Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning

Oliver Tickell analyses some sound solutions to global warming.

Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning
George Monbiot
Allen Lane, UK, 2006, £17.99

FIRST LET ME declare an interest: my name listed on the acknowledgements page of this book. I am also grateful to George Monbiot for publicising in Heat an idea of mine about ‘smart’ domestic electricity meters, which would charge us according to the instantaneous marginal cost of electricity on the network. This, in a nutshell, is what Heat is about ­– solutions to global warming. And in particular, how the rich nations that emit most of the world’s carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can cut those emissions by a whopping 90% – essential, in Monbiot’s view, if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change within this century.