cannot resolve. Transatlantic flights, the transport of "exotic" foods to our mega-grocers to entice our palates, and the long-distance vacations generate an astonishing amount of pollutants. How many "business" flights can be replaced by teleconferencing? Yes, if you're dealing with somebody in Sydney, one of you will have to arise early. There will be adjustments, but these need not be severe.
Monbiot devises a cute catch phrase to arouse individual sensitivity to the immediacy of the task ahead. He proposes all people be assigned "icecaps". This isn't a cure for hangover, but a weight measured in acceptable carbon emissions per person. The "cap" is the maximum allowable carbon discharge we each produce to keep the planet cool enough for us to survive. From these "caps" Monbiot demonstrates the costs involved in maintaining them. That is the particular advantage of this book over the extensive list of other "climate change" works. Monbiot's cost assessment and value received for whatever investment we can make in protecting our children and ourselves. And children, as Monbiot admits "discovering" in his concluding chapter, is what this book and the circumstances it describes is all about. Having produced an offspring, Monbiot is keen to see her survive in a liveable world. It's a feeling many of us share.
Although this book's focus is United Kingdom, the issues are global. The book should be left in hotel rooms instead of those works of fiction called The Gideon Bible. As my copy is a "Canadian Edition", perhaps a first step has been taken. In his Foreword in this edition, Monbiot notes how poorly Canada is performing in emission control. He almost presciently forecasts the hopelessly inadequate "Made in Canada Solution" introduced by the present Conservative government. Even Monbiot, however, could not have seen our "solution" will require that government to be elected to power eleven times before the provisions come into effect. What is the situation in your country? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A Political Wake Up Call October 23, 2006
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is a hugely important book. It highlights why we must reduce CO2 emmissions by 90% by 2030 and how we should go about it. 'Heat' shows that the massive reductions required can be achieved without comprimising our quality of life. We just need the political will to tackle the problem properly. Monbiot deals in facts, not wishful thinking, and this book is the most comprehensive overview of the global warming problem to date. Read it.
 Will hopefully move things forward at an appropriate rate, but it's not a complete solution October 19, 2006
14 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is a very well thought out and researched book. He puts forward solutions to climate change that are convincing and seem practical. This book should be the new starting point of any debates about climate change and how to stop it from a UK perspective. All previous suggestions and policies, especailly those green-washed industry-supporing token gestures put forward by government, must be set against those in this book.
However, we must not take the solutions espoused in 'Heat' as gospel, like Monbiot says, and if anything doesn't work it must be immediately scrapped for something better, totally disregarding anyones aesthetic sensibilities.
Also, perhaps most importantly, as Monbiot himself mentions, he doesn't cover everything. A major omission is land-use (principally agriculture) and its effects on emissions by way of altering the balance of sources and sinks, and by imparing the Gaian planetary repair mechanisms (a certain proportion of the Earths surface - including the oceans - needs to be left undisturbed by us in order for the planet to self-regulate and keep a stable clime). A 90% reduction of emissions from agriculture, when combined with a rising population, and an ever increasing number of people adopting Western diets seems to me to be a very big challenge indeed. What it will require, as mentioned by a previous reveiwer, is a drastic reduction in the use of livestock - i.e. a transition to a vegan diet for a large proportion of the world's population. Land could then be left alone to recover, and the pillaging of the rainforests (the Earth's 'lungs') would stop. I put forward to any environmentalist reading this who wants to be less of a hypocrite - you should seriously look in to veganism. [...]
Of the 3 deadly Cs identified by James Lovelock in his latest book 'Revenge of Gaia', Monbiot has dealt with Combustion, but has not touched on Cattle or Chainsaws.
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