George Monbiot, Heat.
Most of this book is a survey of various sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how we might try and reduce them by 90%. The first two chapters introduce the problem (of climate change and emissions, durr) and document the denialist industry respectively. Both worthwhile, and chapter 2 could do with a whole book (no, I haven’t read Merchants of Doubt yet). The real substance is Monbiot’s plan for reducing by 90% the emissions created by housing, transport, heating, shopping, and so on.
Naturally my thoughts on Monbiot’s book are coloured by the fact that I’ve already read MacKay’s Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air. Which is, on the whole, better. Monbiot has the facts but throws them around as gee-whiz figures: billions this, millions that. Often his calculations are more precise and more detailed than MacKay’s, but they are no more convincing for that. MacKay’s deliberate lack of precision is more convincing precisely because it captures the uncertainty in the problem. Monbiot himself makes this point, but fails to carry through on it, preferring to pore through endless reports to quote a figure for the carbon dioxide emissions per car passenger kilometre to 3 significant figures.
There are almost no graphs: Two at the end of Chapter 1 are completely made up and little more than useless. They really would be better drawn in crayon (because then it would be more apparent that they are napkin sketches to illustrate a point).
Monbiot’s ability to quote, whilst not really handling, numbers means he fails to circumscribe the scale of the problem. Is it worth talking about how much chicken shit we can burn? (answer: it is worth a little bit, is it worth the amount of time Monbiot spends on it? I don’t think so) In a similar vein, is it worth a couple of pages tossing up whether we should be calling the effect whereby increased efficiency leads to increased consumption the Jevons effect or the Khazzoom–Brookes postulate? Nice history lesson, but spare us, really. Sometimes I think Monbiot wants to show us how much research he has done.
Compared to MacKay’s book, Monbiot’s is in a way more optimistic. Not more optimistic about averting climate change, but more optimistic about changing behaviour as a means of averting climate change. In Monbiot’s future we all shop online, we travel by (deluxe) coach, and we never go snorkelling in Africa with our dinner party friends. Maybe Monbiot is not being optimistic, but persuasive, he is a columnist after all. Curiously, given that he has written on this subject before, he doesn’t advocate eating less meat. Just to rehearse the argument: eating less meat cuts some directs emissions from livestock, and it frees up land which was used to grow animal feedstock for other purposes, such as PV arrays or biofuel.
He tackles one sector that MacKay does not: Cement. This is pretty reasonable, Cement is an important industrial process and has emissions related to the chemistry of cement manufacture (and Monbiot even features some chemical equations: yay!). Apparently we should be using geopolymeric cements. Right. Been talking to the salesmen again have we? For all I carp, MacKay’s book is about energy, and whilst that is the most important sector for emissions, someone needs to do a MacKay for non-energy emissions. Monbiot’s half chapter is a reasonable start. Wonder why he doesn’t tackle methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture? (about 8% of the UK’s GHG emissions by equivalent CO2)
On the whole, I would recommend this book, but be sure to follow up with MacKay’s if you haven’t already. It is a little bit of a pity that Heat came out before the IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. Many of Monbiot’s references are a little dated already. Time for a second edition?
Posted by drj11 
