The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today’s Technologies

Impassioned optimism pervades this layperson’s guide to understanding green energy and the role it can play in lowering carbon emissions. McDonald (An Earthling’s Guide to Outerspace), host of the CBC radio show Quirks & Quarks, explores a wealth of alternatives to fossil fuels, including solar (“The entire world could meet all its electricity needs on solar power alone using an area... roughly the size of Spain”), wind (“a tremendous global resource”), and ocean wave power (via “a 350-kilowatt device that is basically a giant paddle sitting upright on the sea floor”). As well, he covers mini nuclear reactors and fusion-powered electric generators, and along the way highlights amusing anecdotes, such as Archimedes’s legendary (but not proven) use of the sun’s rays to set fire to Roman ships in the third century BCE. The author provides great accessible explanations of how eco-friendly technologies work, but he comes up somewhat short on showing how they could be implemented on a mass scale—he notes, for instance, that tidal power faces the “issue of public acceptance,” but doesn’t discuss how to garner it. Still, this is a fine lay of the land for readers getting caught up on green technology. Agent: John Pearce, Westwood Creative Artists. (Sept.)