Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
Hell and High Water and over 300,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
67 used & new from $2.97

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do
 
 
Start reading Hell and High Water on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.
 
  

Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do (Hardcover)

by Joseph Romm (Author)
Key Phrases: next fifty generations, ice discharge, wildfire season, United States, White House, National Academy of Sciences (more...)
4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

List Price: $24.95
Price: $19.96 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $4.99 (20%)
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Only 4 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want it delivered Tuesday, July 7? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
33 new from $5.74 34 used from $2.97
Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Kindle Edition (Kindle Book) $7.96
Hardcover (Bargain Price) 15 used & new from $5.97

Frequently Bought Together

Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do + With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change + When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century
Price For All Three: $41.04

Show availability and shipping details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming

Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming

by Michael E. Mann
4.4 out of 5 stars (7)  $14.55
When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-first Century

by Fred Pearce
4.4 out of 5 stars (33)  $10.88
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

by Elizabeth Kolbert
4.5 out of 5 stars (52)  $5.58
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America

by Thomas L. Friedman
3.9 out of 5 stars (217)  $18.45
Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning

by George Monbiot
4.4 out of 5 stars (23)  $13.50
Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Physicist Romm, a veteran of the Department of Energy and founder and director of the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, presents a clear and effective primer on climate science. But the most salient aspects of this provocative expose involve Romm's documentation of what he calls the Bush administration's irresponsible and backward energy policies, the censorship of legitimate and urgent information pertaining to global warming, and the threats rising temperatures pose to "the health and well-being of this nation and the world." Romm explains that we already possess the technologies and know-how we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; what we lack is the will to act. As Romm analyzes the "miscoverage" of global-warming realities in the press, especially the facts pertaining to dire changes already affecting plants, animals, and humans, he laments the perversity and folly of politicizing a global crisis. We must recognize, Romm asserts, that "ideology trumps rationality" all too often in public discourse, preventing us from doing what needs to be done to avert still preventable catastrophes. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Urgent, reasoned, and informative ... America had better listen up--this may be our last chance to stop global warming." (James Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow (December 26, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006117212X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061172120
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #69,982 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #31 in  Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Climatology > Climate Changes
    #46 in  Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Political Science > Public Policy
    #49 in  Books > Outdoors & Nature > Ecology > Rivers

Inside This Book (learn more)


Books on Related Topics (learn more)
 
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do
79% buy the item featured on this page:
Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do 4.7 out of 5 stars (22)
$19.96
Hell and High Water: The Global Warming Solution
12% buy
Hell and High Water: The Global Warming Solution
$12.56
Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming
3% buy
Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming 4.4 out of 5 stars (7)
$14.55
The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate (Science Essentials)
3% buy
The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate (Science Essentials) 4.0 out of 5 stars (10)
$15.61

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?

 

Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (19)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars His hair is on fire, January 3, 2007
And ours should be too.

Joseph Romm, who is an expert on energy (author of The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate (2004), which I highly recommend), holds a PhD in physics with an emphasis on the physics of weather. Consequently he writes from a position of knowledge about climate change that few others can match. He is also politically savvy, having worked in the Department of Energy in the Clinton administration. His hair is on fire because the danger to the planet from global warming is frighteningly real, and it appears that nobody is going to do anything about it until it is too late.

Part I is devoted to both making it absolutely clear that global warming is caused by human activities, in particular the burning of fossil fuels, while giving some considerable data on just what the consequences of global warming will be for the planet and in particular for the US. A number of meany-mouthed nay-sayers have suggested that a little warming won't be so bad, especially for the US. Romm lays this mythology into its grave by showing that the most recent scientific projections show that unchecked global warming will be a disaster for the US, inflicting enormous damage to our costal areas, burying much of Louisiana, Florida and other parts of the US under water, and creating dust bowl conditions in the Midwest far worse than experienced in the 1930s.

The real meat of this book however begins in Part II, "The Politics and the Solution," and in particular in Chapter 5, "How Climate Rhetoric Trumps Climate Reality."

Have you ever asked yourself why conservative politicians are in a state of denial about global warming? I have, and Romm is the first one to explain it to me. Simply put, "ideology trumps rationality." Romm spells it out: "Most conservatives cannot abide the SOLUTION to global warming--strong government regulations and a government-led effort to accelerate clean-energy technologies into the market." (p. 107) Therefore they become what Romm calls "Denyers and Delayers." They are indulging in political purity--but at what price?

In this connection I was intrigued and frankly amazed to find out that many conservatives are in the thrall of novelist Michael Crichton who wrote a novel entitled "State of Fear" in which the villain is a scientist who "falsifies scientific studies to justify draconian steps to curb global warming." Romm notes that President George W. Bush was a big fan of Crichton's book, and ignored "every major study by the world's leading climate scientists," and instead invited Crichton to the White House where they "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement" (quoting Fred Barnes, p. 102). It appears that not only does Bush practice "faith-based" foreign policy, he gets his science not from scientists but from misinformed writers of science fiction!

In Chapter 10, "Missing the Story of the Century," Romm takes the media to task for not getting the global warming story straight. Fearful of criticism by right-wing think-tank pundits sponsored by the likes of Exxon-Mobil and others with a vested interest in fossil fuels, the media has given more than equal time to a few bought "scientists" who think that global warming is the result of natural causes. This is to the relative exclusion of the many thousands of scientists who have made it clear that global warming is being caused by human activities, most directly by the burning of fossil fuels. It's the Big Lie as practiced by the Bush administration whose attitude toward global warming is to wait and see, and meanwhile business as usual. Romm's point is that we can't afford to wait. Conservatives who are afraid of intervention by government are foolish since if we don't act now we will get Big Government (and worse) with a vengeance down the road when "hell and high water" are upon us.

Romm outlines an eight-point program (fully stated on pages 22-23) that will successfully counter and then reverse the trend toward catastrophic global warming. It includes performance-based efficiency programs; efficiency gains from industry and power generation through "cogeneration" of heat and power (instead of wasting the heat, which is what we do now); building wind turbines; capturing carbon dioxide from proposed coal plants; building nuclear plants to generate electricity without CO2 waste; greatly improving the fuel economy of our vehicles using "plug-in hybrid" drives; increasing production of high-yield energy crops; and stopping tropical deforestation while planting more trees.

The compelling thing about this program is that it can be implemented with existing technology and will lead to the end of dependence on foreign oil and will create energy-sector jobs here at home for millions of Americans.

Will our head-in-the-sand politicians listen? Not while Bush is president they won't; but if we, as Romm urges, become "one-issue" voters, we can in November 2008 usher in an enlightened administration that will immediately begin work on saving ourselves and the planet from a catastrophe worse than any we have ever faced.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Practical Guide ..., January 22, 2007
As I sit here typing, I can see the snow and ice just outside our window. I also hear people grumbling around me "What global warming?" but they're forgetting something ~~ this has definitely been a very mild winter for us in northwest Ohio and it is very unusual that we're just now getting our first snow of the season. Normally, we start getting snow in mid-November and by this time in January, the romance of the snow is pretty much all gone. Not this year.

After reading this book, I am now more concerned about what our government is not doing (it'll be interesting to see the backlash to the State of the Union speech tomorrow night) to work with these legitimate and valid concerns. This is not your typical scaremonger book. In fact, this book is written by the former acting assistant secretary at the Department of Energy, heading the office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Romm writes about the reasons why you don't hear a lot of scientists flooding the media with dire warnings of our actions and the near future of global warming ~~ he writes vividly and rationally, pointing no fingers of blame at anyone. He writes a history of scientific studies and the Delayers and Denyers tactics in stalling appropriate responses to issues that should have been addressed yesterday if not today. He writes simply. He writes of the truth. He backs his reasons up with scientific studies and news reports.

He doesn't point fingers at anyone ~~ just states simply the facts and the solutions he thinks are viable in fixing this problem before it's too late. Already, we're seeing record hurricanes, droughts and mild winters and already, we're seeing signs of glaciers melting. Romm debunks what the current administration is doing in fixing global warming and offers other viable solutions (after going into details about what would happen if we built more coal or nuclear plants as well as just how exactly far the hybrid cars have come along).

This is a very straight-forward book and very well-written. Instead of worrying about catching the Avian flu, I think I am now more worried about global warming. And what I can do to help educating others about it. If you want to get some insights and a practical guide on what needs to be done, I would highly suggest getting this book.

1-23-07
Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, Precise and Actionable, January 30, 2007
By David A. Bassett (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
During a conversation in Washington, DC in 1988, I was stunned by how succinctly my former professor Carl Sagan was able to summarize the behavior of bureaucrats inside the U.S. Government. After listening quietly to my rant about inactions of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the subject of acid rain and global warming, Sagan simply offered the following one-liner: "Bureaucratic Ecocide."

Joe Romm's convincing, straight-forward and extremely well-written book reminds me of Sagan's ability to cut to the quick of a matter like a laser beam. Romm writes with precision and insight about a complex subject. This gift is made all the more precious to us because of the layers of obfuscation, half-truths and outright lies of the "Deniers and Delayers." Because of the complexity of the subject and the murky job done to date by the press, Romm's talent to clarify shines like a beacon to all thinkers on the planet. Read this book - for yourself and for the generations yet to come. Then take action.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Can you say consensus? Is the debate really over?
Having just read Joseph Romm's book and, earlier, other global warming and climate change alarmist books, I've been assured by Romm and others that the case has already been... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Charles Haigh

5.0 out of 5 stars Journalists should read this!
I hope journalists discover this book and take a harder/firmer stance on global warming.

Very well done, Mr. Romm!!!
Published 16 months ago by Dan Hagen

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Available Book on Climate Change
There are literally dozens of excellent books on global warming and climate change, but this one is the best. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Glenn Gallagher

5.0 out of 5 stars Alarming--because it's factual
As an environmental policy grad student, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what we're in for with climate change. Read more
Published 22 months ago by B. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars Wake Up Call
It's time to wake up to what's going on with our world and what we're doing to it. As a long time participant in the petroleum and related industries worldwide it has long been... Read more
Published on June 9, 2007 by Damon A. Petersdom

5.0 out of 5 stars Great informative book
If you want the facts about global warming and what we need to do about it straight from the experts' mouths, this is the book for you. Read more
Published on May 18, 2007 by Dana A. Nuccitelli

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
I thought this book was really interesting in explaining the US politics behind global warming and the what has not been done in recent years by the US to curb global warming. Read more
Published on May 9, 2007 by Michael Ogden

5.0 out of 5 stars Good advice rarely is heeded....
Romm brings quite a bit of expertise and gravitas to his arguments. Arguably in the know about government policy practices Romm lays out both a convincing scenario about global... Read more
Published on May 4, 2007 by Barkie

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'must' for any collection serious in global warming issues
Global warming is threatening the whole world, and HELL AND HIGH WATER is a wake-up call to the country, critiquing American environmental and energy policy and offering a call to... Read more
Published on April 19, 2007 by Midwest Book Review

5.0 out of 5 stars another great treatment from Romm
Romm really does a great job of logically building his case. He provides references on both sides of arguments prior to drawing conclusions. Read more
Published on April 6, 2007 by ChemSciGuy

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   


Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Help us improve this fledgling article by editing it on Amapedia.com opens new browser window



Look for Similar Items by Category


Plumbing Products in the Value Center

Home Improvement Value Center Plumbing Products
Turn it on for less with spectacular deals on brand-name faucets, showerheads, and more in the Home Improvement Value Center.

Shop the Value Center

 

Best Books of 2008

Best of 2008
Find our top 100 editors' picks as well as customers' favorites in dozens of categories in our Best Books of 2008 Store.
 

Summer Reading for Kids & Teens

Summer Reading for Kids and Teens
Discover everything from beach reads and board books to teen romance and action-adventure series in Summer Reading for Kids & Teens. And, check off the kids' required reading lists in our Summer School Reading Store.
 

Best Books

Best of the Month
See our editors' picks and more of the best new books on our Best of the Month page.
 

 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Where's My Stuff?

Shipping & Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue shopping: Top Sellers

Conditions of Use | Privacy Notice © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates