The Heat Is on: The High Stakes Battle over Earth's Threatened Climate [Hardcover]

Ross Gelbspan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1997

In The Heat Is On, Ross Gelbspan exposes the deliberate campaign by oil and coal interests, teamed with conservative politicians, to confuse the public about global warming and the disruptive weather patterns that mark its initial stages. He shows how these fossil fuel proponents have supported the efforts of a small but highly vocal group of "scientific skeptics" whose statements distort the nature of scientific debate, raising doubts in the public mind about this threat which is, in fact, a matter of solid scientific consensus. Gelbspan sets the record straight with contributions from four of the world's leading climate scientists. Ironically, The Heat Is On also shows that the news about climatic change is now so bad that it may well help to save us as it brings the worldwide insurance industry, saddled with billions in unprecedented claims from weather-related damage, into the battle against fossil fuels. The book explains what this emerging alliance among the insurance industry, environmentalists, and a number of the world's most vulnerable nations must do to save the planet. Capturing both the global scope and the historical uniqueness of our dilemma, it shows that the price of inaction may extend well beyond flood-prone lowlands and drought-prone agricultural lands. One casualty could be democracy itself as nations faced with weather-related destabilization resort to totalitarian measures to control their populations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The world is behaving strangely these days: grassfires rage across millions of acres in Texas and Mongolia, heat waves kill hundreds in Milwaukee and Bombay, floods ravage North Dakota and Oman. Ross Gelbspan, a veteran journalist, seizes on these and other alarming examples to argue that global warming is fast upon us--and, more to the point, that the multitrillion-dollar energy concerns are doing their best to keep the world public from knowing about widespread changes in the global climate caused, in part, by the fossil fuel-induced destruction of the ozone layer. His polemic is always interesting, if often arguable, and Gelbspan tempers his attack on Big Energy with a reasonable proposal that alternative-energy programs be given greater funding priority in the United States (the rest of the industrial world having already made great investments in geothermal, solar, and wind energy).

From School Library Journal

YA?Like Our Stolen Future (Dutton, 1996), this is a readable and cogent discussion of important environmental issues. Gelbspan writes a response to what he terms the oil and coal industries' attempts to downplay the coming emergency of global warming. Covering the confusing issues of the current debate, he explains why fluctuating temperatures, not just warmer temperatures, are part of the evidence for climate change caused by mass industrialization. He convincingly describes the possible outcomes for the planet and society if science is ignored: plagues, flooding, starvation, and anarchy. Arguments against the dire climatic possibilities, and those who espouse them, are thoroughly discussed, referenced, and disputed. The detailed index and bibliographic notes to each chapter make this book a comprehensive reference source as well an educational work of nonfiction. Rebuttals from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to well-known climate-change skeptics are included in an appendix. An important addition to YAs' store of knowledge concerning the planet they are to inherit.?Carol DeAngelo, Garcia Consulting Inc., EPA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 278 pages
• Publisher: Perseus Books; 1St Edition edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201132958
• ISBN-13: 978-0201132953
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,974,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading on this subject, December 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Heat Is on: The High Stakes Battle over Earth's Threatened Climate (Hardcover)

Ross Gelbspan provides an invaluable addition to the literature on a global problem. He details the way in which the oil and coal industries, both of whom have an enormous financial stake in the status quo, energy-wise, have poured money into a propaganda campaign designed to prevent action on global warming. They have done so by creating the illusion that there is a genuine debate by scientists as to whether global warming is taking place. Probably the most valuable part of the book is the appendix in which Gelbspan reproduces statements from leading climate scientists demolishing some of the most common arguments of the so-called "greenhouse skeptics" Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and S. Fred Singer, three key figures in the corporate propaganda campaign.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A crucial read for those concerned with Earth's future, June 24, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Heat Is on: The High Stakes Battle over Earth's Threatened Climate (Hardcover)

At a time when sensationalism (of the O.J. Simpson variety) and self-absorption (the broad interest in exclusively personal memoirs) dominate public conversation, Ross Gelbspan courageously tackles one of the most important ecological and moral challenges confronting us--the perils of unchecked human-caused climate change. Gelbspan's text weaves together a thorough expose of the so-called global-warming skeptics (whose arguments are weak but well-funded by fossil-fuel interests) with disconcerting accounts of what's actually happening to Earth's weather. While the specific intellectual weaknesses of the "skeptics'" arguments could have been further highlighted, The Heat is On is both a fine contribution to ecological literature and one of this year's most important books on any subject

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gelbspan offers insight into science & politics of warming, September 10, 1998

By 

Bill Moore (Papillion, NE USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Heat Is on: The High Stakes Battle over Earth's Threatened Climate (Hardcover)

Having just read The Heat Is On and interviewed both Ross Gelbspan and Robert Balling for EV World, I came away with an appreciation of both the complexity of the issue, but also the politics underlying it. While Gelbspan admits he's no climatologist, he's interviewed numerous professionals in the field, and read the works of the leading skeptics, including Balling who would have you believe that this is a non-issue and even if it were an issue, we can't do anything about it. Ross not only thinks we can do something about it, but he's also spent the last year working with others to develop a plan to begin the gradual transition away from fossil fuels to sustainable technologies, one which won't jeopardize the global economy or the environment. EV World features RealAudio interviews with both Gelbspan and Balling.