Despite being limited in its vision for the future, a useful overview of the science of climate change and the need for...
Smith and Fletcher explain the past, present, and future of the global warming phenomenon that’s affecting us all.
The authors provide a complete overview of global warming and climate change that explains the science involved and provides details on how contemporary global events influence the possibility and potential of action. The book opens with an elucidation of seven key pieces of evidence that prove global warming is real, from rising earth and ocean temperatures to melting ice sheets and rising sea levels. From there, the authors offer a comprehensive list of the consequences of climate change, from insect infestations to conflicts caused by mass migration. They explore both the history of the drivers of climate change and how policy is shaped by current geopolitics. The U.S. has fewer incentives to switch from fossil fuels thanks to its large oil reserves and the use of fracking, while China is beginning to find success embracing renewable energy sources. For efforts to slow the damage of climate change to be successful, a huge amount of global cooperation is required. Smith and Fletcher offer a 15-point action plan for what needs to be achieved, including making changes in agriculture and adapting to higher global temperatures. They forecast that eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and stopping global warming should be possible this century. The world is not moving fast enough, they say, but renewables are increasingly the cheapest form of energy, and attendant technology is constantly improving. If nothing is done, they forecast that the temperature increase could be as high as three degrees Celsius by 2100. The question then becomes what governments, companies, and individuals can do about the problem.
The authors assure us that achieving climate goals is possible, even while preserving economic growth and raising global living standards. The book as a whole works to explain all the concepts the authors describe in depth so it can be understood by any reader, regardless of expertise. The authors offer chapter summaries and list key points that can be used to make study guides. Such accessibility is vital for ensuring that the science is clear and misinformation is quashed, though there is a risk that some readers might feel the book’s tone is slightly condescending. The use of a cartoon carbon dioxide molecule to describe specific topics may help some readers easily grasp the subject, but others will likely reject the idea that such a gesture is necessary. While the book offers a useful overview, it rarely delves into the intricacies of any subject deeply enough to offer any true level of expertise. Its message of hope is certainly well intentioned, but the authors fail to consider many experts’ view that radical adaptation is what this climate emergency requires. The end result is a book with a solid up-to-date scientific grounding but an incomplete picture of what the future may hold.
Despite being limited in its vision for the future, a useful overview of the science of climate change and the need for action.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781967213153
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Publish Authority
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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