The Hot Topic: What We Can Do about Global Warming

Last year, awareness about global warming reached a tipping point. Now one of the most dynamic writers and one of the most respected scientists in the field of climate change offer the first concise guide to both the problems and the solutions. Guiding us past a blizzard of information and misinformation, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King explain the science of warming, the most cutting-edge technological solutions from small to large, and the national and international politics that will affect our efforts.

While there have been many other books about the problem of global warming, none has addressed what we can and should do about it so clearly and persuasively, with no spin, no agenda, and no exaggeration. Neither Walker nor King is an activist or politician, and theirs is not a generic green call to arms. Instead they propose specific ideas to fix a very specific problem. Most important, they offer hope: This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious that humanity has ever faced. But we can still do something about it. And they’ll show us how.

Contents

Preface                                                                                                   ix

part I The Problem

   1   Warming World                                                                                    3

   2   Whodunnit?                                                                                        19

   3   Feeling the Heat                                                                                  32

   4   In the Pipeline                                                                                     47

   5   Climate Wild Cards                                                                             64

part Ii Technological Solutions

   6   What Should We Aim For?                                                              81

   7   More from Less                                                                                   97

   8   Planes, Trains, and Automobiles                                                   110

   9   Power to Change                                                                              126

part Iii Political Solutions

 10   It’s the Economy, Stupid                                                                 147

 11   The Road from Kyoto                                                                      166

 12   Rapidly Developing Nations

(or, come on in, the agreement’s lovely)                                       178

 13   Industrialized Nations

(or, whose fault is it anyway?)                                                       188

 14   How You Can Change the World                                                  214

Acknowledgments                                                                           229

Appendix: Climate Myths, Half-Truths,

and Misconceptions                                                                        231

Selected Glossary                                                                             241

Notes                                                                                                  245

Index      267