No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air

In this scrupulous if dry outing, Jacobson (100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, suggests that the only thing preventing meaningful climate action is a lack of willpower. Contending that “we have 95 percent of the technologies that we need” to end pollution, global warming, and energy insecurity, he highlights the potential of wind, water, and solar power, and posits that while the cost of switching over might appear astronomical, it will be cheaper in the long run than sticking with current fossil fuel systems and will yield more jobs, lower electricity prices, and reduced deaths from air pollution. Jacobson meticulously contrasts his vision of carbon-free energy with alternatives, arguing, for example, that a shift from coal to natural gas is a bad idea because doing so would contribute dramatically more to global warming over a 20-year period and produce only slightly less emissions than coal over a 100-year period. Though the writing is occasionally stilted and repetitive in its praise of wind, water, and solar, the argument is convincing and optimistic. Readers looking to rebut criticism about green energy will find this a great help. (Feb.)