Into the Clear Blue Sky

Starred review from May 20, 2024
“The cheapest, safest, and only sure path to a safe climate starts with slashing emissions,” according to this invigorating report. Jackson (The Earth Remains Forever), an environmental science professor at Stanford University, surveys how cows, gas ranges, and the cement industry, among others, are filling the atmosphere with methane and carbon dioxide. Spotlighting individuals working on sustainable solutions, he shares how the CEO of a Swedish steel business, incentivized by laws requiring companies to pay for the carbon dioxide they release, developed a way to replace coal with hydrogen in the manufacturing process, which generates water instead of CO2
as a byproduct. Technology capable of removing greenhouse gases from the air will be necessary to achieve pre-industrial levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane, he contends, describing how “direct-air capture” and “enhanced weathering” technologies work (the latter involves exposing certain reactive minerals to air, which initiates a chemical reaction that binds CO2
with the rock and removes the gas from the atmosphere). The scientific descriptions are crisp and accessible (“The carbon-hydrogen bonds in methane absorb long-wave radiation and bounce like hyperactive schoolkids. These vibrations are how greenhouse gases warm the earth”), and the profiles offer reason for hope amid the gloom. This is an exceptional inquiry into the fight against global warming.

June 15, 2024
The chair of the Global Carbon Project looks at the hard--but not impossible--work needed to curb climate change. At first glance, the figures are discouraging: Global emissions of greenhouse gases continue apace, and while some wealthy nations are moving in the right direction, the aspiring ones have good reason to wonder why they can't have a slice of the wealth fossil fuels can generate. Stanford environmental scientist Jackson has a simple answer followed by a much more complex program: "The cheapest, safest, and only sure path to a safe climate starts with slashing emissions." In this, he demonstrates, each of us can do our part. For instance, methane is a neglected part of the emissions portfolio, so to speak. "Restoring methane to preindustrial levels would save 0.5�C of warming and could happen in your lifetime--and mine," writes Jackson. The trick there is to eat fewer hamburgers and steaks, for cows are major methane emitters on their own, and cows also consume huge amounts of water, more than half the flow of the endangered Colorado River. The author also suggests that we replace gas appliances with electrical ones, which are more environmentally friendly; bike or take the bus instead of driving to work; and make better choices about food. Many readers already know this information, but Jackson takes his lucid argument further, examining advances in such things as carbon-neutral steel and livestock feed that inhibits the production of methane. At the governmental level, he points out Canada's requirement of zero-emission water heaters in new construction, legislation that, south of the border, red American states have blocked. Every advance may be incremental, but, as one interlocutor tells Jackson, "incrementally better is still better." A useful handbook for reducing one's carbon footprint and encouraging neighbors and communities to do the same.

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