Dead Heat: Globilization and Global Warming

Rating:
Summary: Compelling and feasible argument for climate justice
Review: Much of the debate about climate change (global warming) has focused on short-term details about the structure of any international treaty and the near-term rate of change in emissions. Athanasiou and Baer perform a great service by bringing the larger questions of the long-term severity of the climate problem and the potential massively unequal consequences of climate change for people of different wealth levels.

Grounding their argument in the well-accepted science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authors describe in clear language the imperative to dramatically reduce global greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years. Importantly, they endorse the current ideas about international emissions trading as a low-cost way to achieve these cuts, but they then lay out an ethically grounded argument for ensuring that this trading is structured in a fair and equitable way--both for people in poorer countries and for people in future generations. Moreover, they are careful to defend the political viability of their proposed solutions.

Written in direct and comprehensible language, Dead Heat is a forceful call for more serious action to address the social and environmental consequences of climate change and climate change policy.

Rating:
Summary: Another great book from AK Press
Review: This book explains both the science of global warming and the political reasons why governments have not acted to reverse it.