The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change

Rating:
Summary: BORING!!!!
Review: In The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change, Richard C.J. Sommerville provides readers with a better comprehension of our environment "because we're less likely to do serious and irreversible damage to it if we understand it better." Sommerville is optimistic and feels that "humankind, when confronted with serious global environmental problems, is capable of acting rationally and cooperatively for the benefit of all life on Earth." Sommerville acknowledges various threats to our environment such as the growing hole in the ozone, the greenhouse effect, global change, air pollution, and other problems caused by numerous manmade forces. Sommerville's faith and optimism in the goodness of mankind is generous, but potentially hopeless; he neglects to acknowledge the successes and failures of the 1992 Earth Summit held in Brazil. Deforestation, pollution, and resource degradation decreased for a short time after the conference, but later escalated to higher than average levels. Sommervilles sees hope and acknowledges the difficulties of cleaning our environment, especially in developing countries. China, for example, perceives environmental sanctions as a threat to their industrialization and modernization and has also accused developed nations of trying to suppress developing countries; Many other developing nations are not willing to sacrifice their means of economic subsistence for the sake of the Earth's atmosphere. During the 1997 Earth Summit the developing third world countries deflected the finger of blame for the ecological problems. Sommerville does have good reason to have a positive attitude towards the improvement of the environment; the growing awareness of the problem and the United States and the United Kingdom proposed a clean development fund, in which wealthier nations would provide technical assistance to countries that need it to develop CFC substitutes and to implement the technologies as long as the third world would also accept some of the costs and reduce the amount of harmful pollutants they submit into the atmosphere. People do want to make a difference, and Sommerville exemplifies this with the case of Susannah Beg; Beg was only seventeen when she spoke on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation Youth Delegation at a London environmental conference attended by representatives from around the world to alleviate environmental problems. Beg spoke with eloquent words demanding that the representatives make a decision that would result in a safe environment for future generations. Sommerville does succeed in informing the reader of atmospheric problems, the causes, and potential consequences of mankind's continuous disregard for the environment, but his efforts can only be compared to a cigarette smoker being told not to smoke. No matter what the consequences, whether it be sun burn or skin cancer, people aren't just going to drop their air conditioners, they're not going to resort to non-motorized or even public transportation. It will be a long and arduous process before people get the message that they need to give up some of the luxuries of life for a global cause. The Forgiving Air makes reference to technology that is both helpful and harmful. Sommerville comments on Thomas Midgley's discovery of tetraethyl lead that helped mankind drive faster, but the lead was harmful to the environment. Midgley also invented chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) to make refrigerators safer and have numerous other uses, but CFC's destroy the ozone. It's ironic that two inventions with so many great benefits came from the same inventor and both are so harmful to our environment. In general, Sommerville's The Forgiving Air is very informative, but most the facts in this book are things most of society already knows, but hasn't cared to either acknowledge or understand the full depth of the consequences. Maybe people know there's a problem, but they think they can't make a difference; this is another negative aspect of The Forgiving Air, Sommerville offers solutions in on a global level, but not a personal level. I think if people knew what to do they would at least try.