The conspiracy Of Silence On Climate Change

Heat: How to stop the planet burning; by George Monbiot

…One of the most important points that comes out of the book is that, no one has seriously researched into the question of the extent of renewables any grid can accomodate. Can we have a 50% or a 80% or even a 100 % renewably powered grid? Another good feature of the book is that it takes cognizance of the growing literature on ‘peak oil’ unlike most books on climate change. However I find that the author does not look into the issue of availability of resources (mainly oil, gas, coal, steel etc and their dependence on each other) as critically as one would hope.


From electricity the book moves to the transport sector, which I found to have one of the most promising and implementable options for the near future. The most important message for this sector is: Stop building more roads and expanding airport capacities. Monbiot looks at the story of Bio-fuels and Coal to Liquids (CTL) (which today are being strongly promoted) in totality and says in no uncertain terms that they would be a disaster for GHG emission reductions. However as far as aviation is concerned, if one is seriously committed to reducing emissions by 90%, then there is no techno-fix available. Reducing air travel is the only option.

Unfortunately most parts of chapter four to ten are written mainly from an UK perspective. While it would be a near impossible task to chalk out a detailed emission reduction programme for the whole world, one would have liked at least one chapter on possible generic emission reduction strategies for the rest of the world. One would have also liked to read more on agriculture and the touchy topic of population.

CounterCurrents.org