John J. Berger''s new climate book: A comprehensive approach to saving the planet

 The top-of-mind responses to the climate crisis tend to be few and simple.

Use less fossil fuel and switch transportation to electric vehicles, restore forests, recycle, eat less meat.

But a serious response requires a broad rethinking of everything about how we live on the planet. And that’s complex.

John J. Berger’s new book runs through a lot of the approaches that are already underway and makes recommendations for how to proceed. The book is Solving the Climate Crisis: Frontline Reports from the Race to Save the Earth.

Berger is the author of Climate Myths, Beating the Heat, Forests Forever and more. He is a noted environmental writer and climate policy expert, and in his latest book he conducts a comprehensive review of strategies to address our warming climate.

Some possible solutions are underway right now or at least starting. Manufacturing steel that doesn’t depend on massive fossil fuel inputs. Replacing oil-based products with ones made from plants. Electric and fuel cell aircraft.

There’s green concrete, new approaches to recycling, buildings that produce more power than they use, hydrogen cargo trucks and so much more.

There are examples of farmers who have turned problematic fossil-fuel-reliant businesses into thriving green enterprises that restore the soil and entrain carbon. He outlines the benefits of saving and expanding forests.

He reviews some of the geoengineering approaches, like sucking carbon out of the atmosphere, and seeding the skies with compounds that reflect solar radiation.

He takes a realistic look at the issues associated with decarbonizing planet-wide.

There’s clearly lots to be done at the legal, policy and international affairs levels, Berger writes. His to-do list starts with a national recognition that we are in an emergency, and that we need a National Clean Energy Transition Plan.

But it would all be so very costly, right? Maybe not.

“Various studies have found that a clean-energy transition would cost no more than 2 percent of gross domestic product in the United States,” Berger writes. He says he worries about the accuracy of those estimates, but even so, “that’s a pretty good deal, given all the other economic, environmental, and health benefits the United States would also receive.”

Berger’s book is a little overwhelming in its scope, but it’s well-written and anyone interested in how we need to approach this crisis will find lots to chew on. That, and some hope. It may be complicated, but it's possible, is Berger's message.

It does occur to me that, given the topic of the book, an actionable strategy for Berger would have been making the ebook dramatically less expensive than a paper copy of the book, but it’s close to $20 for the electronic version. Here, here, here and here are a some ways to find Solving the Climate Crisis.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2024