A Blueprint for a Safer Planet

Oct 5, 2024 8:26 PM

Author:Nicholas Stern

* Further substantial climate change is unavoidable and the risks to the natural world, the economy and our everyday lives are immense. The way we live in the next thirty years - how we invest, use energy, organise transport and treat forests - will determine whether these risks become realities.

* Although poor countries - the least responsible for climate change - will be hit earliest and hardest, all countries must adapt to the effects: hurricanes and storms strike New Orleans and Mumbai; flooding causes devastation in England and Mozambique; droughts occur in Australia and Darfur; and sea level rise will affect Florida and Bangladesh.

* Lord Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and former Chief Economist at the World Bank, is the world's leading authority on what we can do in the face of such unprecedented threat. Action on climate change will require the greatest possible international collaboration, but if successful will ensure not just our future, but our future prosperity.

* Focusing on the economic management of investment and growth from the perspective of both adaptation and mitigation, Stern confronts the most urgent questions facing us now: what is the problem? What are the dangers? What can be done to reduce emissions, at what cost? How can the world adapt? And what does all this mean for corporations, governments and individuals?

* A Blueprint for a Safer Planet provides authoritative, inspirational, and hopeful, answers.

Reviews

The Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next December will be one of the most important international gatherings since the Second World War. Nicholas Stern gives a compelling account of why the meeting matters so much to the world, and outlines a global deal that would provide the ground rules for a safer planet. His book reinforces the arguments of the original Stern Review, and provides a forceful response to its critics

—— Richard Lambert, head of CBI and Chancellor of Warwick University

The Stern Review led the way in explaining the economic theory of climate change. His Blueprint sets out in practical terms why the world needs to act, what we need to do, and how, if we take action, we can build a new era of prosperity and growth.

—— Adair Turner, Chairman of the FSA and Chairman of the Climate Change Committee

The book is written for a wider audience than the official report and incorporates some more recent (and worrying) findings from climate science.

—— Economist , Economist

Despite his gloomy predictions Lord Stern's overall argument is one of optimism

—— Louise Gray , Telegraph

If this year's climate crucial climate change negotiations are successful, this book will be required reading ... Lord Stern, like Al Gore, could be seen as one of the rock stars of global warming.

—— Fiona Harvey , Financial Times

The planet owes Nicholas Stern a big thank you...valuable and combative stuff.

—— Fred Pearce , Guardian

A terrific story of competitive bickering, intrigue, damaged reputations and unacknowledged contributions- It is also wonderfully written- an ideal primer

—— Irish Times

Marvellous and comprehensive

—— Nature

There are few better introductions than this

—— New Scientist

A wonderful book- [which] bears favourable comparison with Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man.

—— Sunday Telegraph

James Watson-is one of the greatest living biologists- [His] new book is an important event, for he is a scintillating writer

—— John Cornwell , The Sunday Times

James Watson has been an eyewitness to each revolution in molecular biology, from the double helix to the genome. He sees further and clearer than anybody else in the field. Give this fabulously good book to anybody who wants to understand what all the excitement is about

—— Matt Ridley

Gabriel Weston's story succeeds better than any I have known...more riveting and thought-provoking than any fiction

—— The Lady, Susan Hill

Glinting like a tray of instruments, her prose is satisfyingly precise

—— Victoria Segal , The Guardian

A curiously thrilling read, written with an elegance heightened by its clarity and economy

—— Elizabeth Day , Observer

A valuable and unflinching account, since it so clearly tells the truth

—— Christopher Hart , The Sunday Times

This book is mesmerising

—— William Leith , Scotsman

Her description of the struggle to remain individual and hence moral is her real achievement. This, to me, is what female writing has to do, and she does it with style and humour and beauty

—— Rachel Cusk

This much appreciated book should be a must-read for everyone who likes to travel, and should be translated into the languages of the world's tourism champions. It should also be a must-read for politicians and decision makers in development agencies to finally understand that tourism has lost the 'virginity' of a harmless leisure sector to develop into a dangerous global driving force which needs to be regulated and restricted.

—— Contours magazine

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