Storms of My Grandchildren

Storms of My Grandchildren
AuthorJames E. Hansen
IllustratorMakiko Sato
SubjectAnthropogenic climate change
PublisherBloomsbury Press
Publication date
2009
Pages304 pp
ISBN978-1-60819-200-7
OCLC435420333
363.73874
LC ClassQC981.8.G56 H365 2009

Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity is climate scientist James Hansen's first book, published by Bloomsbury Press in 2009.[1] The book is about threats to people and habitability for life on earth from global warming.

Themes

In the book, Hansen describes how the burning of fossil fuels is changing our climate and argues that this is putting Earth into imminent peril. He suggests that millions of species, and humanity itself, are threatened.[2] The title of the book, Storms of My Grandchildren, refers to the ferocious and stormy weather events that will occur in the next generation if fossil fuel use continues in the way it has.[3]

In Hansen's evaluation, the response of politicians to this crisis has mainly been "greenwashing", where their proposals sound good but amount to little.[2] Hansen says that we immediately need to cut back atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions such that atmospheric concentrations are stabilized at 350 ppm or less, in order to avoid environmental disasters for generations to come. He advocates prompt phaseout of coal plant emissions, plus improved forestry and agricultural practices.[2] Hansen supports a carbon tax returned to citizens as a dividend and rejects cap and trade.[4] He also supports nuclear power and rejects geoengineering.[5]

Reception

Storms of My Grandchildren has been reviewed in Nature,[3] the Los Angeles Times,[6] Science,[7] and Cosmos.[8] An excerpt from the book appeared in The Nation in 2009.[9]

Author

James Hansen was director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies from 1981 to 2013 and is often called the "father of global warming".[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hansen 2009
  2. ^ a b c Hansen 2009, p. ix–xii
  3. ^ a b Kloor, Keith (26 November 2009). "The eye of the storm". Nature Reports Climate Change. 1 (912): 139–140. doi:10.1038/climate.2009.124.
  4. ^ Hansen 2009, pp. 221, 218
  5. ^ Hansen 2009, pp. 204, 230
  6. ^ a b Susan Salter Reynolds (December 27, 2009). "Book Review: Storms of My Grandchildren by James Hansen". Los Angeles Times.
  7. ^ Kitcher, Philip (4 June 2010). "The Climate Change Debates". Science. 328 (5983): 1230–4. Bibcode:2010Sci...328.1230K. doi:10.1126/science.1189312.
  8. ^ Cooke, Aaron (July 2010). "Review: Storms of My Grandchildren". Cosmos. Archived from the original on 2010-08-01. Retrieved 2010-08-03.
  9. ^ James Hansen. How to Solve the Climate Problem The Nation, December 30, 2009.

Publishing information

  • Official Book Website (archived) [1]