Review essay on climate change

Today’s Guardian has an unashamedly one-sided review essay by Tim Flannery (Australian academic, climate change activist and author of The Weather Makers), of books on climate change. Among those authors recommended in the piece are works by Al Gore (Earth in the Balance), Mark Lynas (Six Degrees), George Marshall (Carbon Detox) and Oliver Tickell (Kyoto2). The review concentrates on British writers but American authors mentioned include Keith Bradsher (High and Mighty – an interesting sounding book on SUVs), Ross Gelbspan (Boiling Point), William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle), Bill McKibben and Gus Speth. Bjorn Lomborg, a leading sceptic on climate change, is mentioned in a few sentences but disparagingly dismissed.

One telling sentence in the article: “Few books about climate change have been written by the meteorologists and atmospheric physicists that dominate the field”. So even in relation to the science of climate change – as opposed to the politics or economics – there are few popular books written by experts. Pro-environmentalist non-specialists seem to dominate the popular debate.

In relation to the economics of climate change the Stern Review and William Nordhaus (A Question of Balance) are mentioned.