Carbon Planet Book Reviews
Here are some interesting books on global warming and climate change. You can find out more about a book at Amazon in a new window by clicking on it. If you purchase a book from Amazon through one of the links below, Carbon Planet will receive a small commission, which we'll use to buy more books to review.
The Weather Makers
Tim Flannery
2005
This is an excellent book. If you only want to read one book about global warming, we recommend that you choose this one. Flannery's book describes the Earth's geological eras, atmosphere and systems, describes the damage that global warming is causing around the world, runs through the various models and predictions, describes the political history of global warming and the current situation, describes the possible solutions to the problem, and ends with a call to action and a list of things the reader can do to reduce their carbon footprint. The book is full of useful facts about global warming and has 243 references to back them up. Highly recommended.
Climate Change Begins At Home
Dave Reay
2005
We haven't obtained this book yet (it's not yet released at the time of writing), but it's had great reviews, and the title and the cover picture are so amusing that it holds great promise. We'll review this book here when we get a copy.
Collapse
Jared Diamond
2005
This book describes the way in which many past civilisations have collapsed as a consequence of their environmental mismanagement. A warning to us all. Highly recommended.
The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices
Michael Brower and Warren Leon
1999
This is one of the few books of environmental advice to consumers that provides actual numbers about what the impact of each activity is. This book provides the hard data you need to determine which actions will really help the environment and which actions will only make you feel as if you're helping the environment. This is a "must have" book for anyone who wants to reduce their environmental impact.
The Carbon War
Jeremy Leggett
1999
This is a book about the war between environmentalists and big oil over global warming. During the 1990s the big oil companies did all they could to prevent the world from recognising and acting on global warming. It set the world back about a decade. This book tells the story. An excellent read.
Global Warming
Fred Pearce
2002
This is a great little book that provides a concise 72 page introduction to global warming. HIghly recommended.
You Can Prevent Global Warming
Jeffrey Langholz and Kelly Turner
2003
This thick little book is packed full of ways in which you can help to prevent global warming by reducing your household and office energy consumption. It provides lots of statistics and detailed ideas for how to reduce your energy consumption. The book claims that the average household can save over US$2000 per year this way. We highly recommend this book.
However, while this is an excellent book and the ideas described here should certainly be pursued, we remind readers that most of the global warming for which you are responsible is industrial rather than domestic. For example, in Australia, domestic energy use is only about 20% of the total. So even if you implemented all the ideas in this book, you would still only be reducing your impact on global warming by at most 20% (and probably a lot less). Carbon Planet recommends that you start by purchasing enough carbon credits to offset your current energy consumption, and then start work on reducing your energy consumption. Purchasing carbon credits takes just a few minutes and completely eliminate your footprint. Reading and implementing all the ideas in this book will take weeks, months or years and will only reduce your footprint by at most about 20%.