Yet More Summer Reading

Here's a book page extravaganza from The Guardian, beginning with a fairly comprehensive survey of recent climate change literature (in the popular press) from Weather Makers author Tim Flannery, and then following on with a "top picks" section from six other people ranging from Guardian columnist George Monbiot and to  High Tide author Mark Lynas.

A soon-to-be-released UN report says runaway economic growth has pushed greenhouse-gas emissions to dangerous levels much faster than previously estimated, and instead of reaching the threshold within a decade, new research indicates it was actually crossed two years ago. The findings will highlight the perils of giving economic growth priority over efforts to curtail global warming.

This tart quote is Tim Flannery’s devastating verdict on the new Bjorn Lomborg global warming policy attack, Cool It .

Treehugger has a good post today about carbon sequstration and why it's not all that it's cracked up to be. Drawing heavily on Tim Flannery's book, The Weather Makers, they argue that

All this talk of carbon sequestration can basically be seen as a delaying tactic, as a way to get government support and to keep the operation and construction of coal power plants more socially acceptable. It's the equivalent of saying: "Don't bother us, we're working on it!"

Furthermore, they suggest,

As a society civilization species, we must back the right horse and stop being misled by the coal industry's delaying tactics. There's a big opportunity cost in time and resources to going down the wrong path. Each new power plant big coal builds means decades of fat profit for it, but for the rest of us here on Earth, it's just bad, bad news.

Check it out and decide for yourself.

Wired has the first of three interviews with climate change authors, this one with Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum and biologist at the University of Adelaide and author of The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth (Grove Atlantic).