Ross Gelbspan (1939–2024)

Ross Gelbspan has written an excellent book. I want him to update the book, or write another one. Since he wrote the book, the world has witnessed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. People have cheered it. The Paris Agreement does not set binding deadlines on governments. It does not ask anyone to commit to dates.

There is no urgency.

Ross Gelbspan wrote his book over ten years ago. He made a strong case to show the nexus between dirty fuel companies and governments. It should make us sit up in alarm.

The book should make us act.

I found passion in the book, mixed with anger. The anger did not prevent Mr Gelbspan from making his arguments forcefully and lucidly.

While the book may seem outdated to a casual reader, I think it is essential reading for all of us.

The book will wake us up.… (mehr)

The author is a science journalist who lays out the case for doing something about global warming. He doesn't spend a lot of time on the evidence; he's done that before. Instead, he looks at the political, social, and economic factors that maintain inertia in the United States. He finishes up with some potential solutions. For the most part, the author is right on in his assessments, though I think he gives too short a shrift to the ability of changing personal habits to make a difference, insisting instead that only a large scale change of policy in the US can make a difference. That may be true, but he underestimates the power of a change in personal habits to change the policy, as the US is not inclined to do anything about something people aren't demonstrating any worry over. In addition, he shortchanges all other issues of the environment in focusing on global warming, making the usual mistake of trying to treat the fever without treating the underlying illness. His preferred solutions would do nothing to solve the overall problems, but only put the brakes on global warming. In spite of that, the book is a good, useful look at the obstacles preventing us from solving this most important of problems.… (mehr)

I'm quite embarrassed and annoyed with myself that I didn't read this book earlier -- at least half a decade earlier. It's about as good a brief guide to the imminent climate catastrophe as you're likely to find, written in a highly readable journalese style and full of excellent information that I'd not come across elsewhere. I checked quite a few of the sources and found the information is indeed kosher; in so doing, I also discovered that Gelbspan has a very extensive wbsite collecting articles on climate-related issues (http://www.heatisonline.org); again I'm embarrassed that I did not know this before. I thought the weakest part of an extremely strong text came in the final sections, as Gelbspan outlined a proposed scheme for averting the disaster: not only did it seem idealistic, in that it expected people to behave rationally rather than with puerile greed and selfishness, but of course -- because of the passage of years -- the kind of emissions reductions it seeks are already known to be far too small. My only other quibble was with the system used for citations; endnotes are a complete pain in the as however you organize them, but the system adopted by Gelbspan is one of my least favourite. This book is due for a new edition, I'd have said; in the meantime, the 2004 version is extremely deserving of your attention.
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