Waking the Frog
Solutions for Our Climate Change Paralysis
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An accessible discussion of ways to achieve a sustainable future
Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, engineer, and philosopher Tom Rand explains why climate disruption might just be our very own pot of hot water. Are we the frog paralyzed in our inaction? In a highly readable account, Rand looks to contemporary psychology, economics, business, and finance to explain our stasis in the face of one of the most fundamental problems of our time. Rand’s account doesn’t just point fingers at the bad guys, but goes deeper — to our motivations, institutional lethargy, and deeply buried assumptions about market economics.
Waking the Frog is as much about solutions as it is an account of our present paralysis. Our ingenuity, technology, capital, and policy can work together to turn down the heat and at the same time enable the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Entrepreneur and optimist Rand (Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit) joins the legions wrestling with the issue of what can be done to mitigate anthropogenic climate change given the opposition of entrenched interests. The book outlines the problems facing us, providing a succinct account of the science, exploring why particular sectors of the economy and their beholden politicians have found it expedient to spend billions convincing the public that there is nothing to climate change, outlining the daunting scale of the problem previous migrations from one energy source to another have taken a century to accomplish, a century we do not have and suggesting strategies by which impediments to climate management can be side-stepped. The author appears well-informed when it comes to the science, right-wing intransigence and what new technological pathways are called for. Unfortunately, his arguements are not compelling. It is symptomatic that Rand uses the Apollo project as a metaphor, saying that humanity still has time for an energy "moon shot." Apollo did accomplish great things, but the program was truncated when public interest collapsed. May a similar fate not befall climate change mitigation.
