healthier, happier and richer

Mark Lynas invites you to an evening to consider how the planet can survive the age of humans.

Last night (Thursday, 21 July 2011), Prashant Vaze and I held a launch event for our book.

The European Union cannot be accused of failing to see the big picture on climate change. The only problem, and it is major, is that Europe lacks followers of its lead. However, for years, EU policy on energy – responsible for around two-thirds of all greenhouse gases – has seemed remarkably narrow. It has focused almost exclusively on networks and, among networks, almost exclusively on electricity and gas.

In his new book, ‘The Rough Guide to the Energy Crisis’, David Buchan outlines the ways forward.

This is an irreverent but rigorous, fact-filled reference guide to low-cost, low-carbon living for everyone in tough times.

Anyone who cares about the survival of human civilisation should read this book. It is packed with facts and statistics about solutions, and shows that we must stop arguing about which is cheapest or best, because we need all of them.

Six Degrees won the UK Royal Society Science Books Prize in 2008. It’s extremely well written and readable, but, because it is an illustration of the effects that different temperature increases will have, it is not exactly cheerful. Yet, anyone interested in climate change – or indeed human survival – should read it.

While world leaders are in Copenhagen grappling with global greenhouse gas emissions, most of us have more prosaic issues to sort out this week – what to get friends and family for Christmas, how to do something for charity and, perhaps stirred by Copenhagen, how to do something to help reduce global emissions.