fredag, mars 02, 2007

The Weather Makers (Book)

I have been talking about this book earlier, however now I have finished this book and its time to sum it up. Tim does quite an impressive show on the issue. The first half of the book is more or less a full view on all the damages to the environment since the industrial revolution. Then later on it goes on a few stories and ends up in a few solutions to the problem.

What I find more interesting is that as I also said earlier is that during childhood. Issues of the ozon layer and pollution the environment was big. I even have to stand on the blackboard once in front of class and tell them what Global Warming is. As a cause of this major fossil energy companies started lobbying and spreading the idea that the Gaia theory was not only a theory that stated that earth was a major organism, but also that it would manage about whatever Man would throw at it. The second thing was that the climate changes was only due to normal climate changes that would occur over time. This idea, in fact this lie was so widespread on news and media that most people believed in it, including myself.

However over the years more and more organizations and scientist have left this idea. Even some of the hardcore ones because the Man made changes are getting so severe!

Tim states that early as 1976 (my birth) the first major breach and changes in global environment happened. And that one more has already passed and that nobody knows when the 3rd breach will be and what changes it will do to our environment.

Another thing I remember from childhood was the drought of the surrounding the African desert. The people were blamed for extorting the nature while Tim states that it was simply business as usual and that global warming was the cause.

As a negative aspect I say that the first part of this book is quite massive and I actually had tp have a break in the middle as it was a bit too much. I think Tim would have made an even better book if he would have mixed the information in first part with the middle part and the solutions more often - minimum 3 times.’

What we do know is that world is changing, environment is changing and that extreme weather is getting worse and worse. Change is needed and everybody needs to participate. Again as I said – no hysteria is good. However more energy efficient cars, and electrical appliances, energy on renewable sources needs to increase.

With so many major breakthroughs in technology – I am sure it will be a key element to success. And of course – Governments has to support it. As I said earlier our Government has made tax changes on cars, however a Toyota Prius is costing about the same as my Beetle (way too much) and the cost should be cut to the half (quite possible with our car taxes!) to be an interesting option.

All in all a good book that everybody – including you – should read

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