Sorry About That!
 

Global Warming Is Real
Caused By Human Activity
We Have to Using Fossil Fuels

Further Reading

Wilfred Candler
18th June, 2008

   There is a huge literature on Global Warming (a search on Amazon for “global warming” yields 30,559 titles) and Climate Change (43,850 titles on Amazon, hopefully with some overlap from the earlier search). Here we provide links to some of the more influential and informative books. “More influential” is of course idiosyncratic. Perhaps I should say “books that have informed me and influenced my views on global warming”.

   In reviewing other web sites I have been impressed (indeed depressed) by the number that feature only one book: The book written by the owner of the site.  This is no way to spread the word about global warming.  I feature my book, but make no pretense that it is the only book that needs to be read. 

   I classify books in two ways:

  • By major focus, and
  • By whether I have read them.
   For that I have read I provide a brief description of my perspective on the subject matter and what the reader will learn.  For books I have not read, I provide for an author’s précis of the books contents. Where provided I also make this available for books that I have read.  In addition a blog is attached to each book, providing readers an opportunity to add their own evaluations.

  
   In summary, there is an ample literature on the severity of the problem of global warming, and an equally extensive literature on the technological possibilities for dispensing with fossil fuels. There is a sparse literature on the history and development of policies to deal with global warming.  However, with the honorable exception of my book Global Warming: The Answer. (The Energy Dividend), and Peter Barnes’ Who Owns the Sky? Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism, and Cap and Dividend: How to Curb Global Warming While Protecting the Incomes Of American Families, by James K. Boyce & Matthew Riddle serious practical proposals for policies to combat global warming have not come to my attention.

 

    

 

 

Global Warming: The Answer

Books

Who Owns the Sky

Cap and Dividend

The Weather Makers

Field Notes from a Catastrophe

An Inconvenient Truth

The Rough Guide to Climate Change

Hell and Highwater

Heat

Boiling Point

The Carbon War

  

   Also missing from all books that I have read are:

  • Population: Its role in feeding into increased fossil fuel usage, and whether the world can support 6+ billion without using fossil fuel. (i.e. Are we at Morton’s Fork, where if we continue to use fossil fuels, global warming will make the planet uninhabitable, but if we cease using fossil fuels, the planet will only support a population well below 6 billion?).

  • Media Consolidation: Has media consolidation played a role in slowing the dissemination of knowledge of global warming.  Have the media corporations (a) not wished to rock the boat, and/or (b) been too uncritical conduits of White House press releases?

  • Lobbying: How far does lobbying go to explain the reluctance of Congress to take effective action on global warming?  There are good accounts of the Global Climate Coalition’s and large energy companies’ successful efforts to generate confusion and doubt in the public mind.  But direct corruption of corruption of Congress, still awaits its author.

 

  
That I Have Read:
Books That I Have Not Read:

       This space is available to authors whose work I have not yet read.  If they send me a copy of their book, an author’s précis, and a “Topic” designation I will include this information here.  For more details contact me at wcandler1@comcast.net, or 410-757-5626.