Clean Energy Common Sense: An American Call to Action on Global Climate Change

by Frances Beinecke, Robert Redford (Foreword), Bob Deans (Contributor)

As America confronts global climate change, this documents the problem, sets forth solutions, and challenges each of us to do our part of embrace a clean and sustainable energy future. Today and in the years ahead. Doing so, she convincingly argues, will help put Americans back to work, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and create a healthier planet, for ourselves and for our children.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment

119 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2009

About the author

Frances Beinecke is the president of NRDC. Under Frances’s leadership, the organization sharply focuses on curbing global warming, developing a clean energy future, reviving the world’s oceans, saving endangered wild places, stemming the tide of toxic chemicals and accelerating the greening of China. Frances has worked with NRDC for 35 years. Prior to becoming the president in 2006, Frances was the executive director for eight years, during which time NRDC’s membership doubled and the staff grew to 300. Frances serves on the board of the World Resources Institute, the Energy Future Coalition and Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business and is on the steering committee of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. She is also the co-chair of the Leadership Council for the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a member of the Yale School of Management’s Advisory Board and a former member of the Yale Corporation. Frances received her bachelor’s degree from Yale College and a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She has received several awards, most recently the Rachel Carson Award from the National Audubon Society.

Reviews

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read in a few hours. Amazingly informational without being dry. The facts are astonishing.
Hopefully, this book finds its way into the hands of those who need it most.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I could put a copy of this book into the hands of every US voter -- more accurately, I wish I could have done so before the midterm elections, so that voters would have been able to give themselves a better assessment of the views of the candidates on offer; the results would assuredly have been very different. In a text not much longer, if at all, than the Tom Paine tract its title homages, it spells out very readably exactly the nature of the climate-change problem facing us, the corruptness of the arguments of those who try to persuade us it doesn't exist, what we can do to solve it, and how, rather than approaching the solution as if it were some kind of a burden we can instead regard it as the glorious economic opportunity it in fact is. The authors have gone out of their way to avoid making this a partisan broadside, even going to the extent of citing the famous George W. Bush address to Congress in which, years late, he finally acknowledged the existence of global warming and emptily promised to do something about it. If you're unlucky enough to have someone in your family dumb enough to have swallowed the line that gross excesses of CO2 in the atmosphere just mean there's more plant food to go around, here's the ideal stocking stuffer for them.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good book for what it is. You can read it in about two hours since it is so short (perfect for airplanes), and there is a lot of information packed in there. If you are interested in the environmental debate going on in this country and across the world right now, this is a wonderful way to get quick, well researched, and reliable information. Be aware though, if you are looking for something that is unbiased, this isn't the book. The author obviously wants sweeping changes to environmental policy, which makes sense since the book is sponsored by the NRDC.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Clean Energy Common Sense" would serve as a gleaming introduction for readers who may be otherwise uninformed on the topic of global climate change and the need for clean energy. While the book offers extensive citations of studies verifying anthropogenically forced climate change, it fails to provide reference to scientific research done regarding the future maintenance and protection of the planet's resources with a cap-and-trade system for carbon emission.

[Pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 'little' book packs a powerful message to all U.S. citizens that clean energy legislation is in our national interest--for jobs, global security and global warming mitigation--to pass and implement.

[Mohammad Khan.ch.]

dears,



Really, it is a great book, indeed. yours, khan.waiting!!!!!!!!Certain books should be spread in the world

[Geoffrey]

Haven't read it yet, but from what I've heard this harkens back to Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" essay from 1776, which helped spark the American Revolution.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you would like civilization to last beyond 2012, you should read this book and ACT!

[Debby Stassek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't learn much from this little book, but it's a good review of the topic.