Customer Reviews

Kicking the Carbon Habit: Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Global warming is a premise, not something to prove for this book. Manmadeness is demonstrated. Strategies for a partial solution, only as far as US is concerned, are dicussed.
Main thesis is the Faustian deal character of our coal burning habits. While burning wood is even worse in terms of CO2 output, the effect can be neutralized by reforestation. Not so with coal. What took millions of years to build is consumed in a mere few hundreds of years. The depletion of resources is not even the worst aspect of this process, worse is the interference in and reinforcement of climatic trends, which are in themselves dramatic enough when left alone. Looking at world pollution development I would go so far to say that it does not even matter very much whether man influences climate. The other negative impacts of pollution are bad enough to require rethinking.
The inclusion of nuclear power in the arsenal for the future seems hardly avoidable, but, as another reviewer said, it is replacing one Faustian deal with another.
While the book is hardly original, it is definitely worth reading. I am not entirely happy with all aspects of its presentation. For instance some of the illustrations are rather odd (e.g. the photo of the mining activist?) and the graphs are not all very professional. I also think that the text components are not that well balanced. These are minor irritations though and don't require a star reduction.
I wish Mr.Sweet could make an intelligent proposal for China, which is my personal main concern. He describes the dilemmas well: no realistic alternative to large scale long term coal burning.
Puzzling among the comments: there still seem to be quite a few believers in the market's ability to cure these problems. This has been a source of wonder to me since the first study of the Club of Rome came out.
Thanks to Asterix Wikman and Obelix Bruno for directing me to this book! (Their summary of the book is recommendable!)

As Samuel Clemens said "everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it." The same might be said about the "hot" topic of Global Warming. This book provides a detailed and erudite, yet eminently readable, treatment of the subject everyone seems to be talking about these days. A few things set this book apart from most that seek to deal with the issue. Sweet take a scholar's approach to the topic and deals in the facts and the science of Global Warming. It seems to me that he does not have a political ax to grind; rather he logically and scientifically analyzes the problem. Coal, Sweet informs us, is far and away the major culprit in causing climate change. But Sweet doesn't merely tell us this, he explains in detail why it is so. Every position the author takes is backed up by the science and facts, which support it. The subject matter dictates that some of the chapters are more technical and thus read easier than others, but this a minor quibble. The author does an excellent job of explaining the science of Global Warming to those who are not trained scientists. Feasible solutions are discussed in detail. The approach of the author is anything but simplistic. It is apparent that this book is not written for those who are seeking sound bites or in search of politically correct talking points. For example; his suggestion that we should reconsider nuclear energy in light of current technology and the safety record of modern reactors is not likely to be popular with the masses despite the science and logic. To me his explanation of the science seems to make sense and facts are stubborn things. This is an intelligently written book for people who are not afraid to think for themselves. I believe that Kicking the Carbon Habit will appeal to a broad range of people who seek the truth surrounding Global Warming. I also think this is one of those rare books that the reader can either approach a chapter at a time, or become immersed in and read straight through. The end result will be the same; the reader will gain a solid understanding of one of the most discussed topics of our time.

Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and his book by the same name have focused a lot of much needed attention on the topic of Global Warming due to Green House Gasses. In "Kicking the Carbon Habit" eminent science journalist William Sweet provides not only an in-depth analysis of the reality of Global Warming and its causes but a practical program for the United States to take signifigant actions toward averting an impending catastrophy. Mr. Sweet is not an alarmist but I and every thinking person should be alarmed. Despite what the nay sayers and procrastinators may claim this book proves the "Science is In", the "Time is Now" and there is a way to go.

For a well documented and scholarly work "Kicking the Carbon Habit" is surprisingly readable. The "Science" is not "dumbed down" but is presented in easily understood prose lightened by anicdotes about the Scientists and the science. This book provides some optomisim that we can and will overcome the problem if we have the political will. Read it - you'll be encouraged. I was.

Anthropomorphic global warming is probably a large threat to our planet. Unfortunately the United States is doing very poorly in this area, and the rest of the world is loosing patience with us. The average American produces 20 ton of CO² per year. So what is the solution? Should we radically change the way we live, destroy modern society, perhaps starve to death? How can we significantly reduce CO² production and continue functioning as a society.

The answer is that the American CO² output can be significantly reduced in a relatively short time if we focus mostly on the main source of CO² and that is COAL. My home country Sweden does not use Coal generated electricity because of Sweden's higher reliance on nuclear power and hydro electric power. This is very similar to what William Sweet prescribes. Increase the use of Nuclear Power and to a certain degree wind power. He is also suggesting a carbon tax and maybe an increased gasoline tax, but nothing of the sort that they have in Europe. This solution is possible to implement in a short time and without much cost. Nuclear power is a well-proven technology capable of producing electricity at costs that are commercially competitive right now. A new nuclear power plant takes 3-5 years to build.

If you consider that the burning of coal and bio fuels kills millions of people around the world and 30,000+ Americans every year (from other pollutants than CO²), and that Nuclear Power has never killed a single American, this solution also looks good for other reasons. Sweet also advocates the increased use of wind power, however, wind power cannot realistically replace Coal in a near future. It should be noted that Sweet is not advocating nuclear power as a "long term solution" but as a relatively harmless and cheap "temporary solution" until other renewable energy sources can supply the entire country with electricity at a reasonable cost.

Unfortunately people are fearful of nuclear power and many environmentalists have not embraced nuclear power. This fear is based on huge misunderstandings of its risks as well as gross exaggerations of the dangers of long term nuclear waste. For this to work people need to "wise up" and understand the science and the technology around nuclear power. For example, many people do not even understand the inverse relationship between half life and radioactive heat. It will surprise many people that the fuel for power plants Uranium 235/238 is pretty harmless and a very common substance, yes you have it your backyard, and your kids eat it in the sand box. It is also strange how we worry less about extremely radioactive substances that really cause us major harm like Radon. We all need to get smart and start being very afraid of Coal, and stop being so paranoid about nuclear power.

Two thirds of Sweets book is dedicated to the history of global warming research and why we really need to worry about global warming. Unlike Al Gore he is taking a very scientific, honest and cautious approach when explaining the problem. He is never sensationalistic and still he is much more convincing than Al Gore. William Sweet will make you worry about global warming if you did not do so before. The last third of the book is his practical solutions to Americas CO² dilemma. I think his book should instead have spent 1/3 on the global warming issue and 2/3 on his solution.

I would like to criticize his book for being a little weak on countering the many potential counter arguments people fearful of nuclear power might have. However, there are many other books on that subject, for example, "Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy by Gwyneth Cravens and Richard Rhodes", "The Environmental Case for Nuclear Power: Economic, Medical, and Political Considerations by Robert C. Morris", "Nuclear Power: Villain or Victim? Our Most Misunderstood Source of Electricity by Max Carbon", "A Case for Nuclear-Generated Electricity: (Or Why I Think Nuclear Power Is Cool and Why It Is Important That You Think So Too) by Scott Heaberlin".

If other countries has relied on nuclear power, yes even recycling (like France) for many decades without any problems, why can't the U.S, when the welfare of the entire world is at stake? Also I do not consider a carbon tax or a gasoline tax "increased socialism". First of all such measures can be countered with a lower income tax, and the current gasoline tax does not even pay for the transportation infrastructure. There are also special loop holes like the one allowing SUVs to be considered farm vehicles. On the contrary the oil and gasoline industry is being subsidized and the Coal industry is allowed to kill us all and cause global warming without paying for it. William Sweet has probably written the most important book in this decade. I wish more people would take notice.

William Sweet's book, Kicking the Carbon Habit, provides clear and convincing evidence that global warming and cooling trends are directly correlated with changes in carbon in the atmosphere. He accomplishes this by providing an overview of scientific research. He compiles the research, organizes it, and presents it to the reader in a fairly easy-to-read narrative. As someone who is new in the area of carbon emissions and global climate change, I found the book very educational, convincing, and a nice introduction to the scientists who have worked diligently on global climate change.

Sweet believes that we can create a "no-carbon-growth path" within the next 50 years. Three-fourths of the reduction in carbon emissions would come from a combination of conservation, improved energy efficiency, reduced gasoline consumption, and the use of renewable energy. Sweet believes that these, alone, will not succeed in leveling off the use of carbon in the next 50 years.

The remaining quarter would come from nuclear power. Sweet feels this cannot be achieved without an increased use of nuclear power by a handful of wealthy countries. He touches on security issues relating to the use of nuclear power and notes that modern-day reactors and their waste products were relatively safe.

While I'm more convinced that we might need additional nuclear power to reduce carbon emissions, the optimist in me looks at Sweet's work and says, "Wow, we can accomplish about 75% reduction in carbon emissions by becoming conservationists and using renewable energy," a very tall order... to be sure... but possible. I also wonder if it's possible that we may find a way to produce the other ¼ reduction as we progress towards the year 2054.

With or without the use of nuclear power, it seems that we, as a global population, are likely to trade one risky future for another. Which future do we wish to have; one with the risks associated with nuclear power or one with the risks associated with global warming?

William Sweet's "Kicking the Carbon Habit" is a more complex, pragmatic, yet passionate analysis of global warming and related environmental issues than most of the other reviews here on amazon have acknowledged. It is NOT chiefly an advocacy for nuclear power; in fact, nuclear power is advocated only as a partial solution appropriate mainly for the USA, and this option is scarcely mentioned until the penultimate chapter of the book. Sweet's principal arguments are as follows:

1. Carbon emissions are a significant problem, and possibly a catastrophic problem. The consequences are not only global warming but also serious dangers to human health world wide. Human consumption of carbon fuels (coal and petroleum chiefly) are responsible for rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

2. The worst contributor to carbon emissions is coal, especially the coal used to generate electricity. Because of its wealth and technological resources, the USA is potentially well positioned to reduce the use of coal quickly, but developing countries like China and India are not so positioned. Parity in reduction of the use of coal is neither "fair" nor possible.

3. The USA should and must take leadership in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Here are Sweet's words: "...global warming represents a kind of international emergency, requiring immediate concerted effort. As greenhouse gases approach levels never seen in the past 700,000 years, we are drifting into uncharted waters, and so the rational thing to do is to reverse course and get back out, the faster the better. The United States, responsible for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, the world's richest and most capable country, should take especially aggressive action to reduce emissions. Rather than being a global laggard, the United States should be a world leader in this effort."

4. Possible measures include: Conservation of energy; Increased Efficiency of Utilization of Energy; Substitution of Alternate Non-carbon Sources of Energy.

5. Of these, conservation would seem to be the most pragmatic, and yet human nature presents obstacles which can only be overcome by earnest public awareness and, let's be frank, by governmental action and regulation. Increased efficiency is technologically within reach in the proper time frame, but history shows that efficiency has tended to be diluted in effect by profligate increases in consumption; therefore, once again, government action by way of economic policy and regulation will be necessary.

6. Among the alternate sources of energy, only wind power and nuclear power are anywhere close to readiness to play a significant role in reducing emissions. Sweet explains in careful detail the obstacles in expecting much, in the important near future, from solar power, the "hydrogen" economy, ethanol, and carbon dioxide sequestration. These technologies may some day be practical but that day is not in sight. The current political enthusiasm for ethanol is an unfortunate side-track.
7. Economic leverage through taxes and regulatory costs, plus the public recognition of the large hidden costs of coal as an energy source, will make wind power and nuclear power economically attractive eventually, but it would be wise to get started now. Nuclear power has become far safer and more efficient in the last 15 years, and can be considered a good alternative for "dirty" coal-fueled power plants across the USA. However, on a worldwide basis, nuclear power cannot do the whole job for reasons of cost and for considerations of safety. Once again, the US must take on more than a parity of responsibility. Sweet writes: "If the world's greenhouse gas emissions are to be kept from more than doubling in this century, the United States is going to have to do not just its fair share, so to speak, but a little more..... it can afford to do more; because US use of energy is singularly extravagant..."

Alarming thoughts, though Sweet is nobody's idea of an Al Gore alarmist. But wait! I have the answer! I do! Just read on:

Electrical generators can be attached to tread mills, stationary bikes, and step machines from coast to coast, not only in gyms but in private homes. Clearly the electricity generated by such machines cannot replace coal-burning power plants, but there's more to my idea! Beyond a minimum ration of six gallons of gasoline per week for each adult in America, gas allowances will be linked in direct proportion to the amount of electricity generated by human exercise. This can be easily monitored by simple electronic chip-implanted ration cards, to be inserted in the exercise machines for pluses and the gas pumps for minuses. The main behefit will result from the motivation to buy fuel-efficient vehicles. Thus it's a market mechanism! And think of the savings to the medical system which will accrue from all the exercise! the reduction of obesity!
We can also attach tiny generators to the jaws of talk show hosts and screaming heads on TV, as well as voluntarily on callers-in! The net production of power will not be immense, but the pain and fatigue of generating something useful will automatically result in a significant reduction of hot air! A win-win situation.

Kicking The Carbon Habit: Global Warming And The Case Of Renewable And Nuclear Energy doesn't adopt the usual focus on cutting oil consumption: instead it focuses on reducing coal use. Coal-fired plants produce over half of the electricity in the US, accounting for some 40 percent of the country's greenhouse gasses. Sweet doesn't advocate a singular path of change another unusual feature but proposes a mix of environmentally sound technologies from wind power to nuclear reactors. Chapters survey not just techniques but political pros and cons, social effects, and environmental impact.

Oh...where to begin. This book had so much potential and, to my great chagrin, just fizzled. Ok, let's start with the positives. The author, Sweet, is an excellent writer and could undoubtedly make an expose on the finer points of watching acrylic latex dry, seem fascinating. His style is light, well-paced, to the point. In fact each chapter, as he nearly hints at in his introduction, is separately readable in any order and sounds exactly like an article that might appear in IEEE's Spectrum magazine, to which Sweet is a notorious contributor. Unfortunately from an editorial standpoint, this book left a lot to be desired. First of all, more than half of the book is related to a brief history of climatologists' attempts, successes and failures, to come up with a foundation for and later, a workable model of global warming viz. a viz. greenhouse gases/carbon, etc. That's fine, but for the price of this book, I think I'd either like less history and more solutions, or a proportionate amount of solutions...meaning a much larger book. Since the technical aspects of 'kicking the carbon habit' were probably not the focus of Sweet in the first place, then he should have dispensed with all that history.

Secondly, the diagrams in the book are atrocious--all the more so given Sweet's pedigree. There are few if any captions that properly explain what the diagrams are illustrating--TABOO IN SCIENCE! There is no excuse for this. In most cases, the axes of the graphs aren't even labelled. It looked like Sweet just got permission to reproduce a graph that a scientist thought would be illustrative of an idea, without at least giving the layman a proper explanation. Shameful and amateurish in the extreme.

The barely 70 pages of more than 200 that are devoted to actual suggestions to eliminating carbon emissions were well presented, but all too brief obviously. I don't like spending my money and then being deceived like this. I don't know whether this was Sweet's doing or the publisher's, but the book's content is hardly consistent with the jacket blurbs.

Although the tenor of the book for the most part avoids partisan sentiments, Sweet did allow himself a couple of potshots at the current administration and a few high-fives for the two previous democratic administrations. Left at that, it's ok, but smells a little fishy given the volatile climate of politics with respect to the Left and the Right on this subject.

But my biggest problem with the book's so-called solutions is that Sweet, for all his excellent writing skills and frankness in promulgating nuclear power, can do nothing better in his final grand solution than do what all the Lefties (and Greenies)have ever suggested with regard to any problem this country faces--TAX AND REGULATE!! Until the Lefties and their cousins can figure out that Americans don't like taxation and regulation; that taxation and regulation NEVER work with anything; that market based solutions generally DO work; that the science is still open to interpretation (a point he barely brings to life concerning the viewpoints of one of the scientists on whom he focuses) on carbon emissions....conservative scientists like this reviewer will not give much credence to those wishing to "save the environment" at any cost. In essence, I paid twenty-some dollars, hoping and expecting a fresh viewpoint from the establishment and seemingly getting it for the most part in this book, until the same old song and dance was unfortunately exposed. TAX and REGULATE will get us out of the fix we're in....NO, I DON'T THINK SO.

Try again, Mr. Sweet.