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In Now or Never, the internationally acclaimed author of The Weather Makers returns to the subject of climate change with a book that is at once a forceful call to action and a deeply (and often surprisingly) pragmatic road map toward sustainability. Utilizing the most up-to-the-minute data available, Tim Flannery examines the environmental challenges we face and their potential solutions in both the big picture and in specific detail. This brilliant book explores everything from techniques for storing the carbon that dead plants release into the earth to the fragile balancing act between energy demands and food supply in India and China, from carbon-trading schemes in South America to a recent collaboration between a Danish wind-energy company and an automobile manufacturer that may produce a viable electric car and end the reign of big oil.
Rather than looking backward to assign blame, or weeping in despair, Flannery is looking forward in the belief that "a sense of hopelessness is just as great a danger to our future as the bankrupt philosophies of the recent past. Even world-weariness, a resignation to destruction, is profoundly inimical to sustainability, because its adherents believe that the fate of our planet is already sealed. If the British had thought that way in 1941, we might be living in a very different world." Now or Never is a short and undeniably powerful book that burns with Flannery's characteristic mix of passion, scientific precision, and "offhand interdisciplinary brilliance" (Entertainment Weekly).
Shocking . . . [Flannery] writes for a general audience with passion and clarity. -- Jim Hansen
