With Heat, George Monbiot has moved past the obfuscating arguments being slung like mud back and forth across the globe, and faces not just the alarmiWith Heat, George Monbiot has moved past the obfuscating arguments being slung like mud back and forth across the globe, and faces not just the alarming truth of global warming but the seemingly impossible task of actually doing something about it.
This book is, as he points out in the introduction, a manifesto. It is a plan of action. The goal is to cut our carbon dioxide emissions by 90% by 2030. This is the "seemingly impossible" aspect, especially when you look at Canada's current situation (this Canadian edition includes a foreward designed to wipe the smug smiles off our faces, and effectively brings his manifesto into our own backyard).
Using the UK as his base, Monbiot focuses on high-energy users and high emission-producing industries, from "our leaky homes" to gas, coal and nuclear plants, cars, public transport, the cement industry, heat, lighting and aviation. Before getting onto the task of fixing our situation before it gets worse, he spends a chapter on the current data and where it will lead us, and on the "denial industry". This chapter alone is worth your time. It is engrossing, enlightening and actually quite entertaining.
For all his sources, Monbiot does a thorough background check. This process, of following individuals and organisations from their comments all the way to who is funding them, adds a detective element to the book - a bit like the TV show House. It also serves to add legitimacy to the people Monbiot does quote - although he makes a point of being sceptical of anyone who is selling something.
One of the other truly great chapters in this book is on public transport. Using models put forward by other thinkers, Monbiot restructures the English transit system, making it more user-friendly, affordable, quicker, and drastically reduces not only the amount of cars on the road, but also the amount of road. As with the aviation industry, more money is being spent on expanding roads, which will only fill up with twice as many cars, than on finding other transport solutions or "greener" cars.
His chapter on fuel, especially his breakdown on so-called "green fuels", is less heartening. Although he remains incredibly optimistic throughout the book, his conclusions regarding our fuel options are downright depressing. Still, we can only persevere. Likewise, the amount of energy a supermarket uses to keep the fridges on while at the same time heating the place, is shocking, but not surprising. What is really shocking, is that we are all so accustomed to it that no one even thinks about the waste of energy our expectations of convenience cause.
Heat moves nimbly past all the bickering politicians and scientists and everyone else with an opinion, and looks at ways we can save the planet without sacrificing as much as we will if we do absolutely nothing. But his final point is clear: as long as we refuse to change our lifestyle, make some cuts in our own way of living, we are going to be pretty adverse to politicians regulating - as Monbiot says they need to do - and also give them a good reason to not even try.
As a manifesto, Heat provides a great deal of clear-headed, well-researched and rational information. When one of our politicians decides to take the situation seriously, they would do well to start here....more
Jane is a poor, plain orphan girl living with her aunt Reed and cousins Georgiana, John and Eliza. She has no friends or protectors now that her uncleJane is a poor, plain orphan girl living with her aunt Reed and cousins Georgiana, John and Eliza. She has no friends or protectors now that her uncle is dead, and with her active imagination sees his ghost in the Red Room where she is locked up as punishment. Sent to a girl's school in the country where she is promptly forgotten, she makes her first friend in Helen Burns - who is taken from her when typhus sweeps through the school.
Conditions afterward improve somewhat and she becomes a teacher at the school. Desirous of making her own way, though, she puts out an ad for a governess position and secures one at Thornfield Hall, teaching a little French girl called Adele who is ward to the master of the house, Mr Rochester. Rochester is almost always absent but when he does return home they form an unlikely and, for Jane, a surprising friendship.
Her new happiness increases as she finds herself falling in love with the bad-tempered man, only to have it beaten at when he boldly hints at marrying Miss Blanche Ingram, a very pretty but cold young woman who lives nearby. The truth will out, though, in more ways than one, and at the peak of her happiness, Jane's world will shatter irrevocably. Or perhaps not...
This remains one of my favourite books. I first read it in primary school - and right proud I was too of reading such a grown-up book! - and have found that the Jane and Rochester pairing is as wonderful as Lizzy and Darcy, if not better, 'cause let's face it, Rochester is a lot more intense and Jane is such a familiar, shy girl who just needs the right person to notice and appreciate her.
I can read this in just a couple of days, though I like to savour it. The writing is a bit sickly in the scene where Jane threatens to leave - I have a hard time picturing Rochester like that, behaving like such a little boy! The third section where Jane lives with her new-found relatives is the least interesting (I've never liked St. John). I also don't like how she gives St. John the last word. But none of this takes anything away from the overall power this story continues to have over me....more