In a genre rife with forecasts of doom and exhortations in favor of frugal living, Prentiss provides impressive evidence...
A surprisingly optimistic analysis of the world’s unsustainable, wasteful energy consumption.
Solving the energy crisis through self-denial is a nonstarter, writes Prentiss (Physics/Harvard Univ.), but it may be unnecessary since “recent U.S. data suggest that increases in energy efficiency and changes in technology mean that decreases in energy use may not require sacrifices.” In fact, “some energy-saving changes have been accompanied by life-style improvements.” Per-capita energy use in the United States has held steady since 1960. The amount of energy required to create a dollar of gross domestic product has fallen steadily and is predicted to drop by another half by 2040. Further improvements are inevitable, and scientific laws do not favor the continued burning of fossil fuels. The second law of thermodynamics guarantees enormous inefficiency in any cyclic heat engine, which includes fossil fuel–burning power plants and the internal combustion engine. An automobile wastes 80-85 percent of gasoline’s energy, but electric motors can be over 99 percent efficient. In the middle chapters, Prentiss explains the design, operation and future role of power sources from water, wind, sun and other renewables. Dense with charts, graphs and equations, these chapters will be difficult going for many general readers but illuminating to those who persist. Ultimately, Prentiss states bluntly that wind power can supply 100 percent of America’s energy needs. Generating power from renewables is already practicable, but wind and sun are often absent, so storage and distribution remain the main barriers. Confident that this is temporary, Prentiss delivers a detailed, definitely not dumbed-down explanation of possible solutions, concluding, “we are on the cusp of an energy revolution, which might significantly improve the lives of almost everyone on earth if only we have the courage to seize the opportunity.”
In a genre rife with forecasts of doom and exhortations in favor of frugal living, Prentiss provides impressive evidence that things may work out just fine.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-674-72502-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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