Monbiot’s new book on global warming

George Monbiot is always an excellent read and very well researched. The best part is that he goes to great pains to be truthful even when the truth hurts or appears to counteract a good cause.

In his new book HEAT he believes from reviewing all the scientific evidence that we (in the UK at least) need to reduce our carbon emissions by 90% by 2030 or face dire consequences. A sample from the book here goes some way to describe what these consequences are.

My nose is thoroughly buried in this book so far, and I’m not even past the first chapter which is simply laying on the line a summary of all the science on this. You hear a snippet of “such and such has started melting” on the news and worry about it for a few minutes and then its gone. When you have many of these items catalogued and explained in relation to each other it gets very worrying indeed.

I’m looking forward to the chapters on how we can achieve the 90% cuts – unlike many environmental campaigners he is trying to set out a range of effective steps we all need to take. And quite correctly, he is making the unpopular move of saying that the only way we can achieve this is by governments forcing us to change.

The tragic part is that we as citizens have to force our government to change… unless they realise that their economic self interests will finally become irredeemably endangered by what is likely to happen.

I fear that only in the latter situation will anything happen. The general public won’t reduce their emissions significantly by their own volition, so the pessimist in me wonders if these same people will vote for politicians who openly want to force us to change our lives in order to survive – IF any politicians really have the courage to step up to the plate.

I think the biggest problem is that this is such a wide ranging subject that most people don’t have the time or inclination to grasp the facts and as such it will never seem real to them until their homes are worth nothing and the supermarkets have no more food, and the lights go out. Once the first weather report on TV shows the start of temperatures falling massively over Europe we’re all going to have a hard time selling our houses… and land in southern Spain will become priceless I imagine.