I was intrigued by this post so had a look on Amazon as Jeff sugests. The book has (today) 281 ratings and an overall score of 4.7, so it ought to be good. So as usual I looked at the reviews which start with the Excellent ones and after a few I got suspicious, since they all included phrases such as "This book confirmed was I always thought", and confirming prejudices is not always a good informative read.

So like physical products that I consider buying I looked at the poor reviews. A number of times I have prevented myself buying a useless product by this simple technique since reading what isn't good about the product is quicker than buying it (and then having to return it).

This review might encapsulate the book well?

"* Uttercodswallop, written by someone who has a vested interest.

Got this book out of the library because I was worried if I bought it the Amazon algorithms would funnel a steady stream of idiocy into my ads.

Was exactly what I was expecting.

Written by an extremely hard-right "journalist" who makes his money from writing newspaper articles criticising climate action, this book is completely on-brand for him.

Takes the most pessimistic view of everything he disagrees with, and the most optimistic view of anything he agrees with, and comes out unsurprisingly with no actionable ideas of his own.

Also doesn't touch on any of the obvious counterpoints because why would you actually write a balanced book - for example Uruguay which has gone to 95% decarbonisation of its electricity supply, while managing increased demand and refreshing their grid, and keeping their energy bills the same.

So yeah, read this if you want your own prejudices reinforced, don't read this expecting any kind of balanced investigative journalism."

@judith Its a political subject. You have to ask yourself just how many Labour supporters would give a glowing review on a Tory manifesto? And how many Tory supporters would give a glowing review of a Labour manifesto ? Therefore if you really want to understand the argument you need to listen  to both sides , don't you?

Posted by: @iaack

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@judith Its a political subject. You have to ask yourself just how many Labour supporters would give a glowing rating on a Tory manifesto? And how many Tory supporters would give a glowing review of a Labour manifesto ? Therefore if you want really want to understand the argument you need to listen  to both sides , don't you?

Or listen to the scientists. 

The existence of climate change is not a political subject, the science doesn't care a fig what you or I or any politician thinks.  Only the response to it is political. 

So yes by all means listen to both sides to understand the options in relation to the response, but listen to the scientists to understand the facts, and calibrate the sanity of the former according to how much notice they have taken of the latter.

@jamespa Exactly! The book is about the political response....the science is not in dispute.

Posted by: @iaack

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@jamespa Exactly! The book is about the political response....the science is not in dispute.

I'm afraid I disagree, @iaack. Even in the preview extract Amazon provide, the author is obfuscating the science.

@judith chose to post one of the reviews as a good encapsulation of the book. I believe it is likely to be just that, but it is rather too brief to be persuasive. I prefer to quote the following review instead as a rather more balanced critique that, for me, is all the more damning as a result.

This is a very revealing book. It is strangely both disappointing and encouraging.

To get the most from it, you need to look hard at the evidence presented.

For example, in Chapter 7, Mr Clark argues that transitioning to renewable electricity generation will cost the UK dear. Yet his own figures (you can check them out) show that the more wind and solar power we use, the cheaper our electricity will be. Even when the ‘cost’ of dealing with the intermittency of wind and solar is addressed, he is unable to show that renewables will be more expensive than fossil fuels.

In Chapter 10 he tries to show that petrol cars would be cheaper to run than electric cars if you removed taxes. His figures remove all the taxes from petrol, but only the VAT from electricity. If you remove all the taxes from electricity (ie compared like with like) electric vehicles are still cheaper to run. This is slightly ironic because he spends several pages ranting (incorrectly) about the level of ‘environmental’ taxes levied on electricity.

Mr Clarke is broadly on target on nuclear power (Chapter 8), and the challenges regarding aviation and shipping (Chapter 11), and on the issue of cattle grazed on pasture (Chapter 14), although he is completely confused about agriculture and tree planting. (If all the government’s tree planting targets are met, the impact on food production would be well under 1% and arguably positive. It would hardly ‘severely impact our ability to produce food’ as he claims).

When it comes to the science of climate change, Mr Clarke has concluded that sea level rise is the main threat to the UK. He thinks the UK can protect itself by constructing dykes around our coast to stave off a rising sea. After all, the Dutch have been doing so for over 1,000 years and are world leaders – they should know. The Dutch however, have concluded that their current system of protection using dykes is only good until 2050. They are planning for 2m of sea level rise by 2100 and 5m by 2150 with much more to follow. They believe that natural flood management (derided by Mr Clarke) will allow them to buy some extra time but inevitably, they will need to abandon ‘assets’ (cities, factories, infrastructure) to the sea. Meanwhile, sea-water incursion will turn their farmland increasing saline making current farming practices impossible – all based on their considerable experience. Mr Clarke lives in a fantasy world.

It’s clear by this stage that, with the exception of rising sea levels, Mr Clarke is not going to address the real problems that climate change is already causing for human wealth and well-being, and are reasonably projected to escalate over coming decades. There is no discussion of mass emigration, wet-bulb temperatures, water insecurity, gross loss of productive farmland, or serious economic damage from climate change.

All this is shame, because it makes it hard to justify his central claim, that we have plenty of time to deal with climate change, as he refuses to engage with the central issues.

This is where the book is disappointing. There are problems with net zero as legislated for in the UK. Arguably, it is the least bad option we have. Mr Clark doesn’t think so – which is fine - it is an argument worth having. But very little of the book deals with this core question, and it would be a much better book if it did. Instead, it makes a lot of largely discredited populist arguments which he can only make by cooking the books. I’ve given three examples above, but I could easily have given thirty – it’s really that blatant.

Mr Clarke ends his book with yet another fabrication. His last referenced resource apparently suggests that ‘the last ice age in North America … ended over a period of just 100 years’. Bizarrely, this reference does describe how rapidly ice sheets can deteriorate, mirroring the latest research on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is now doomed to melt rapidly (adding 5m to global sea-levels), as a result of ocean warming. But does his reference say what Mr Clarke claims it does? No, it doesn’t come close. He has completely made this up too. The transition of North America out of the last Ice Age is particularly well understood precisely because of its role in shaping human history. Only someone profoundly ignorant of climate change and its impact could make such a preposterous claim. Why, you may ask, did Mr Clarke decide to end his book in such a dishonest, disrespectful, and desperate way?

Which is where the book is encouraging. It is only by making stuff up that Mr Clark can string together an argument. If he followed his arguments through logically and transparently, they fall flat on their face. His desperation reveals that time is running out for the climate change denial lobby, despite all the funding it has received over recent decades.

I think it is dangerous to form a considered opinion of something based on someone else's opinion of it; extrapolation from second-hand evidence is somewhat dubious. However, I also have insufficient time to waste some of it on wading through flawed thinking, so there has to be a compromise. By reading the author's own words in the extract I have reasonable confidence the review I've quoted is a fair reflection of the book, and that the reflection is far from a glowing review.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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I'm afraid I disagree, @iaack. Even in the preview extract Amazon provide, the author is obfuscating the science.

 

Posted by: @iaack

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Posted by: @iaack

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@jamespa Exactly! The book is about the political response....the science is not in dispute.

 

 

I'm afraid I disagree, @iaack. Even in the preview extract Amazon provide, the author is obfuscating the science.

Knowingly obfuscating, concealing or misrepresenting fact (the science) for personal gain isn't politics, its fraud (see the fraud act 2006).  Of course the two are frequently linked!

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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I think it is dangerous to form a considered opinion of something based on someone else's opinion of it; extrapolation from second-hand evidence is somewhat dubious. However, I also have insufficient time to waste some of it on wading through flawed thinking, so there has to be a compromise. By reading the author's own words in the extract I have reasonable confidence the review I've quoted is a fair reflection of the book, and that the reflection is far from a glowing review.

Quite so.

Picking on the last sentences and relating it to what one sees and hears around us, I think its becoming increasingly clear that the climate change deniers have largely had their day.  They know this, so have moved onto the next step ie telling us its too late and/or we cant afford it and/or proposing 'solutions' which aren't (eg, but not limited to, hydrogen boilers).

Their objective remains the same however, to perpetuate the use of fossil fuels for their own gain and at the expense of everyone else.

I clearly didn’t pick up the best review so many thanks to @majordennisbloodnok for choosing a better one! Like him I’m not going to waste my time and temper reading something which will annoy me.

But I would be very happy to read a book written by someone (of any political persuasion) who could critique the methods and measurements of how we’re planning to get to Net Zero and propose better routes. We absolutely do need to be Net Zero and the sooner the better and it has to be affordable, reliable in energy production to consumers and industry, not leave whole areas of the country without employment and reduce our energy consumption in the process. 
That’s a very big ask!

@jamespa

Posted by: @jamespa

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a) Their objective remains the same however, to perpetuate the use of fossil fuels

b)for their own gain

c)and at the expense of everyone else.

a) yes, most probably 

b) yes, it's a trait we humans have

c) a sweeping statement and that's the bit I find very hard to agree with.

Posted by: @iaack

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@jamespa

Posted by: @jamespa

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a) Their objective remains the same however, to perpetuate the use of fossil fuels

b)for their own gain

c)and at the expense of everyone else.

a) yes, most probably 

b) yes, it's a trait we humans have

c) a sweeping statement and that's the bit I find very hard to agree with.

(c) is a fair comment.  I will rephrase it as 'at the expense of almost all of our children and grandchildren (with the exception of the very rich), and of some of those presently alive particularly those less able to be internationally mobile for reasons of (lack of) wealth, health or nationality.

That's more accurate, but no less damning