The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won't Tell You About Global Warming »

Roger Pielke, Jr., is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. The author of The Honest Broker, he lives in Boulder, Colorado.

The world’s response to climate change is deeply flawed. This book is where we begin to get it on track.

Publishers Weekly

Pielke (The Honest Broker) presents a smart and hard-nosed analysis of the politics and science of climate change and proposes “a commonsense approach to climate policy.” According to Pielke, the “iron law of climate policy” dictates that whenever “environmental and economic objectives are placed in opposition to each other,” economics always wins. “Climate policies must be made compatible with economic growth as a precondition for their success,” he writes, and because the world will need more energy in the future, an “oblique” approach supporting “causes,” such as developing affordable alternative energy sources rather than “consequences,” such as controversial schemes like cap-and-trade, is more likely to succeed. Although some may protest on principle the suggestion that we accept the inevitability of energy growth, Pielke’s focus on adaptation to climate change refreshingly sidesteps the unending debate over the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and opens up the possibility for effective action that places “human dignity and democratic ideals at the center of climate policies.” (Oct.)