Only a sea change in our thinking will save climate

SCORES of books on global warming have been published since rising temperatures first made headlines and inspired an increase in climate modeling in the 1980s.

The 1990s saw a blizzard of scientific papers and efforts in the media to both disentangle and capitalize on disagreement over the existence, threat and future of global warming trends.

The new millennium, post-Kyoto, added a fresh layer of acronyms as organizations sprang up to encourage research and activism. National Geographic called 2004 the year that global warming “got respect”; it was also the year of the movie “The Day After Tomorrow.” In May 2006, “An Inconvenient Truth” debuted on-screen, with Al Gore bringing the issue home in the same way that Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” convinced readers around the world of the toxic threat of pesticides and other chemicals to our health and the health of the planet.

Now that the debate over whether the climate is changing and whether human activity is contributing to this change has been settled according to the vast majority of scientists, the literature has gotten tighter, more focused and easier to digest.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s 2006 book, “Field Notes From a Catastrophe,” explained the mechanisms of climate change -- in particular the “feedback loops” that amplify the effect of higher temperatures on the environment and that make the danger to life more imminent each year -- in a stunningly clear scientific and literary way.

Part of its beauty lay in the fact that, unlike so many books on climate change, Kolbert’s was told in a single voice, making it much easier to follow.

However, because the problem is so enormous, encompassing many scientific disciplines, not to mention social, political, economic, technological and psychological fields, books on climate change are most often written by teams of experts and academics.

Two seemingly incongruous problems arise with this model: first, too much diversity, a wide variety of writing styles under a single cover (each chapter forces the reader to refocus, to suss out that particular author’s agenda); and second, a lack of diversity in point of view, not only political but also professional (usually heavily weighted on the academic end of the spectrum).

The first problem loses readers; the second is one of the gravest issues facing the environmental and climate-change movements: preaching to the converted. What good is all this work and time and money if it is spent creating, in effect, an emotional ark for the smug and chosen few?

“Ignition” goes a long way toward solving these two problems, in part, one suspects, because Bill McKibben, one of the greatest thinkers and writers on humans and nature, was one of the forces behind a march across Vermont last summer that framed and inspired this book as well as featured many of its contributors. Although there are many authors, there is a stylistic coherence one usually doesn’t see in books on climate change.

More important, “Ignition” vastly enlarges the ark. The authors contend that climate change, what McKibben once called “the mother of all environmental challenges,” is not just an environmental issue. It is all about community. Although scientists and economists provided the initial spark, only a widespread social movement, like the civil rights movement, will ensure the kinds of changes needed to reverse current trends. Nothing less than conscious evolution is required.

Although most of the contributors have academic backgrounds and many are longtime activists, they come from a wide array of professions: policymakers such as Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; attorneys; the heads of organizations including Greenpeace and Physicians for Social Responsibility; research scientists; a religious activist; economists; grant-givers; historians of social movements; and students.

Some of the chapters are quite practical, offering guidelines for framing issues, making movements successful and collaborative efforts to break congressional gridlock. A few read like speeches or lectures, but they are a small minority.

The afterword is written by two students in their early 20s, “the generation that came of age on September 11, 2001.”

The lesson young people learned from that tragedy, they write, is that when the fate of the world is really at stake, our leaders often fail us, either calling for “baby steps” or scaring “Americans into thinking that nothing can be done about it.”

“To avoid catastrophe in our generation,” they write, “we need to start changing fundamentally the way the whole world produces and consumes energy in less than eight years.

“We cannot wait for Washington.”

susan.reynolds@latimes.com

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More books on global warming

Other new and upcoming books on climate change:

“Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren,” edited by Joseph F.C. DiMento and Pamela Doughman (The MIT Press: 208 pp., $19.95, coming in September).

This book, a clear-headed effort to explain the gap between science and policy, contains some fascinating data on the consensus among scientists.

“The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change” by Dinyar Godrej (New Internationalist Press: 144 pp., $11.95 paper). The comprehensive overview of climate change includes chapters on the effects on farming, human health, wildlife and forests. Great graphics.

“With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change” by Fred Pearce (Beacon Press: 259 pp., $24.95) Fred Pearce is not afraid to make you afraid. Full of terrifying scenarios (ponder death by methane gas after the permafrost covering the Siberian tundra melts). Fearless in its own way. If this is what it takes

-- Susan Salter Reynolds