Warming trend

E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2007 by Jim Motavalli

Joseph Romm, the author of The Hype About Hydrogen and a former Department of Energy employee, has a new book entitled Hell and High Water: Global Warming--the Solution and the Politics--and What We Should Do (William Morrow, $24.95). Romm's book is comprehensive on the current science, the fallacies advanced by climate naysayers, and the array of possible solutions. He knows how to simplify tough concepts for the average reader. Emissions, he says, are like water flowing into a bathtub. Atmospheric concentrations "are the water level in the bathtub." Romm's book would have been improved by first-person interviews and field research. Too often he refers back to his now decade-old DOE experience, when the real action is in labs and skunkworks around the world. Romm makes a good case for plug-in hybrid cars, but he doesn't assess the automakers' progress toward actually building them. Despite this, the book is well-researched, and right in nearly all its prescriptions.

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