A thoughtful contribution to the climate change debate, with a unique, businesscentric approach to setting energy and...
Debut author Stoner provides an in-depth look at climate change and the world’s energy use, offering bold, new policies that could save the planet and the global economy.
Drawing on more than 25 years’ experience as an energy company executive and capital formation expert, Stoner displays a wide-ranging grasp of the political, economic, historical and scientific issues surrounding climate change and energy policy. He maintains that rising global temperatures and sea levels and escalating superstorms such as Katrina and Sandy present an existential threat to human survival rivaling previous threats such as nuclear proliferation. Stoner avoids debate about the science of climate change and whether it’s man-made; instead, he takes a pragmatic approach, suggesting that determining the best forms of renewable energy for a healthy environment is essentially a business problem. And, like all business proposals, it’s essential that the interests of all the stakeholders are met—in this case, lender, supplier, user and environmental steward. Stoner contends that a market-based approach will lead to inexhaustible energy supplies, a better environment and a thriving economy. Using forecasts created by Project Butterfly, his not-for-profit clean-energy enterprise, Stoner establishes a worthwhile business goal for this century: “[I]f we can keep atmospheric CO2 concentration below 550 ppm, the Project Butterfly Financial Model forecasts that the increase in average global temperatures will slightly exceed 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), a situation to which humans may still be able to adapt.” But how? He advocates using natural gas as a transitional energy source and promoting voluntary carbon credit exchanges. However, his primary recommendation is carbon taxes, for which he advocates using what could become the next political slogan: “[T]ax what you burn, not what you earn.” Although the material reads at times like a textbook, the author’s references to his family lend a personal feel, and interesting historical side notes—about topics such as the failure of Solyndra, rural electrification under FDR and the rise of nuclear power—also help enliven the text. His ideas are well-supported with extensive citations found in the endnotes, and dozens of charts effectively explain the complex data behind climate change and energy use.
A thoughtful contribution to the climate change debate, with a unique, businesscentric approach to setting energy and environmental policies.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62634-002-2
Page Count: 556
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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