cover image Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet

Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet

Chris Spence. Palgrave MacMillan, $33 (191pp) ISBN 978-1-4039-6698-8

""One day soon, climate change is going to affect you,"" writes Spence in the introduction to this primer on what he sees as an urgent environmental crisis. The book's tone is relatively light despite the heavy subject matter (""The future's so hot!...Sadly, though, we're not talking about svelte runway professionals giving us the lowdown on next season's fashions."") Seven chapters break the problem down into its components: after a chapter defining what global warming is thought to be, Spence, a New Zealand-based journalist who project manages at the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, treats global warming's effects on the weather, on the earth itself and on individuals. He then shifts to cover current efforts to combat the problem, and to explain what businesses and individuals should be doing (but mostly aren't). Strategies range from lobbying elected officials to washing clothes in cold water instead of hot. No Cassandra touting doomsday scenarios, Spence clearly intends this book to be part of the push toward ending-or at least ameliorating-global warming.