In the decade since the 'Earth Summit' in Rio de Janiero, the response of the world's governments and authorities to the threats to the global environment has been to enforce the reduction of energy consumption and harmful emissions - solutions primarily based around conventional energy resources and conventional thinking. The question is, though, whether this strategy is radical enough to address the key challenges how facing the environment, and whether it can be effective in avoiding catastrophe on a global scale. For Herman Scheer, the answer is a definite no. In this fully updated edition of A Solar Manifesto, he once more attacks the lack of political will to find answers outside a conventional frame of reference. Climate change, pollution, deforestation, destruction of the ozone layer, poverty and the population explosion are all problems created or exacerbated by the use of conventional energy. Seven years after the first edition of this book, answers are now more urgently required that ever, as current policies serve merely to alleviate the escalating symptoms rather than attempting a cure for what could become a terminal affliction. Herman Scheer shows that this crisis may yet be reversed - but it can only be made to happen through a fundamental change in political and economic strategies, paving the way towards a global solar energy economy sustained by new social principles. A Solar Manifesto champions the replacement of fossil and nuclear fuels with solar energy, as a real solution to the threat to the environment and associated social consequences. Scheer constructs a radical yet innovative political and economic model and argues the case with passion and conviction for the global solar economy as the route to a sustainable environment. Thought-provoking and profoundly challenging, this book will be an inspiration to anyone concerned with energy and the global environment.
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'A monumental and breathtaking achievement! It is a visionary masterpiece, a thoughtful and well-reasoned polemic, and a handbook for a new age' Neville Williams, President of the Solar Electric Light Fund, USA 'Scheer's rhetoric could ignite the positive enthusiasm of a new generation' Renew 'Scheer genius' Frank Cook, MP, UK
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Important topic, awful book,
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This review is from: A Solar Manifesto (Paperback)
I'm fully in favour of a solar-driven society, so I had high expectations for A Solar Manifesto. Nothing presages a coming revolution better than a good manifesto. But unfortunately this supposed manifesto is just a badly translated and outdated rant. The solar energy community might well have been better off without it.
To start with, the English prose in this book is often awkward and unconventional. It is apparently a translation from an original German text, but I must say that I have seldom seen such an unprofessional translation in print. Secondly, this is not so much a reasoned argument for solar energy as it is an emotional tirade against contemporary energy policy and against modern society in general. And whatever merits the author may have in other walks of life, a philosopher he is not - his criticism consists of simplifying and repetitive low-brow rhetoric from a very narrow perspective. Finally, this second edition is supposed to be a "fully updated edition". Well, a few developments after the year 2000 have been added, but the majority of the discussion is still clearly set in the situation of the early 1990s. If you're updating a book, you should actually update the year-by-year statistics given in the tables as well. Including a few recent references might not be a bad idea either. In conclusion, as disappointing as it is, I can not recommend this book to anyone. For the environmentally minded, there are much, much better books available on the state of our industrial civilization. For the opponent of solar energy, there are not any arguments worth responding to in this book. Even for the proponent of solar energy, I can not find anything in this book that hasn't been presented in a more sensible way elsewhere. By the time the solar energy revolution comes around, this book will have been deservedly forgotten.
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