Product Description

A Canadian Mounties boat negotiates the Arctic Northwest Passage without coming up against pack ice. Floods devastate Mozambique, and tinder-dry forests of the American Northwest go up in a blaze. Just blips in the world's weather systems or unmistakable signals that human influence is to blame? As billion-dollar catastrophes pile up, insurance giants are beginning to take warnings by the scientific community seriously. Meanwhile governments rarely match promises with action that can deal with the problems. But what is fact, what is plain disinformation—and what can be done?

About the No Nonsense Guides: Major issues facing the world today, complex as they are, are further obfuscated—often deliberately—by political and corporate jargon and media spin. By contrast, New Internationalist Magazine has been a leading source of reliable information and clear analysis for the last twenty years. This new Verso series of No Nonsense Guides, published in conjunction with New Internationalist, cuts through the confusion to present the facts and arguments concerning contemporary global issues as accessibly as possible. Concise, comprehensive, and affordable, the No Nonsense Guides will be of interest to busy people, from school age on, who want to know how the world works.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2471374 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
'For anyone who wants a lucid, factual, reliable guide to some of the most important issues of our time, I strongly recommend you check out the No-Nonsense Guides.' Howard Zinn, historian, playwright and social activist 'A splendid series of pocketable guides to issue politics... rigorously clear.' The Guardian, London

About the Author
Indian-born Dinyar Godrej, a former editor of New Internationalist, works as a freelance journalist based in Europe.

Customer Reviews

Not "Bad Science" Anymore!
Even conservatives now admit that global warming is a reality and that it's primarily the result of fossil fuel use (see the EPA document on global warming published earlier this year). But the extent of the problem is only beginning to sink in. The twentieth century was the hottest century, the 1990s the hottest decade of the millennium, and 1998 the hottest year of the 1990s (we know this from analyzing atmospheric gases trapped in Arctic ice). And we're only feeling the effects of CO2 emissions from 35 years ago! The nasty effects of all the emissions since then haven't even kicked in yet. Moreover, global warming will also lead to "feedback"--the official term for extreme weather. Tornadoes out of season, violent thunderstorms and hail, droughts, floodings, blizzards: all of these are already occuring as wind currents and meterological conditions feel the effects of overall global warming.

Dinyar Godrej's *Climate Change,* a volume in the excellent "No-Nonsense" series, outlines the basic (and frightening!) facts about global warming, backing his claims up with a wealth of data and references. This makes his book a convenient (and affordable) resource for anyone who wants to get a handle on what's happening to the planet. But Godrej also offers some social, political, and personal suggestions for slowing down and hopefully reducing the human activity that creates global warming. Highly recommended. Read it, get scared, get angry, get working! And while you're at it, get rid of your SUV.

A bit too much nonsense
Unfortunately the author has gotten some of the science wrong, stating for example that carbon is radioactive and mislabeling important graphs. Since this is the 3rd edition one would have hoped the editors would have glanced at the book since it was written in 2001. The author (an immigrant from India) has a very strong anti developed-world bias. He argues vehemently against carbon trading and offsets, not acknowledging that these mechanisms reduce CO2 buildup. He wants instead, I think, punishment to be meted out to the developed countries for their success and rewards to be given to developing countries for their lack of success. He does not appear to want emission controls on developing countries, but prefers that the developed world gift the developing world with free solar power plants. For a no-nonsense guide, there is too much of this nonsense.
I do like the chart on top of page 138 on tips to personally cut emissions (like becoming a vegetarian).