The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe
by Mayer Hillman, Tina Fawcett, Sudhir Chella Rajan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mayer Hillman, Sudhir Chella Rajan, Tina FawcettEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-04-17
ISBN: 0312353553
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Book Reviews of The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe
Book Review: Has some very good points but proposes unrealistic solutions
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a biochemist with a long-standing interest in economics and the environment. I definitely agree with the authors that climate change is a serious problem that is too often ignored. I wish I could agree more with their proposed solutions.
The authors' emphasis on replacing transportation by automobile with bicycling and walking is excellent. I especially liked the discussion of how more use of cars leads to congestion, which leads to new roads, new parking facilities, and changing patterns of development to serve car owners. This in turn leads to more use of cars. I agree that this self-perpetuating loop is an often-overlooked part of the American love affair with the automobile. I would have liked to see more on the role of parking regulations in this. Most localities in the U.S. have parking regulations that require businesses and residences to provide large numbers of parking spaces. The effect of this is to favor cars over other types of transportation, like walking, that don't require all that vehicle storage space. For more on this, see Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking. Eliminating such perverse regulations would be relatively easy to do and would go a long way toward cutting down on car usage.
The authors are very concerned about the effects of fossil fuel use on the climate. I am concerned about climate change. I think we need to be careful, though, about global warming predictions. The climate is a complex system for which solid prediction is very difficult. We need to be prepared for climate shifts in any direction, not just warming.
The authors believe shortages of fossil fuels are minor compared to the problems caused by climate change. I disagree. In my opinion, the effects of Hubbert's oil peak are very likely to lead to soaring energy prices in the next couple of decades. Coal is not in much better shape. Frankly, basing our society so extensively on highly polluting fuels which are already in short supply and rapidly becoming even less available is ridiculous, climate change or not. The sooner we learn to get along without fossil fuels the better.
The authors state that "Economic growth clearly cannot continue to be pursued as if there were no ceiling on the use of resources or on the capacity of the planet to cope with the consequences of ignoring them." This is great! The authors don't mention this, but some economic theorists are now taking this into account. For example, Herman Daly has developed the concept of the Steady State Economy, which focuses on constant levels of resource inputs and outputs, rather than traditional economic growth. Keep in mind that once basic needs are satisfied, traditional economic growth has been shown to have remarkably little relationship to quality of life. For more on this, see Robert Lane's book The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.
In the section on carbon capture and storage, the authors said nothing about carbon capture using shellfish, which store carbon in their shells in the form of solid calcium carbonate. Does anyone out there know why this approach is so consistently ignored? Maybe there is some problem with it that I don't understand.
The authors and I part company when it comes to the Kyoto Protocol and carbon trading. The authors particularly like a system of personal carbon allowances and spend a lot of time analyzing this. I think the system they propose is fine, but I'm skeptical about its usefulness in the long term. My opinion of both Kyoto and personal carbon allowances is that such elaborate regulatory systems would be difficult to set up and nearly impossible to enforce fairly. I think it could all too easily become a swamp of corrupt dealing that would just not produce the needed reductions in carbon emissions. International tensions are already high; this situation is only going to worsen as fossil fuel supplies decrease. The world does not now and will never have the ability to establish such a regulatory scheme with the necessary teeth. We must find ways to accomplish this country-by-country. Fortunately, controlling fossil fuel use would have benefits in each country; international agreements are unnecessary. For example, importation of fossil fuels means that huge amounts of capital must leave the country. Spending this money at home on conservation, wind power, sidewalks, and the like has surprisingly large benefits, such as improving the social cohesion of a country and making its economy less vulnerable to external shocks.
The authors don't think that carbon taxation could be made high enough to make a difference to the climate. Is that a reason not to use it? After all, carbon taxes could be combined with carbon trading. The authors miss the fundamental point here that carbon taxation could work fine if it were presented as a tax shift rather than a tax increase. Shift taxes away from taxing income to taxing gasoline and other fossil fuels. Make the shift as close to dollar-for-dollar as can be managed. Why would people object to this? After all, if they really wanted to, they could take the savings from their income taxes and spend them on gasoline. Income taxes are essentially a tax on employment--but employment is something we want to have. Taxes are necessary for all governments to function; taxes work best when they are collected on activities we DON'T want.
The book's biggest omission is one that other reviewers have mentioned: it says too little on the subject of population. We have no hope at all of achieving a sustainable economy without a stable population. This is as true for the U.S. as for the world as a whole.
Overall, though, the book is well written and interesting.
Summary of The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe
An outstanding overview on global warming--and what we can do about it--from a distinguished world-class authority
Climate change is the single biggest problem that humankind has ever had to face, as we continue with lifestyles that are way beyond the planet's limits. Mayer Hillman explains the real issues: what role technology can play, how you and your community can make changes, and what governments must do now to protect our planet for future generations. In The Suicidal Planet, he proposes:
- A ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions by the world's governments
- Global carbon rationing to reduce our individal carbon outputs to a fair and ecologically safe level
- Helpful guidelines for the home, travel, and leisure
- And much, much more.
Featuring the very latest information on global warming completely revised to include U.S. facts and figures, The Suicidal Planet takes us out of the problem and into the solution of our international crisis.
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