Two Books this Month: A Bright Future by J. Goldstein and S. Qvist and No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg

Summary for A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow (from Amazon):
As climate change quickly approaches a series of turning points that guarantee disastrous outcomes, a solution is hiding in plain sight. Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try.
In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn't do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call kärnkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal.
Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist's book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker's foreword, literally saves the world.

Reviews of A Bright Future:
1. NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/books/review/bright-future-joshua-s-goldstein-staffan-a-qvist.html

2. Kirkus Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joshua-s-goldstein/a-bright-future/

(yaleclimateconnections.org)

Interviews for A Bright Future:
1. Nuclear Focus: https://www.nuclearfocus.com/community/interview-joshua-s-goldstein-and-staffan-qvist

2. Video - C-Span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?457382-1/a-bright-future

Website for A Bright Future: http://www.brightfuturebook.com/

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Summary for No One is Too Small to Make a Difference: This small book includes the speeches that Greta to the United Nations.

Reviews for Greta's Book:
1. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FURf5abn-o

2. teenvogue: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/greta-thunberg-book-review-no-one-is-too-small-to-make-a-difference-climate-rebellion

3. Kid's Rights: https://kidsrights.org/advocacy/international-childrens-peace-prize/winners/greta-thunberg/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAsbrxBRDpARIsAAnnz_P816fQ4SLSOjJEMbck3J5OWXMorW0zlHfYxPIkiAovrY5GIk5WWWoaAi8iEALw_wcB

Greta's TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2QxFM9y0tY

Time's Person of the Year 2019: https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/

Our local student activist groups and actions and others:
1. Bscape: https://www.facebook.com/bscapeorg/

2. Bscape Website: https://www.bscape.org/about

3. Article: https://www.theintell.com/lifestyle/20191129/you-know-greta-thunberg-meet-15-other-young-climate-activists-taking-on-world-leaders

4. Article: https://www.buckslocalnews.com/news/students-to-lead-climate-change-strike-in-doylestown-on-september/article_d63dce9a-d562-11e9-91d6-a79397dbbfb3.html

Local Event: Everything Eco: An Inconvenient Summit: Feb. 23, 2020, 12:00 - 4:00 p.m.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/everything-eco-an-inconvenient-summit-tickets-89656269315

Discussion Questions: (Donna will be leading the discussion and using some of these questions, that John composed)

1.  How is Greta Thunberg creating awareness of the urgency of preventing global climate change?

2.  Thunberg says that Sweden has one of the worst records of carbon dioxide generation.  Is this statement at odds with the “A Bright Future” authors?  She also states that we already know how to prevent climate change but need to implement the changes/technologies required?  Is she right?  Is this consistent with “A Bright Future” also?

3.  What is the role of activism in combating carbon dioxide emissions?  What are some of the ways activism has been successful?  How has activism likely also detracted from its goal?

4.  Of the three major categories of energy usage responsible for producing most carbon dioxide (electricity generation, transportation, heat for buildings and industrial processes) why did the authors focus on electricity generation?

5.  Why is switching from coal to methane (natural gas) not enough to prevent catastrophic global warming?

6.  Why doesn’t meeting the Paris Agreement targets for maintaining carbon dioxide emissions at current levels not enough to prevent climate change?

7.  What country has already reduced carbon dioxide generation by ~50% while increasing energy production by 2X?  How was this accomplished?  Name several other countries that have made significant carbon dioxide reductions?  What do they have in common?

8.  Why do the authors conclude that increasing nuclear power usage is critical for avoiding /limiting global warming?  What are the limitations of solar and wind power which, while important alternative to fossil fuels, require a role for nuclear power?

9.  In what ways did Germany and France respond differently to the catastrophic earthquake/tidal wave that led to nuclear plant closures in Japan?  What were the implications of their reactions?

10.  Compare the waste generation resulting from coal-based power plants with nuclear plants in terms of types of wastes, quantities, disposal, environmental and health impacts.

11.  What effects did nuclear plant accidents and diasters (TMI, Chernobyl, Japan) have on nuclear power development and reliance?  What lessons were learned and not learned?

12.  How does Russia currently promote expansion of nuclear power?  Why and how may China and India participate in the future? 

13.  What makes new generations of nuclear plants different from those we grew up with? 

14.  How do the terms we use to describe energy sources ascribe some bias to how we perceive them, e.g., “natural gas” vs. methane and “nuclear power” vs. “nuclear bombs”?

15.  Do electric cars make things worse by increasing electrical usage? 

16.  Has this book changed your opinion or perception of nuclear power?  If yes or no, why?

(newrepublic)

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein

Summary from Amazon:
"The most important book yet from the author of the international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, a brilliant explanation of why the climate crisis challenges us to abandon the core “free market” ideology of our time, restructure the global economy, and remake our political systems.

In short, either we embrace radical change ourselves or radical changes will be visited upon our physical world. The status quo is no longer an option.

In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies. She exposes the ideological desperation of the climate-change deniers, the messianic delusions of the would-be geoengineers, and the tragic defeatism of too many mainstream green initiatives. And she demonstrates precisely why the market has not—and cannot—fix the climate crisis but will instead make things worse, with ever more extreme and ecologically damaging extraction methods, accompanied by rampant disaster capitalism.

Klein argues that the changes to our relationship with nature and one another that are required to respond to the climate crisis humanely should not be viewed as grim penance, but rather as a kind of gift—a catalyst to transform broken economic and cultural priorities and to heal long-festering historical wounds. And she documents the inspiring movements that have already begun this process: communities that are not just refusing to be sites of further fossil fuel extraction but are building the next, regeneration-based economies right now.

Can we pull off these changes in time? Nothing is certain. Nothing except that climate change changes everything. And for a very brief time, the nature of that change is still up to us.

Jury citation: The Izzy Award:

“This is the best book about climate change in a very long time— reminding us just how much the powers-that-be depend on the power of coal, gas and oil. And that in turn should give us hope, because it means the fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a liveable one.”

Reviews:
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/books/review/naomi-klein-this-changes-everything-review.html?mcubz=3

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-this-changes-everything-naomi-klein-20140912-story.html

Book and film website: https://thischangeseverything.org/

Videos on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/thischangeseverything

Film trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBfJ1vf9Xqw

Author interview on:
Guardian Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhJA7HCPHDA
CNN: https://www.c-span.org/video/?321676-1/book-discussion-changes-everything

Bucks County Audubon Society Associated Event: September 13: Advocacy for a Cleaner Earth Fall Speaker Series held at Delaware Valley University at 6:30 p.m. with Maya van Rossum, who will be discussing the impact of gas pipelines on clean water. http://www.bcas.org/event/advocacy-for-a-cleaner-earth-series/

Classroom Curriculum Guide by Caroline Sarmiento of Uni. of Wisconsin:
https://thischangeseverything.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/48780-this-changes-everything-curriculum-singlepages-1.pdf

Interview with Steve Colbert with David Keith on Geoengineering: 
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/lv0hd2/the-colbert-report-david-keith

Official Book and Film Guide: http://www.oekolog.at/fileadmin/oekolog/dokumente/News/TCE-Study-Guide.pdf

Study Guide by Author: https://thischangeseverything.org/studyguide/

Discussion Questions: (Heidi will be leading the discussion)

The book is divided into 3 parts: I. Bad Timing, II. Magical Thinking and III. Starting Anyway, with 13 Chapters total. I’ve provided questions for each section, some of my own and some taken or inspired from the above listed Classroom Curriculum Guide. Be sure to get a flavor for the whole book, at least skimming and especially making it to end chapters, which are more hopeful.

1. How has this book challenged your position on climate change? How do you conceptualize the relationship between the environment, society, and nature? How do current events, i.e. Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria reinforce these issues and perhaps be wake up calls/tipping points for governments and societies to push for change? What do you think of the statement by Pruitt that it seems “insensitive” to discuss climate change at this time?”

2. “The earth is not our prisoner, our patient, our machine, or, indeed, our monster. It is our entire world. And the solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves.” With that said, how does consumerism connect to Climate Change?  Is this just an US dilemma? Can we can consume less and change how much energy we use and if yes, how? (p. 90)

3. What are the connections between trade agreements, pollution, and labor exploitation? What implications does localizing our economies have on climate change? Are there some negative consequences? (p. 76 -)

4. How are the political and economic interests behind certain “bridge fuels” linked to preventing us from making a full switch to zero carbon sources of energy? (p. 128-) Who are the local actors and players who can become renewable energy providers?

5. “Extractivism is a nonreciprocal, dominance-based relationship with the earth.” (p. 169) What different forms of power does this entail when reducing life into objects for the use of others and irreversibly destroys large tracts of earth? The production and power in spite of nature (example of the steam engine) is based on the right to conquer nature.

6. "A Great many progressives have opted out of the climate change debate, in part, because they thought that the Big Green groups, flush with philanthropic dollars, had this issue covered. That, it turns out, was a grave mistake.” Which environmental groups participated in this and were you surprised? (p. 192 - , p. 226) Why does it matter where funds come from? What are the central dangers of the merge between the environmental movement and the economic interests behind soaring emissions? What might be other unintended consequences?

7. What is the role of big businesses and powerful people or the “green billionaires” in the climate movement if not to save us?  (p. 232) Who are some local messiahs? How does this idea of messiahs influence the way we see change in other social movements as well?

8. “The cure could be worse than the disease.” (p. 275) What do you think about “Geoengineering” and the “Geocliche”? What do you think about the finding that older respondents are more amenable to Geoengineering than younger ones? Is this a generational difference? Access to information? Faith in technology?

9. Klein presents the argument that we are all in sacrifice zones, yet we do see different rates of state violence and displacement in low-income communities of color. (p. 310 -) How do these stark forms of state violence place different pressures on certain communities to participate in different ways?

10. Klein asserts that the power of “ferocious love” and when individuals or a community fight for their identity, a culture, a beloved place, that there is nothing a company can offer as a bargaining chip. (p. 342) What are your thoughts and perhaps, observations of this?

11. Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands, territories and resources and they have a right to redress lands, which have been taken or damaged without their consent. Many non-natives are beginning to understand that indigenous land and treaty rights have provided a major barrier for the extractive industries and are asking for their help. Discuss this and coalition building. (p. 367 - )

12. This book provides a space to reflect on our own actions as individuals as well as a community. What are you doing personally to combat CO2 emissions and going green? What are some of your goals?