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The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming
This is a terrific labor. Nowhere will readers find a more exhaustive, yet accessible, treatment of the climate challenge. The Climate Challenge is a terrific resource for anyone interested in understanding the preeminent issue of our time. Guy Dauncey's skills as an educator are on full display in this masterful work! -- Gary Gardner, Senior Researcher, Worldwatch Institute A lot has been written about climate change over the last few years, but this is a real cracker. Hugely informative, hard-hitting and very upbeat about the solutions. Get your head around The Climate Challenge, and I think you’ll find there’s only one answer to Guy Dauncey’s own question (‘do we believe in our ability to create a green, sustainable future?’), and that’s ‘yes!’-- Sir Jonathon Porritt, past Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission If you are wondering what to do about climate change, here is the answer. The Climate Challenge is not only interesting and informative, it is also exciting. –Lester R. Brown, author of Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization What an amazingly (insanely!) comprehensive and useful book. Guy Dauncey gets it. He understands all the individual things we must do, but also why they won't work unless we also commit to working together and building a movement. This is a joyous, hope-filled manual for facing the greatest crisis humanity has ever encountered. It's going to do a lot of good!
- Bill McKibben, A wonderfully clear guide to simplify the issues of global warming and climate change so that anyone can get involved, doing what they can where they are. Dauncey’s 101 solutions – which people can take at every level from personal to global – provide both the needed information and the inspiration. -- Hazel Henderson, President of Ethical Markets Media, and author of Ethical Growing The Green Economy The Climate Challenge is the handbook for the increasing number of people worldwide who understand the unchecked, global warming threatens a swing in global temperatures of ice age magnitude, only in the opposite direction, within the lifetime of today’s young people. Guy Dauncey provides meaningful, effective solutions at the personal, professional and business level. But he also makes it clear that only if local action builds quickly to serious and sustained national political engagement can we really change the future. - Eban Goodstein, Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, New York Very timely and persuasive. The Climate Challenge is an essential owner’s manual for our planet. Guy Dauncey’s clear-eyed presentation of the problem is followed by practical solutions that empower each of us to take action now - - and if we follow his advice, we will meet the challenge and win. - Terry Tamminen, New America Foundation, former Secretary of California EPA Guy Dauncey has created something unique in the current literature by blending (i) a highly readable narrative on global warming, (ii) a rich picture book on climate solutions, and (iii) an up-to-date digest of the relevant heaps of climate change information that have steadily grown into electronic Himalayas. If you wish to grasp the mind-boggling complexity of the climate challenge, read this book. -- John Shellnhuber, Chief Sustainability Scientist for the German Government and, Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research The Climate Challenge is an informative, yet hopeful look at the climate crisis. Based on the latest science, the book includes a wealth of practical steps for citizens, industries, and governments to help avert catastrophic climate change as well other detrimental environmental impacts. -- Rhett A. Butler, founder of This book is marvelous! Guy Dauncey’s new book is an elegant, insightful and comprehensive examination of the dominant global challenge we face. This attractive work belongs on the desk of every investor, entrepreneur, citizen and policy maker.
-- Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School To employ the book's own martial metaphors, Dauncey writes that we are all soldiers of circumstance placed on the front line of the great battle of our the fight against the forces of climate change. The Climate Challenge does more than orient the reader and set out the tactics; Dauncey rallies the troops for the struggle ahead by instilling a vision of the better future that will c
- Bill McKibben, A wonderfully clear guide to simplify the issues of global warming and climate change so that anyone can get involved, doing what they can where they are. Dauncey’s 101 solutions – which people can take at every level from personal to global – provide both the needed information and the inspiration. -- Hazel Henderson, President of Ethical Markets Media, and author of Ethical Growing The Green Economy The Climate Challenge is the handbook for the increasing number of people worldwide who understand the unchecked, global warming threatens a swing in global temperatures of ice age magnitude, only in the opposite direction, within the lifetime of today’s young people. Guy Dauncey provides meaningful, effective solutions at the personal, professional and business level. But he also makes it clear that only if local action builds quickly to serious and sustained national political engagement can we really change the future. - Eban Goodstein, Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, New York Very timely and persuasive. The Climate Challenge is an essential owner’s manual for our planet. Guy Dauncey’s clear-eyed presentation of the problem is followed by practical solutions that empower each of us to take action now - - and if we follow his advice, we will meet the challenge and win. - Terry Tamminen, New America Foundation, former Secretary of California EPA Guy Dauncey has created something unique in the current literature by blending (i) a highly readable narrative on global warming, (ii) a rich picture book on climate solutions, and (iii) an up-to-date digest of the relevant heaps of climate change information that have steadily grown into electronic Himalayas. If you wish to grasp the mind-boggling complexity of the climate challenge, read this book. -- John Shellnhuber, Chief Sustainability Scientist for the German Government and, Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research The Climate Challenge is an informative, yet hopeful look at the climate crisis. Based on the latest science, the book includes a wealth of practical steps for citizens, industries, and governments to help avert catastrophic climate change as well other detrimental environmental impacts. -- Rhett A. Butler, founder of This book is marvelous! Guy Dauncey’s new book is an elegant, insightful and comprehensive examination of the dominant global challenge we face. This attractive work belongs on the desk of every investor, entrepreneur, citizen and policy maker.
-- Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School To employ the book's own martial metaphors, Dauncey writes that we are all soldiers of circumstance placed on the front line of the great battle of our the fight against the forces of climate change. The Climate Challenge does more than orient the reader and set out the tactics; Dauncey rallies the troops for the struggle ahead by instilling a vision of the better future that will c
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 12, 2024
Actually, Dauncey presents far more than 101 solutions. Each two-page “solution” covers a broad topic, and within that framework, he might include a dozen or more. As an example, I opened randomly to solution #58, “Build a Smart Grid” (pp.192-193). Those two pages begin by pointing out issues with the old-fashioned grid and challenges that will render it obsolete. Then it presents a vision of the many improvements a smart-grid world would offer, from evening out the consumption highs and lows to eliminating the need for “peaker plants” to lowering homeowner electric bills—and notes potential overall savings in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Then it provides three action steps for electric utilities before concluding with six methods to address storage of renewable energy in the short term. It also includes a photo with caption, a sidebar with 15 websites to learn more, a quote from an expert, five reference citations to the extensive endnotes (22 pages’ worth)—and, amazingly, about two column-inches of white space.
Other solution spreads include charts and graphs, sidebars with citizen action steps (nine of these at solution #62 fill almost half a page), and many more resources (solution #32’s resource box includes 26 websites instead of a photo). The book designer did an amazing job of making everything except for the single-page final solution #101, which basically just tells the reader to get involved in whatever way is meaningful to them, fit exactly two pages.
And before we even get to the solutions—grouped into 11 economic sectors such as farming, governments, communities, activism, manufacturing, transportation, etc.—the first 75 pages are devoted to an overview that looks deeply at how humans have altered the earth’s current status—and what that means for our future.
I found quite a bit to agree with here, including several points I’ve been making for years in my speaking and writing. A few examples:
1. Mindset is key. We have the technology to solve many of the biggest human-created problems, but the biggest battle is convincing others that yes, we can—and, in fact, we must.
2. When you scrape away the superficials, war is usually about competing claims for resources such as energy, which he focuses on. I would also consider water, minerals, harbor access, etc. And because resource issues are solvable, peace actually is possible.
3. The business case for addressing these issues (not just climate but the many related slices like hunger, poverty, and various kinds of discrimination) is so strong that executives should be asking managers why they are missing the enormously profitable opportunities in being part of the solution.
4. We’re all in this together. While business and the profit motive can be significant movers toward the better world we’d all like to envision, government needs to use its regulatory power as well. And activists need to pressure both business and government. And academics, engineers, and scientists need to research cutting-edge solutions. And NGOs need to create the awareness not just of the problems, but of the solutions.
Because it was published back in 2009, many statistics in the book are probably obsolete. Even back then, his numbers showed an overwhelming case for shifting to clean energy. But the good news is the performance of clean-energy technologies compared with fossil and nuclear is likely to be even better, because prices of renewables have plummeted while fossil fuels have fluctuated wildly but tend toward higher prices (and are more expensive now than they were in 2009).
Other solution spreads include charts and graphs, sidebars with citizen action steps (nine of these at solution #62 fill almost half a page), and many more resources (solution #32’s resource box includes 26 websites instead of a photo). The book designer did an amazing job of making everything except for the single-page final solution #101, which basically just tells the reader to get involved in whatever way is meaningful to them, fit exactly two pages.
And before we even get to the solutions—grouped into 11 economic sectors such as farming, governments, communities, activism, manufacturing, transportation, etc.—the first 75 pages are devoted to an overview that looks deeply at how humans have altered the earth’s current status—and what that means for our future.
I found quite a bit to agree with here, including several points I’ve been making for years in my speaking and writing. A few examples:
1. Mindset is key. We have the technology to solve many of the biggest human-created problems, but the biggest battle is convincing others that yes, we can—and, in fact, we must.
2. When you scrape away the superficials, war is usually about competing claims for resources such as energy, which he focuses on. I would also consider water, minerals, harbor access, etc. And because resource issues are solvable, peace actually is possible.
3. The business case for addressing these issues (not just climate but the many related slices like hunger, poverty, and various kinds of discrimination) is so strong that executives should be asking managers why they are missing the enormously profitable opportunities in being part of the solution.
4. We’re all in this together. While business and the profit motive can be significant movers toward the better world we’d all like to envision, government needs to use its regulatory power as well. And activists need to pressure both business and government. And academics, engineers, and scientists need to research cutting-edge solutions. And NGOs need to create the awareness not just of the problems, but of the solutions.
Because it was published back in 2009, many statistics in the book are probably obsolete. Even back then, his numbers showed an overwhelming case for shifting to clean energy. But the good news is the performance of clean-energy technologies compared with fossil and nuclear is likely to be even better, because prices of renewables have plummeted while fossil fuels have fluctuated wildly but tend toward higher prices (and are more expensive now than they were in 2009).
August 13, 2016
While admirable in scope and breadth, there were many typos & even factual errors in the edition I read through, which should have been caught at proof-reading. (So irritating was this, that I wrote to the author; to his credit he was appreciative of my pointing these out, and promised to correct them in subsequent editions.)
The book could be a good starting point for readers wanting to learn what we can all do, to reduce our collective impact... but only once the corrections are in place.
The book could be a good starting point for readers wanting to learn what we can all do, to reduce our collective impact... but only once the corrections are in place.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews