Should You Bother Reading the Book?

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This book provides an answer to the question “When faced with contradictory statements from experts on a complex and perhaps urgent issue, what on earth is the harried layman supposed to do?” If you feel that sense of exasperation with the issue, then this book is written just for you.  Still not sure whether you should read it or not?  Find yourself on this handy chart for the answer.

You . . .

Read it?

Why?

. . . think global warming is bunk.

Yes

I’m not going to even try to convince you that global warming is real. That said, by the end of the process you may convince yourself that we should take drastic action anyway.*

. . . think global warming is a problem, but overblown—no way we can effect the whole planet that much.

Yes

You could very well be right. However, while we debate the issue of whether humans can seriously monkey with the climate, we are at the same time running the experiment. The kicker is, no matter what you predict the result of the experiment will be, we’re in the test tube. So it’s worth making a pretty deliberate bet when the wager may be the whole ball of wax.

. . . think that if global warming were really such a big problem, then they would be dealing with it.

Yes

Have “they” ever messed up before? Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster, but what happened in New Orleans was a national disgrace. You don’t want to look to the crest of the hill for the cavalry in your time of need and hear only crickets. So it may be prudent to do a little looking out for yourself. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? You waste a few hours reading a book.

. . . think global warming is a problem, but there are a ton of other environmental causes out there worthy of our limited resources.

Yes

I used to get my shorts in a twist about all sorts of environmental things: old-growth forests, nuclear power, endangered species, blah, blah, blah. But having evaluated climate change with the tools in this book, I’ve come to think it simply trumps everything else. Nuclear waste? No problem! Spotted O[AU1] wl? Tastes like chicken! So you might find something interesting in this tale of how I went from a bleeding-heart environmentalist to a harsh pragmatist.

. . . are too busy in life to worry about stuff like this.

Yes

If the American Medical Association said tomorrow “The color green is bad for you,” you might think, “What the heck? Have they gone off their rocker?” But you’d give it a second look. Because they are the most authoritative body in medicine and aren’t to be lightly dismissed. Well, what would you think if I told you that the “AMA of science” has declared “global warming is a clear threat to society, and we need to act right now”? That doesn’t mean you’d believe them. But you’d probably take a second look. Well, they did. [Link to http://www.webcitation.org/5hReNDhq8.] Can you really afford to not spend a few minutes looking into it?

. . . think global warming is a huge threat and should be addressed immediately, just like a hot poker in the gut.

No

Don’t bother. There are better-researched, more frightening books on the subject if you’re looking to wallow in some terror. But one way of addressing global warming is to buy dozens of copies of this book and leave them lying around Laundromats, park benches, your senator’s office, and so on. In that case, you’ll want to read it first, to make sure you’re passing along a good product.**

How is this book different from all the others?

There are already books aplenty on both sides of the issue, shouting “Believe me!”  “No, believe me!”  But the average person doesn’t know who to believe, because both arguments seem convincing.  Of course we’re too small to affect the planet.  Then again, of course there may be bad side effects of our world-scale energy technology.

My book is an attempt to provide the average, non-technical person a way to come to a decision themselves, based on their own values and experiences, about what (if anything) we should do about climate change.  Without having to decide which side to believe.

It is a simple decision-making system, rather than an argument for a point of view.

Look.  I’m not an expert in anything.  But when I posted “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See” in mid-2007, I pretty much threw down the gauntlet with the whole Internet.  And there’s no better way to refine an argument than to challenge people on the web to poke holes in it.  They did, and I came back with the bruisingly thorough 8-hour “How It All Ends” video series.  Then I did even more online research and debating to write the book.  I even sent drafts out to around 100 experts asking for their critiques, and got back a number of very useful responses.

So if you buy the book, what you’ll have in your hand is the result of thousands of hours of debate by tens of thousands of people over two years, combined with the focused research and brainstorming of a community of 400 people on the manpollo.org website.  The Manpollo crew served as an online think tank/focus group/researcher pool, so the book is sort of the sifted wisdom of a whole group of people, channeled through me.

I’m not sure anything like that has been done before.

Why buy the book ...

if the videos are already available for free? Because this book rocks.

The book is definitely not a version of the “How It All Ends” video marathon [link].  It would have been so-o-o-o much easier to just re-purpose the video scripts [link to scripts]--and that was in fact my original intention when taking the book contract--but my obsessive perfectionist personality took over, and I started from scratch again.  (Argh!)

The book is completely different than the videos (though it’s built on the same approach and tools) because it’s a systematic method for making decisions, rather than a mishmash of responses to specific criticisms of “The Most Terrifying Video”.  It’s a map out of the woods for the harried layperson, rather than a soapbox smattering of arguments.

I thought I was writing a book on climate change, but once I was done, I realized I’d written a book on how to make a critical decision when you don’t have the time or expertise to make a decision.

It has the side benefit of providing a basic decision-making process that can be applied to any difficult decision--not just global warming, but anything from “What career should I choose” to “What auto mechanic should I use” to “Should I vaccinate my child?” to (insert your dilemma here).  I think of this book like the MSG added to food (but without the headaches and cancer)--no nutritional value of its own, but the addition of that simple ingredient suddenly unlocks all the flavors already present, but un-tasted.

And if your conclusion happens to match mine, I give detailed suggestions for how to translate that conclusion into action that makes a real difference. If your conclusion doesn’t match mine, then you probably wouldn’t value my advice anyway. Still, I do provide some resources that you can use to decide how to put your conclusion into action, and being familiar with the thinking tools in my book will make it easier to talk with the warmers as you continue the debate.