Description: Politicians and business leaders tell us that climate change can be solved with new technologies, but global emissions keep rising. Engineers show us technological options that could be deployed quickly, but there is no plan there to save us. We can no longer wait for solutions to climate change. To reduce our emissions quickly, we need to cut back on some aspects of modern life through inventive tweaks - and via restraint. Restraint is normal. It is also fundamental across all religious faiths. In this volume, Julian Allwood, an engineer, and Andrew Davison, a theologian, offer a fresh perspective and prescription for combatting climate change. Rather than starting from the vantage points of economics and politics, they rethink climate action in the long tradition of the virtues - Courage, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance -- along with Faith, Hope, and Love from the Bible. By acting in good faith now, a safe climate becomes an expression of our faith in and love for humanity.
Brief description: Julian Allwood is Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Sustainable Materials: with Both Eyes Open (2011) which established Material Efficiency as an essential component of climate action. A Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Allwood has been a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and contributes to corporate and government strategies on climate mitigation.
Review Quotes: ''Restraint' and 'virtue' are not terms used often in the climate debate, but as this fine book makes clear they should be. We need wisdom of all kinds, technical and moral, if we're going to have a chance.' Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun