Combining his unique knowledge of political campaigning and environmental science, Monbiot analyses the potential of energy efficiency, renewable resources, carbon burial, nuclear power and new transport and building systems to discover what works, what doesn't, what costs the least and what needs to be done to make change happen. Is individual abstinence futile when others are lighting their houses with a million lightbulbs every Christmas? How much can be done when the climate change deniers are so vocal? He is not afraid to attack anyone - friend or foe - whose claims are false or whose figures have been fudged. His original, sometimes shocking plan shows that we can reconcile our demands for comfort and security with the survival of the planet. Heat also contains a new and astonishing exposure of the climate change denial industry, showing that identifying the real culprits is not as simple as we might think.
Rigorous, passionate and totally surprising, this book could change the world.
George Monbiot is one of Britain's foremost political and environmental thinkers and activists. He has been named by the Evening Standard as one of the twenty-five most influential people in Britain, and by the Independent on Sunday as one of the forty international prophets of the twenty-first Century. In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement.
"This book is a brilliant and terrifying critique of the crisis of human-induced climate change, and the prospects of stabilizing temperatures before catastrophic runaway warming ensues. George Monbiot brushes aside our rationalizations to maintain the status quo, shallow targets and mechanisms, and the empty promises of political rhetoric and corporate PR spin, to examine the real opportunities and what has to be done to achieve up to 90 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialized nations." - David Suzuki
"As he well says, if we do not like his ideas, then think of better ones. He believes that leaving things as they are is not a serious option." - Financial Times
"We need people like Monbiot more than ever before." - New Scientist
"The originality of this thought makes him uniquely influential." - The Times (London)
A few years ago, George Monbiot was persona non grata in seven countries and had a life sentence in absentia in Indonesia. He is now a best-selling author, columnist for the Guardian and Visiting Professor at the School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University. In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has been named by the Evening Standard as one of the 25 most influential people in Britain, and by the Independent on Sunday as one of the 40 international prophets of the 21st Century. His books include Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain and, most recently, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order. He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics) and East London (environmental science). His weekly column for the Guardian is syndicated in the US, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and Russia, and he appears frequently on radio and television. His website, www.monbiot.com , is the world's seventh-ranked comment site and holds an archive of his articles.