Whether this is an exercise in thinking globally and acting locally or vice versa, a thoughtful, eminently reasonable set of...
Just in time for Earth Day, yes, a hopeful book of strategies for delivering the planet from our worst environmental depredations.
“Cities and nations thrive when leaders anticipate the future—and dream big,” writes former New York mayor and media magnate Bloomberg, who partners with former Sierra Club chairman Pope in alternating chapters. In a time when national leadership seems bent on denying the facts of climate change and failing to plan for the likely consequences of it, the authors propose that smaller-scale efforts are more likely to produce the desired results, efforts that “empower cities, regions, businesses, and citizens to accelerate the progress they are already making on their own.” For instance, Pope—who seems, on the whole, wonkier than Bloomberg—looks at ways in which electrical utilities can lead the way in shifting to renewable sources of power as opposed to being forced into it, one measurable result of which has been bad blood in coal country as a result of the Obama administration’s headlong plunge into cleaning up the coal industry without making necessary provisions for the workers who would be left jobless. Which isn’t to say that Bloomberg isn’t without his techno-nerdy side: he writes assuredly of the many ways in which cities such as New York have re-envisioned the role of the automobile, though with a political slogan or two tucked inside his prose for good measure: “more city leaders are recognizing that when the interests of cars and people diverge, people should come first.” Elsewhere, Bloomberg looks into the role of buildings in climate change—they are, as he notes, responsible for some 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions—while Pope notes that the future of climate change is not yet written, though sticking to a reasonable and salutary regime of energy consumption will “take decades to be felt.”
Whether this is an exercise in thinking globally and acting locally or vice versa, a thoughtful, eminently reasonable set of proposals for saving New York—and therefore the world.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-14207-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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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