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Ask HN: What is the best book on the climate problem and solutions?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best book on the climate problem and solutions?

#4

Post by shoo »

DamonHD wrote: post #2

This is still a good one: https://withouthotair.com/

this is a great book, but the author structured it to focus on sustainable energy. it would be necessary to complement this book with others focusing on global warming, greenhouse gases, sources, sinks, geoengineering.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best book on the climate problem and solutions?

#5

Post by shoo »

I found the 2014 paper by Friedlingstein et al "Persistent growth of CO2 emissions and implications for reaching climate targets" [1] helpful in framing the situation in terms of a cumulative emissions budget.

In terms of feasibility for potential solutions, there are different facets: is it supported by scientific evidence? is it feasible from an engineering perspective? then the trickier one: is it feasible politically (at a national level or internationally)? if not currently politically feasible, what is a pathway for the solution to become politically feasible in future? I'm not well read enough to suggest a good book that digs into this.

An anecdote:

in last month's economist/yougov poll of 1500 US adult citizens who respond to lengthy surveys [2], people were asked "How important are the following issues to you?" -- there's data for 14 issues, ranging from "health care" to "foreign policy", including "climate change & the environment". If issues are ranked by the percentage of respondents who say the issue is "very important", "climate change and the environment" is ranked 12th out of 14, with 44% of respondents saying it is very important -- placing ahead of abortion (43%) and trailing immigration (46%). The three issues deemed "very important" by the most respondents were healthcare (68%), jobs and the economy (67%) and national security (62%).

When people are asked to rank what their single most important issue is out of the 14 considered, climate change & the environment ranks 3rd (12%) behind jobs & the economy (17%) and healthcare (16%).

It'd be much more feasible for politicians to do something about climate change if there was broad, bipartisan public support for prioritising solutions ahead of other competing priorities, but at the moment that doesn't seem to be the case, at least in the US.

[1] arbitrary pdf link https://www.lakeheadu.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/53/outl...

[2] Refer to data summarised in 112 and 113 of https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/vtm70v61hq/econToplines.pdf

Re: Ask HN: What is the best book on the climate problem and solutions?

#10

Post by technobabbler »

Read the IPCC reports for the scientific context. The on the ground situation changes all the time (keeps getting worse) and the reports are updated every few years. The IPCC is a UN panel of scientists studying climate change over decades and publishing their findings in a pretty easy to understand format. It's all open and free and the methodologies are documented.

Proposed solutions are pretty much nonexistent/irrelevant because it's not a scientific question anymore but a matter of political will, and the pendulum keeps going back and forth between the reds and the blues with essentially nothing getting done over the years. Various authors range from optimistic to doom and gloom but in the end they are just speculating on things that will not get implemented.

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