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Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis, by Tim Flannery
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A decade ago, Tim Flannery’s #1 international bestseller, The Weather Makers, was one of the first books to break the topic of climate change out into the general conversation. Today, Earth’s climate system is fast approaching a crisis. Political leadership has not kept up, and public engagement with the issue of climate change has declined. Opinion is divided between technological optimists and pessimists who feel that catastrophe is inevitable. The publication of this new book is timed for the lead-up to the Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015, which aims to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate from all the nations in the world. This book anticipates and will influence the debates.
Time is running out, but catastrophe is not inevitable. Around the world people are now living with the consequences of an altered climate—with intensified and more frequent storms, wildfires, droughts and floods. For some it’s already a question of survival. Drawing on the latest science, Flannery gives a snapshot of the trouble we are in and more crucially, proposes a new way forward, including rapidly progressing clean technologies and a “third way” of soft geo-engineering. Tim Flannery, with his inimitable style, makes this urgent issue compelling and accessible. This is a must-read for anyone interested in our global future.
- Sales Rank: #276083 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x .90" w x 6.20" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
Review
Praise for Atmosphere of Hope:
“Thoughtful, candid and—yes—ultimately upbeat, Atmosphere of Hope could not be more timely. It is just the book the world needs right now.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction
“The book does a remarkably good job of arguing that there is still hope for averting catastrophic climate change . . . [Flannery] fully acknowledges the steep challenges and serious obstacles we face. So when he affirms that a path to averting catastrophic climate change remains in place, we know the conclusion is not reached capriciously . . . Flannery’s exploration of the climate change problem is comprehensive. He covers everything from the underlying basic science to the nitty-gritty details of prospective solutions. The book is at its best when laying out the latter . . . What Flannery provides—a convincing defense for the position that a path to averting catastrophic climate change still exists—is invaluable.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
“In his new book, Atmosphere of Hope, best-selling Australian author Tim Flannery counsels cautious optimism by showing how the millions of small actions taken by individuals are driving down oil consumption and points out how new ‘Third Way’ carbon-capture technologies promise to reduce emissions and create massive economic opportunities.”—National Geographic
“An informative tour of promising multipronged approaches to one of humanity’s biggest challenges. Flannery’s solution-focused quest is especially timely.”—Booklist
“Flannery argues for renewed optimism in human capabilities to reverse the destabilizing effects of climate change. For years, the author has been in the forefront of spreading the warning of climate change’s dire consequences to a broad audience . . . A sharp summary of energy potentialities, where the good and the bad reside in human hands, hearts, and minds.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Certain people rise above the crowd. They choose to use their extraordinary talent and intelligence to make a difference. Scientist, scholar and activist Tim Flannery is one of those rare people . . . Atmosphere of Hope is a brilliant examination of where we are with climate change and where we might be able to go.”—National Observer (Vancouver)
Praise for The Weather Makers:
“An authoritative, scientifically accurate book on global warming that sparkles with life, clarity and intelligence.”—Washington Post
“At last, here is a clear and readable account of one of the most important but controversial issues facing everyone in the world today. If you are not already addicted to Tim Flannery's writing, discover him now.”—Jared Diamond, author of The World Until Yesterday and Guns, Germs & Steel
“Flannery . . . is without question an extraordinary scientist. . .. A passionate explication of human influence on climate change and a call to action. . . . A tour de force.”—Science Magazine
About the Author
Tim Flannery is a scientist, explorer, and conservationist. He has published more than 130 scientific papers and several books, including "The Weather Makers," "Throwim Way Leg," "Here on Earth," and "Among the Islands." He was named Australian of the Year in 2007, and from 2011 to 2013, he was head of the Australian Climate Change Commission.
Most helpful customer reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
A roller-coaster ride...
By FictionFan
In December this year, the next United Nations Climate Change Conference will convene in Paris to make decisions on how to cap carbon emissions at a level that will ensure that global temperatures will rise by no more than 2° Celcius compared to pre-industrial levels. This book is a summary of where we are now and an action plan for the future.
The book is heavily polemical, very much Tim Flannery's personal attempt to influence the decision makers. As a scientist and leading environmentalist of long-standing, Flannery is Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, a member of the Australian Independent Climate Council and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council; so he's certainly qualified to speak authoritatively on the subject.
This was a bit of a roller-coaster read for me, both in terms of style and content. In the introduction, Flannery lays out his stall. Taking as his starting point his own earlier book The Weather Makers, he sets out to show how things have developed over the decade since, where his opinions have changed over the years, and what he now thinks are the best ways forward if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. At this stage, I was concerned I might find the book unreadable. His style is abrasive, self-aggrandizing and arrogant and much of the introduction and early chapters read like a piece of self-advertisement. He mentions his previous book umpteen times, dismissing anyone who has criticised any aspect of it over the years, and spends far too long justifying his then conclusions. In fact, at times there is a sense almost of paranoia – as if he is the victim of a conspiracy of vested interests trying to discredit his work. He is vitriolic about the Abbott government in Australia – still in power when he was writing but now gone. Of course, as the cliché goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you...
However, having vented his spleen, Flannery then settles down into a series of well-written chapters where he lays out the current situation very clearly. He starts with a bleak picture of what may happen if temperatures are not contained to the 2°C target – to the Arctic and Antarctic, to forests, wildlife and oceans, and not least to humanity in those parts of the world most sensitive to rising temperatures. It's all stuff we've heard before, but brought up to date with the latest science. Flannery assumes throughout that by this time only those with vested interests in the carbon industries are still denying the link between man's activities and climate change, and so is dismissive and even occasionally virulent about deniers. There is throughout a feeling of urgency – no time left to waste preaching to the unconverted, let's just ignore them and get on with what needs to be done. Fine by me, but this is not a book to win over waverers with charm.
The next few chapters take us through individual aspects of energy production, starting with the dirty ones and moving on to the clean. This was the part of the book that gave me a sense of hope – assuming Flannery's figures are correct, and I see no reason to doubt them, then fossil fuels seem to be losing their overwhelming attractiveness as renewables become both more efficient and cheaper due to economies of scale. We're nowhere near out of the woods, but Flannery made me feel as if perhaps we've spotted the path.
In the final section, Flannery discusses how he believes we should proceed. His position is that, even in the unlikely (but not impossible) event that we reduce fossil fuel use to zero over the next few decades, we will still have the problem of existing CO2 in the atmosphere to deal with. He discusses the difficulties of the task and goes into some detail on some of the schemes that have been put forward. To my unscientific mind, lots of these sound like pie-in-the-sky schemes, or actually poison-in-the-sky, to be more accurate. Flannery himself isn't keen on the kind of geo-engineering scheme that suggests pumping other stuff, like sulphur, into the atmosphere in order to induce cooling, on the grounds that firstly, we can't foresee all the possible implications and secondly, the underlying problem of too much carbon still remains.
He suggests what he calls a 'third way' – a mixture of preparing for climate change by making necessary adaptations at a local level while attempting to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by a variety of schemes, from massive seaweed farms to storing carbon in rocks and plastics, that he feels could be effective without the risks of geo-engineering. To be honest, much of this sounded impractical and a bit like wishful thinking to me, but hey! Most of it was well over my head scientifically and he's an expert, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's always been my opinion that it will have to be the scientists who solve this problem in the end, and the role of governments and the people should be to give them the finances and resources they need, while trying to stop any of them accidentally blowing up the galaxy in their enthusiasm.
However, after cheering me up in the earlier chapters, I'm afraid this final section plunged me back into gloom – the sheer scale of the task and the short-termism of so many governments make it all seem pretty overwhelming. I comforted myself with the thought that perhaps Flannery had done this deliberately, so that no-one would be approaching the Paris Conference feeling over-confident. Overall well worth reading – a good introduction for anyone new to the subject and a thorough update for those with a little more knowledge. Let's hope the politicians attending the Conference will pay attention to the science more than the politics for once... the world will be watching. Won't we?
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grove Atlantic.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
In a hole, first thing is to stop digging
By David Wineberg
Tim Flannery is the auditor of our filth. Atmosphere of Hope is 75% revolting statistics detailing how we have and continue to mess up the ecosphere. The numbers are so huge that any attempt at remediation would take a planetwide initiative of such massive proportions, duration and expense as to be impossible. Sequestering carbon dioxide by the gigagtonne is required, but not doable. Two key governments, in Canada and Australia, are led by climate change deniers of the Don’t Worry Be Happy dysfunction. And now that the UN is inviting corporates to the table, no effective global solutions are possible.
Flannery is a judge on the Virgin Earth Challenge panel, so he sees a constant flow of ideas and proposals. They all seem to require a complete change of modus operandi, like all the cement produced worldwide seeded with biochar to make it carbon negative. At 80% of global production, we could sequester one gigatonne. Negative carbon plastics could sequester another gigatonne, but only if we made all plastics this way and quintupled production. Now consider we need to sequester 18 gigatonnes per year just reduce atmospheric CO2 by one part per million. We’re currently pushing the rate up from 400ppm.
And this is just CO2 in the atmosphere.
Atmosphere of Hope is a quick read, a compendium of bite-sized facts and figures, detailing the situation in mid 2015. The sections on remediation are interesting and the concepts innovative, but there is always the uncomfortable feeling that two wrongs don’t make a right. Pumping metallic microparticles into the stratosphere is almost certainly the wrong way to fix the mess.
In They Might Be Giants, Holmes explains we weren’t booted from the Garden of Eden; we never left. But we are guests here, and extremely rude ones. First thing we have to do is stop insulting the hostess and wrecking the house. Until we do that, all the convoluted remediation schemes will just continue to be hope.
David Wineberg
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Tim Flannery’s ‘third way’ is a dead end
By Jeremy Tager
Tim Flannery’s new book, Atmosphere of Hope, is supposed to offer us a ‘third way’ – new solutions to climate change. It makes for a depressing read.
The book seems to leap from a kind of hopelessness into wishful thinking and an almost reckless faith in technologies that are barely at the conceptual stage.
The hopelessness emerges from the failure of governments anywhere to tackle climate change with the kind of urgency the issue clearly deserves. Instead, in places like Australia, we have a political and economic system that is even rejecting established, job creating technologies. How do we deal with such intransigence and obstructionism?
For Flannery, the solution – what he terms the ‘third way’ – is an attempt to circumvent the problem by proposing massive investment in new technologies. The problems with such an approach are many.
Tim Flannery’s suggestion that geoengineering technologies are a ‘third way’ implies that these unproven technologies are a legitimate replacement for existing mitigation needs and technologies. While new technologies can obviously complement mitigation, they cannot solve climate change -, nor can they circumvent the clear need for structural and behavioural changes.
How can we expect a political system that has been so complicit in creating climate change, and so resistant to acting on it, to support and invest in unproven new technologies for solving climate change?
Flannery seems to expect technology to overcome the political realities we face, when it is obvious that technologies are the products of and subject to the same political and cultural forces that have created the problem in the first place.
Flannery’s support for negative emissions concrete is a case in point. The concrete would effectively need to fully replace existing concrete production systems and would have to be used in all of the projected infrastructure growth globally in order to draw down carbon dioxide emissions at a meaningful scale.
This is clearly based on a business as usual model – we will build just as much but just use a different better material. It is also based on an unspoken assumption that governments will agree to invest billions in this technology and change policy settings so that existing concrete producers either go out of business or adopt this new technology in a very short period of time.
Will this happen within the existing free market system? Or will governments buy the patents and donate the technology to all countries and peoples? Will they put in place regulations that say it is unlawful to produce conventional cement? Even if the technology works – and that’s far from demonstrated – the structure for ensuring the technology is taken up as needed doesn’t exist.
Flannery supports a number of technologies that currently exist at small scales. He seems to assume that it is a simple matter of scaling them up. He does not grapple with the enormous resource demands and destructive potential involved in industrialising small scale systems. One only need look at contemporary industrial agriculture to understood how important scale can be. His suggestion that seaweed farming, which is small scale, can and should be scaled up so that 9% of the world’s oceans are used for seaweed production seems incredibly naïve.
Some of the technologies that Flannery supports border on the bizarre. The technology for producing carbon dioxide snow would require 446 hundred cubic metres of refrigerators in the Antarctic powered by approximately as many wind turbines as are found in Germany. The fridges would bring the air temperature down to minus 78.5 degrees. At that temperature carbon dioxide freezes and will fall out of the air as snow. It will then be buried beneath real snow and ice, presumably by an army of bulldozers and other heavy equipment.
The cost is unknown, the impacts on the environment are unknown, and the effectiveness of the technology is unknown. The estimated drawdown would be about 1 gigatonne.
Some of technologies proposed are just downright dangerous ideas. While Flannery seems to be resistant to spraying sulphur aerosols in the upper atmosphere or dumping iron in the oceans, he supports the notion of storing captured liquid carbon below the sea floor. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology is still beset with technical problems and rapidly rising prices (which explains the lack of interest and investment in CCS now being seen globally). Furthermore, the deep sea floor technology doesn’t exist – but even if it did, the risks associated with the transport, excavation and storage of carbon dioxide in deep oceans is obvious.
Ultimately, these sources of hope for Flannery are just distractions from the real problems that must be faced and solutions that must be implemented. Geoengineering technologies provide excuses for decision-makers not to act – allowing powerful interests such as the fossil fuel industry, big forestry and agribusiness to undermine international efforts to deal with climate change.
Until we make sure that existing solutions are implemented and enforced, proposing new solutions can only hinder the work that needs to be done.
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