Carbon War (Paperback)

There are eleven chapters. The highlight of each chapter was from its title. However, sometimes it was difficult to find the highlight inside the chapters because of the diary approach.

In Prologue, the author gave a brief summary how he 'transformed' from an 'instructor of oilman' to an environmentalist, and then a solar-energy entrepreneur. He has worked in the Royal School of Mines at the Imperial College. He has trained hundreds petroleum geologists and petroleum engineers. His research area was so called 'blue skies' related to the geological history of oceans. If Dr. Leggett revises the book, I would like to know more his thoughts when he was
teaching and when he was doing his research. My point of view, these two areas are really opposite to each other.

In the first six chapters, the author described the atmosphere of the 1990 IPCC meeting to indicate the early warning signal. He pointed out that there should be no difference between the environmental security threat assessment and any threat assessment involving military security. During a geological community conference the author told an 'oil-man' speaker about the basic arithmetic to the carbon cycle and the price of oil. At the end, he found out that the 'oil-man' was his former student. I was impressed by the author's honest description. I recommend we, people, should always remember the following line from the Prime Minister Paeniu (Tuvalu) during the press conference in the Earth Summit. 'There is someone up there who will judge us. We will all be judged...' Then the author found out that those big insurance business did worry about the global warming. I fully agreed with his opinion which when one looked at extreme event as a whole, it certain that the numbers of catastrophes will continue to rise. There were a few weather-related records breaking during 1992-1993. Billions dollars lost from natural disasters. 'Burning by Warming' was given by the headline of an article in a magazine. In the same week, he learnt one of the most depressing scientific discovery. I agreed with the author it was a very bad news for us. When he visited Tokyo, Japan was forced to import water because of drought problem. Oil refineries had also imported water. I agreed with the author's the bad cycle explanation: importing water; producing oil; burning oil; more drought; to force importing more water.

In the last five chapters, the author described that the hundred-plus mayors from 65 countries at the Municipal Leader's Summit on Climate Change.
They were signing a declaration urging cities all over the world to make a commitment to cut CO2 emissions. One the final morning of the Berlin Climate Summit, the text of the Berlin Mandate was released to the World. In November 1995, the IPCC scientists gathered in Madrid in finalize the IPCC's 2nd AssessmentReport. At the 3rd post-Berlin session of negotiation was in Geneva in 1996. There were three draft protocol proposals to cut CO2 emission. He gave a detail description signs of division appear in the carbon club during COP2 on June 1996. On mid-December, more than 50 companies, institutions and organizations attended the Oxford Solar Investment Summit. He then described the atmosphere andprocess during the AGBM meetings. The author was also witnessing how carbon club tried their 'best' efforts to wash-down the the positive output of the meeting. He asked whether there was as a new form of crime against humanity. I strongly believe it is. In the last chapter, he mentioned what happened during the Kyoto Climate Summit day by day. On 10 December 1997, the last day of the Summit, the
Chair of the Summit, Ambassador Raul Estrada said,'If we can reach a binding agreement, this day will be remembered as the Day of Atmosphere.'

In the Epilogue, the author sent a reminder to readers once more about the weather-related catastrophes. The solution is 'deep cuts in greenhouse gas emission' and the solar energy has a huge future. Final line in the book, 'The only questions left unanswered is, will it come in time?' I strongly believe that we must take actions and do our bit in order to make it come in time. I really enjoyed to read the book.