The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription [Paperback]

Ross Gelbspan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 1998

This book not only brings home the imminence of climate change but also examines the campaign of deception by big coal and big oil that is keeping the issue off the public agenda. It examines the various arenas in which the battle for control of the issue is being fought--a battle with surprising political alliances and relentless obstructionism. The story provides an ominous foretaste of the gathering threat of political chaos and totalitarianism. And it concludes by outlining a transistion to the future that contains, at least, the possibility of continuity for our organized civilization, and, at best, a vast increase in the stability, equity, and wealth of the global economy.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ross Gelbspan has been an editor and reporter at The Village Voice, and The Washington Post. He covered the U.N. Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972, and addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1998. As special projects editor of The Boston Globe, he conceived, directed and edited a series of articles that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; Upd Sub edition (September 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738200255
• ISBN-13: 978-0738200255
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 79 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, Compelling Book about Global Warming March 6, 2000

By Erik J Wheeler

Format:Paperback

"The Heat is On" is a well-researched, detailed description of how the coal and oil industries are trying (and succeeding) to confuse the issue of global warming today. In this frightening exposé, Ross Gelbspan shows how the fossil fuel industries are spending millions of dollars to confuse the public through misleading advertising and PR tactics in order to protect their financial interests. The story behind this campaign of lies is astounding.

Try a little experiment: talk to several people about global warming. Just bring it up in the conversation, and watch their reaction. I did, and I found that most people laughed, or said, "Yeah, but I heard there's no conclusive evidence to support that." This is the direct effect of the fossil fuel industry's PR campaign. Gelbspan describes how they have done this largely through industry-created groups with misleading names (such as the "Information Council on the Environment"), and pseudo-scientists paid by the industry.

Gelbspan explains that the industry's groups and scientists have received a great deal of media coverage because journalists, as part of their duty, are compelled to cover both sides of the story. The problem is that the "other side of the story" in this case is a small group who is paid by the industry. The confusion and lies promoted by the fossil fuel industry has been enough to drown out the 2,500 climate scientists around the world who all agree that global warming is a fact.

"The Heat is On" offers irrefutable facts to debunk the myth that global warming evidence is inconclusive. For example, many people claim that recent extreme colde and winter weather refutes the theory. Wrong, says Gelbspan: "severe winter weather perfectly consistent with global warming. One effect of climate change is to produce more extreme local temperatures--leading to hotter hots, unseasonal colds, and more severe snowstorms." And temperature changes are just the beginning of the problem. Other effects include outbreaks of disease, proliferation of pests, and extinction of species, among others.

The only solution is to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions, probably as much as 60%. This is no easy task, but Gelbspan does offer a plausible "prescription". He suggests that we (1) divert all fossil fuels subsidies ($20 billion/year!) to renewable energy development, (2) implement efficiency standards to require generating facilities to be highly efficient (instead of the current 35% efficiency average), and (3) support developing nations in the conversion with an international currency transaction tax.

This is a very powerful book. Hopefully it will help to re-educate the public, and serve as a model for global change. I strongly recommend it.

37 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sobering synopsis of global climate change July 10, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Gelbspan is a reporter for the Boston Globe who does a great job of describing the science, economics and politics behind gobal climate change. He does an excellent job of defining the problem (in layman's terms) and discussing the disinformation campaign sponsored by the oil industry.

If you're looking for the nitty-gritty science behind global warming, you will find only a sampling in the appendix. Gelbspan starts with the assumption that the thousands of world class climatologists who make up the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) are correct in their consensus that climate change is real and happening now. From that assumption, he unleashes a barrage of disturbing anecdotal evidence describing the many effects of climate change. He also unmasks the efforts of a few scientists backed by the oil industry to sabotage the findings of IPCC. The book presents a thorough and disturbing expose of this effective PR campaign to neutralize the warnings of the scientific community.

40 of 49 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A confirmation of what I have experienced February 4, 2000

By A research and development fluids engineer

Format:Paperback

Ten years ago, I began to research and learn as much as I could about global warming. In that attempt I have watched alarming predictions be issued along with a growing, but minority voice indicating the opposite. I began to research these groups and their information. I learned a valuable lesson; good science and logic can no longer (nor probably ever was) used for sound policy decisions without the ugly head of bias and disinformation rising.

This book serves to illustrate what I have experienced in the frustrating attempt to separate politics from science. I purchased "The Heated Debate" after learning from e-mail correspondance with global greenhouse skeptics that their mission is not to establish the scientific truth, but rather to protect vested interests. Needless to say, the words of this book were enlightening, confirming, and had excellent attention to detail that makes this book stand out as a firm summary to the "debate" of anthropogenic (man induced) climate change.

It doesn't take long to learn what this book so amply demostrates; that propagandist statements from global greenhouse skeptics often are a pronosticator of poor science and obvious bias, and the dangers of the politicalization of the search for truth. As this book correctly states , scientific inquiry from industry isn't automatically nullified but it too needs to be peer-reviewed and subjected to the same processes as all other scientific research. This book makes it clear that evidence contrary to the scientific consensus has not met passed this test. After reading this book and comparing it to my own research, I find that the general conclusions outlined in the book are that the politicalization of science is at the very heart of this particular "debate," not the science itself. Science becomes the victim in the politics of global climate change. Furthermore, the details of the "debate" in the US congress have so clearly and tragically indicated that some of those in power to make policy decisions are often too ignorant, scientifically illiterate, and have questionable ethical standards to be in such a powerful position. This book might be a wake-up call to not only the vast evidence in favor of an anthropogenic climate change but also to the need of a more scientifically literate public and its servants.

I have to say that the scattered passages indicating extreme weather during the various timelines in the book are not useful. Indeed it is far too easy to use these passages as some kind of weak evidence that this book uses scare tactics as so many greenhouse skeptics accuse environmental publications and agencies of using. However, the actual transcipts of congressional hearings used in this book are more than enough to scare me let alone the poor science used by the skeptics in winning congressional approval for their biased lobbying efforts.