Heat: How We Can Stop the Planet Burning [Paperback]

Heat is a hard nosed, unsentimental analysis of the problem of climate change and what can be done about it. Monbiot sets himself a difficult challenge of a 90% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, and then tackles each source of carbon emissions in turn, from housing to transport. Some of it is familiar and easy to agree with, such as better insulation, or passive house architecture. Other sections are less comfortable reading - many popular solutions are stripped down and exposed as useless, from biofuels to small scale wind turbines. Ardent greens will find plenty to worry about as nuclear power gets a tacit nod, and the sacred cow of renewable energy gets cut down a size.

A great many ideas are discarded, but this is ultimately a book of solutions, and there are all manner of things that will work. Efficiency measures, tighter planning laws, improved coach travel, combined heat and power, hydrogen fuel cells, tele-working, internet shopping. There is no single answer, but dozens of helpful avenues that will trim carbon from our current lifestyles.

As well as the solutions, the book spends some time exploring why it has been so hard to get climate change onto the political agenda. The findings here are fascinating. A lot has been said about climate change denial and conspiracy theories. I don't have a whole lot of time for that, or for environmentalist martyrdom, but anyone tempted to dismiss those theories entirely should read Monbiot's chapter on `The denial industry.' Obviously not everyone who disagrees with climate science is in the pay of the oil companies, but a shocking number are, and there is plenty of evidence here to prove it.

As always, Heat is well researched, thorough and rational. As a guide to what can practically be done about climate change, as a society, this is second to none.

George Monbiot of The Guardian is in any ways a more upmarket version of Michael Moore - just as determined to slay the dragons of corporate self-interest and government hypocrisy, but going about it with a little more finesse.

In this uncompromising thesis on global warming, he takes the view that carbon emissions need to be reduced by a whopping 90% if we're to avoid hitting the "tipping point" which will accelerate us towards global disaster. Having laid that on the line and debunked the oil industry- funded naysayers, he goes on to point the finger at the ones who are really responsible - us.

It's our inertia, he says, that keeps emissions so high, because once we're used to our gas-guzzlers, our long-haul flights and our out-of-season luxuries, we're far too loath to surrender them in the name of collective survival. And as long as industry keeps on burning the midnight oil, why should we bother with energy-saving lightbulbs?

Monbiot prescribes a diet of privation. If we want to avoid a forcible return to Neolithic hunter-gathering, we need to elect to ration ourselves: and cutting our energy consumption to the bone is the only way ensure a positive outcome. That means eating what's locally available, keeping our cars in the garage and evolving a workable system of public transport and food deliveries. And most of all, it means an end to globetrotting - because there's no fat and effective way to travel that's acceptably carbon-neutral.

As always, though, everyone is waiting for everyone else to act. "Everyone has to move, or no-one moves," says one supermarket boss. "If we do it and nobody else does, we're lost." The situation as a lot in common with the old cold war, nuclear proliferation and mutually-assured destruction: except in this case, it's a lack of action that will bring on environmental Armageddon.

Where the book is weak is dealing with solutions in areas that are not the haunts of the chattering urban middle classes. Monbiot makes a valuable point when he says that the keys to change are held by exactly those people with most to lose, but that very arrogance is reflected in his own delineation of both problems and solutions. What do you do if you live in a rural area with little or no public transport, the nearest shop is eight miles away and Tesco don't deliver within fifty miles of your home? Such areas could also have much to teach suburban-dwellers about growing vegetables in season rather than importing posh nosh from Costa Rica.

Still, it's a valuable book, if a depressing one. As Monbiot says in his introduction, "I have one last hope - that I might make people so depressed about the state of the planet that they stay in bed all day, thereby reducing their consumption of fossil fuels."

As published at Subba-Cultcha.com

This is an outstanding book - a call for action that must happen now if we are to avoid climate change spiralling out of control. Its strengths are that it describes the issues with great clarity and conjures up possible solutions for dealing with them. Not all of these seem politically or practically realistic, but in a way that's not the point: they demonstrate that action can be taken and climate change kept in check.

I would strongly recommend, as a companion volume, The Rough Guide to Climate Change, which in many ways is an easier book to get yourself up to scratch on the science and the issues. It is very clearly written, with excellent diagrams, ranges widely over issues and solutions, and demystifies in the way that Rough Guides are so good at.