It is one thing for citizens to recognize a problem; it is quite another for them to compel legislators to actually do something about it. Like the civil rights and women's campaigns before it, the climate movement, despite its so-called birth with the first Earth Day celebration in 1970, is still in its nascency; and like its forerunners, it, too, must rely heavily on the grassroots efforts of individuals to pressure government at every level, from local to international, to create and enforce the laws and regulations critical to stopping the eco-destruction of the planet. To learn what works and what doesn't in this basic form of activism, the editors have assembled a veritable who's who of scholars, student leaders, and civic officials that includes such environmental heavy hitters as Bill McKibben, Ted Nordhaus, and Jared Duval. The goal is to create a persuasive and constructive handbook designed to turn a groundswell of environmental awareness into a tidal wave of strategic initiatives specifically formulated for twenty-first-century issues and opportunities. Haggas, Carol
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.
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.
[B]ecause 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." --Los Angeles Times
