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Review:
Taking up the Monbiot challenge to chill a heating planet

by Dorothy Cutting

November 15, 2005

George Monbiot's new book Heat: How To Stop the Planet From Burning is certain to have an emotional impact on anyone who reads it. More than any author, with the exception of James Lovelock, he courageously faces the prospect of the global catastrophe that the impending climate crisis, if unchecked, will bring, and he makes us recognize the fate that awaits the millions people in the poorer countries of the World who have had the least to do with the making of this crisis.

He shows us that most of the rhetoric we hear about greenhouse gas reduction is way off the mark. Two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is the temperature level beyond which major ecosystems begin to collapse, and in order to prevent this from happening, rich nations must cut their greenhouse gasses by 90 percent or more by the year 2030. Greenhouse gasses should be stabilized at or below the equivalent of 440 parts per million of carbon dioxide, or 400 ppm CO2. By 2030, the average carbon emissions per person should weigh no more than .8 tonnes, or the equivalent of one cross-Atlantic trip on a jet airliner.

Even an upper limit of 2 degrees Celsius may be too high. At 1.5 degrees or less, millions of people will be deprived of water and food and the the complete melting of Greenland's ice will begin. We are at close to 1 Celsius degree today, and we need only to look out our windows or pick up a newspaper to see that severe climatic effects are already occurring.

Given this monstrous challenge, it's hard to believe that there is any hope at all of saving our Planet. And yet, Monbiot's book is brimming with hope - healthy, practical, achievable hope, not vague and unrealistic dreams. He cuts this huge problem into “chunks:” electricity generation, home heating, transportation, cement manufacturing and air travel. In each case, with the exception of the latter, he shows how sufficient cuts in emissions can be achieved without bringing the world economy to its knees. Other writers have used the image of slices of pie to show how the problem of cutting emission can be approached, but Monbiot's slices have an original flavour, and although not to everyone's taste, they show great originality. His chapters on renewable energy and transportation are particularly interesting.

Almost as a “bonus,” Chapter 2, The Denial Industry, exposes the contribution of Phillip Morris and ExxonMoblile towards obfuscating the science of global warming. The deliberate effort of these industries and the “scientists” in their pay to confuse and disarm the public is shocking and should move us to outrage.

In spite of his sometimes dire predictions, Monbiot's book is almost fun to read. With each chapter, Monbiot poses a problem, and we read on in suspense to see how he will solve it. We may find ourselves even laughing at times at his brilliant flashes of sardonic humour. But we never lose sight of this author's humanism and sense of justice. He takes the climate crisis personally: He typed Chapter 10 with his new-born baby daughter Hanna on his knee, concerned that the threatened people of the world could become just “data.”

Four and a half years ago Robert Hunter wrote 2030: Confronting Thermageddon in Our Lifetime, just after the birth of his grandson Dexter. He, too, took this crisis personally. And this is what causes both these books to have such a powerful effect on the reader. The love of one tiny child forges a link to the love for all the Earth's children.

Monbiot dedicates his book to Hanna: “May this be a fit world for you to inhabit.” Like Hunter and Monbiot, let us all take the challenge of saving this world to our hearts.