RE:VIEW - Weather

Actually, another in a long list of 'pre'-reviews.

Just to acknowledge we got the thing and record a few first impressions before devoting a bit more serious time and effort to digesting it in totality

Title: Weather
By: The Met Office
Publisher: DK

pRE:view:

Actually, it looks like a nice little reference tome. Each page is a mix of text, photography and illustration, and the chapters suggest a nice read from history to the latest science.

You never know, it may get printed...

...it's (my online comment about my online site) carbon footprint is pretty low:

Of course, some have moved with the times and also embraced the potential of the internet as silver surfers.

On Junkk.com, a free online site, some of the best reuse ideas posted hark from those with a lifetime of experience to share.

Times - Our grandparents were the real greens - 'Brown’s ticking-off was music to my ears. For the past year I have been researching and writing a book focusing on how green the British public... Sucking Eggs: What Your Wartime Granny Could Teach You About Diet, Thrift and Going Green will be published by Chatto & Windus in 2009

Dilemma time. I am thinking about writing a book, too, but the tricky part is building a reuse aspect into it, unless the fact it will be more a 'how to' will suffice.

CATEGORY - BOOKS

Trying to pull this category together (see labels for previous posts)

ARTICLES

Guardian - Turning over an old leaf - Good leads (must add 'em below one day)
Guardian - Get green with a book swap scheme

INFORMATION

BookMooch.com - US-based
ReadItSwapIt.co.uk

It takes two to tango?

That's a dance of passion with a lot of to'ing and fro'ing right? At least it looks great and entertains. Unlike most serious climate-related discussion.

Newsnight - Monday, 7 April, 2007

Well, there's a big climate surprise.

Another Newsnight twofer with only protagonists from opposing poles ('scuse pun - I wonder if they bumped there into any reporters/advisers/analysts/gurus left who are not en route to Beijing, doing a slot about melting ice due to folk flying up there to do slots on melting ice).

One saying there's nothing to worry about so let's do nothing much (ps: there's a book to plug and he used to be 'something famous..ish'), and the other saying there's heaps to worry about, so let's do lots less (but keep the funds coming).

I meanwhile, remain none the wiser. Still.

Is there anyone who might get on screen who is not in the pay of someone or servant of a rigid agenda in this regard?

RE:VIEW - BOOK - 21st Century Stallholder

OK, I am buying time here.

This is not a review... yet.

The good news is that I intend to do one.

The bad news is that there is a bit of a backlog on the reading and writing front. My bad.

This is a stopgap that hopefully serves to say (mainly to those nice enough to send it) I have it, it looks neat and I look forward to one day soon getting the time to go through it.

At which point this gets revisited and upgraded to an actual review and goes on the site, in the newsletter, etc.

Best I can do!

Fit to print?

For a while that title had 'REPLY!!!' added to it. It didn't just refer to this: Are carbon diet books worth the paper they're printed on?

It's a new plan to try and address my rather woeful backlog archive system.

You see, over Xmas I did read a ton of stuff and saved the links meaning to get around to either replying and/or posting them up. But then my computer crashed and all those good intentions and worthy topics got lost as they were lurking in some task bar and not really saved as such.

Hence this is a way, in theory, to tackle something that does seem worthy of comment, not just here but there, too. And when I do, that REPLY!!! do-dad will get deleted and all... will be as it should. Hopefully.

Watch this space, I will be back.

Meantime, feel free to pitch in on either!

And, now, I have:

Good question. And some thoughtful answers already

I run a free website, http://www.junkk.com, predominantly promoting second use, so I am rather sensitive to a) trying one's best to offer solutions whilst not becoming part of the problem, and b) not trying to make too quick a buck out of anything 'green'.

So the points you make are well taken and hard to refute.

Partly through personal purchase and partly through being on some kind of (very welcome) PR list I do get sent quite a few of such tomes, and hence have had the chance to contrast, compare and, when there's time, re:view.

Being simplistic, looking at the stack on my table that I have assembled to try and offer some sensible thoughts on your question, a few basic categories are suggested:

1) Books that tell you stuff
2) Books that show you stuff
3) Books that show and tell you stuff
4) All the above, written from the point of view of what the person has done, other people have done or that 'you', the reader can do.
5) All the above... etc, only more telling you what you should do. I prefer the previous one.
6) Books that make you think. These often have elements from the preceding choices in the mix.

I'm sure there's a bunch more, but at the end of the day really it all boils down to information and/or entertainment.

In the spirit of positivity I don't propose to name any I think bad (it's pretty subjective), but there are some that stand out, at least to me, for their contributions to understanding, changing perceptions, altering behaviours or just being a plain nifty read.

Now, I'm not one to deny anyone the chance at making a buck, and they can often be quite useful, but books of lists don't really do it for me. I have tried popping them in the loo for a 5 minute bit of daily research, but really they are mostly quite boring. And almost inevitably outdated as soon as they are printed. Plus in the internet era I really cannot imagine what I couldn't find just as easily, and for free, online. Like here! A recent exception is Paul Waddington's 'Shades of Green' by virtue of accepting that there are such shades, and it's best to engage on the basis that a volunteer is worth 10 pressed wo/men.

For thought-provoking worthiness, I can look at two and say that they were 'good reads' to get your head around what ‘we’re’ facing, if being pretty darn depressing.

One is Richard Girling's 'Rubbish', and the other (without sucking up too much) is Leo Hickman's 'The Final Call'. The latter exposes the dilemma of anyone who cares about the environment and choosing to work for its betterment, still somehow having to deal with saying (or reporting, and in a cautionary way) one thing and patently doing pretty much what the reader is being told they shouldn’t.

All I know is that, for my forthcoming review (I have promised the publisher for months), there are about 50 bits of paper poking out at points that interested me, told me stuff I didn't know or got my dander up.

As to who else might feel the same, other than committed converts I don't know. It’s a stretch to think many climate 'optimists' would opt to buy it to be persuaded... unless a subsequent review can convince a few it's worth the effort... and cost. Hence the value of what you have invited here.

One thing I do look for is solutions, and preferably ones that as an average person one can engage with. And do so because they are fun, cheap, practical... and work. So why not?

There are more than a few 'how to's' I don't really like because they come across a tad too hair shirt and/or nanny state or finger-wagging. Or are less than useful in pushing certain agendas on a one-sided basis. Two I felt did achieve a nice balance, and were all the more powerful by being via personal experiences, were Penney Pozyer’s companion to her TV series and Janey Lee Grace’s ‘Imperfectly Natural Woman’. Library point noted, though I think having ‘em to hand can’t hurt and they are certainly more worthy on the shelf than many others I have!

And there are others in this vein, but often as you turn one massive (if made from recycled material) page after the next, with three words and one picture, you do get to wondering how much is for show and how much is to really make a genuine difference ‘doing’.

Thank you for the opportunity to ponder these things. Because I have been asked if I might be interested in producing a book of my own in my little area of planetary saving, and the dilemmas above have to date given me pause.

But there's no doubting that, done in the right way for the right reasons, what is in a book can find its way to many useful places and do good when it gets there. And there's the not insignificant factor of the more than useful revenue it can send the way of the authors to help them in their next, hopefully equally knowledge base-enhancing quest. Research does take time and consume funds, so in the spirit of sharing the odd reward can be appreciated. And what better than in the form of driving one up the best-seller lists?

From my limited investigations, in the great scheme of things so long as one is using the appropriate materials and the most effective logistics, such things can surely at least be cut some slack by being better than most and often better than nothing when it comes to finding and setting new readers on what one can only hope to be more inspirational paths.

Hard to measure the enviROI on it all, but if done for the right reasons and written well, they can surely only be forces for the planet’s future good. And often folk don’t have the time or inclination to trawl around, so can be great summaries for those keen to get going.

And, if one thinks about it, the stack of rainforest that is one’s copy of the Sunday paper, or the scores of ‘green’ magazines, pretty much add up to a nice chunk in the doorstep recycling bin eventually. At least by being nicely packaged these books can lurk and maybe promote the odd guest to have a quick peruse and act on what they’ve been inspired by.

Quills sharpened, and dipped in...?

An interesting choice for the Sunday Times' review of the Bjorn Lomborg book: Cool It

Richard Girling is eminently qualified and actually I have a lot of time for him, but in view of his environmental advocacy I do wonder whether he could be seen to be approaching it from a balanced viewpoint.

But rely on it I must, as I have not the money nor the time to invest in reading it myself. At least not for a while.

Lomborg’s view is certainly a view. And though it's coming from a different place and leading to different conclusion to mine on best moves, he at least seems to have the spirit of enviROI at heart, where few others do.

But logic certainly does not seem to be his strong point, as this amply nails: ' If we really can’t stand the heat, then he looks forward to “increased access to air-conditioning”. How these powerful appliances can be run without further consumption of fossil fuel is another nice teaser for the technology boys.'

Does this review serve the cause any more than Mr. Lomborg's book? For me, not really. As a poster has indicated: 'I would also suggest that characterizing skeptics as 'nutters' and 'right-wing pressure groups' is evidence of a rather unscientific attitude. And I speak as a left-winger. ' Quite.

And speaking of crass and callous, on the subject that dare not be discussed, I merely note a slight disconnect between corrective mechanisms that nature may already being employing and the advocacy for where more money goes if not to address climate change. I must carefully avoid any opinion one way or the other, but there seems to be some logical (but not moral or ethical or compassionate) issues to consider here.

ADDENDUM - A question was posed, so I replied... and had a wee dig:

'...if one does not already exist. If one is available, please help direct me. Henry Markant'

You can try RealClimate.org.

As with everything in the heated (warmed?) debate cum industry, you have to read what is being said and who/where it's coming from, but as an attempt at looking at the facts and science objectively it's better than most.

Though as it gets more popular the pejoratives from either side are starting to creep in before you ever get to proper analysis, as they have here.

ADDENDUM - The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the poor world
- meanwhile, back at the coalface (I mix metaphors a bit). On the one hand biofuels look like a techno-solution. On the other...

Time to don my Batman outfit

First Tesco Tel; now this. Who do I have to nobble to get us noticed?

Today in the mail was this book. It's a nice little selection of eco-websites in the UK, and while we know almost all of them (and a few more besides) it's a 'sure, why not?'.

Thing is, we're not in it. Not under the Re's or even packaging. And at last I am seeing how it can be hard as a journalist to remain truly objective. Rest assured, I must be:)

The next slot in the newsletter is taken, but I will review it, as that is what I presume it was sent to us for (unless it was a very expensive way to rub our noses in it). And I will also note that its publishers are Eden Project, who we drove to visit a few years ago to see how we could help each other. Sadly, they (or at least their PR folk) were too busy saving the planet to want to deal any further with us, having dragged us to Cornwall to see them.

It can all... test... you at times.