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| A Newer World
ISBN: 9781611683516
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of New Hampshire Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Climate change mitigation.; Climatic changes; Climatic changes;
Hewitt, adjunct instructor at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, takes a broad look at efforts to combat the effects of climate change and finds much that is encouraging. He begins by addressing the Climategate scandal, reinforcing the conclusion that climate change is a scientifically sound matter of "deep concern" while using the moment to summarize related activity in science, politics, the media, and in the general public. Touching on disinformation efforts, Hewitt categorizes the Republicans as the only political party among "the world's democracies that refuses to acknowledge the manifest reality of climate change." He then takes a kitchen-sink approach to covering local, national, and international efforts to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases through changing energy sources, clean technology, and financial, political, and development policies. There are occasional structural missteps-such as a section on mountaintop-removal coal mining that contains only two paragraphs, one on coal mining and the other, inexplicably, on mangroves-but he does offer positive news, like a research paper that demonstrates how, by using existing clean, renewable energy technologies, humanity could produce 15 times the energy currently created. In general, though Hewitt's book is dense, it is a helpful synopsis of the world's efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change. 18 illus. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
WILLIAM F. HEWITT has been an environmental professional and activist for more than twenty-five years. He is a writer and teacher of graduate and continuing education classes on energy and the environment, climate change, and clean technology at New York University's Center for Global Affairs. |
