Straight Up: America's Fiercest Climate Blogger Takes on the Status Quo Media, Politicians, and Clean Energy Solutions

by Joseph J. Romm

In 2009, Rolling Stone named Joe Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America." Romm is a climate expert, physicist, energy consultant, and former official in the Department of Energy. But... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597267163
• ISBN13: 9781597267168
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Island Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.6" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Cuts through the bull to give you straight facts about climate change

Between climate deniers who will stretch the truth so far out of whack to kill any effort to reduce greenhouse gases, to the media who constantly demonstrate incompetence when covering climate change, Straight Up is a welcome relief. Joe Romm brings a strong scientific background in climate change research to bear on the efforts by the right to mislead the public into doing nothing to stop the most serious threat to our ability to survive as a species. And he provides an equally compelling critique of the ineptitude among members of the media to accurately report the reality that climate change is caused by humans. Joe Romm addresses every issue of contention with clarity and a facts. Drawn from the most influential climate change blog around ([...]), Straight Up gives you the real deal. It is both scientifically grounded and easily accessible. Straight Up is a must read for anyone that wants to be serious about learning the facts related to climate change.

Breaking the Language Barrier on Climate Change!

In the footsteps of George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, about GOP language games and how to counter them, Jospeh Romm shows us how to use the Ancient Greek art of rhetoric to debunk the complete irrationality coming out of the GOP today, as regards the urgency of fixing climate change, which does not necessarily mean "hotter everywhere all the time", but certainly does mean new and dangerous extremes in weather. Don't tell me you haven't experienced some of it in the last few years. Republicans have successfully sown a lot of uncertainty, recently, that the planet's warming is man-made. Here Romm debunks climate-change deniers like Bjorn Lomborg and Sarah Palin, and shows you how to do it, too; although mostly it is directed at scientists who know the evidence intimately, which to be fair is not all of us. Joe is a trained climate physicist from MIT who served in the Clinton administration as assistant deputy energy secretary and has also written many books. He spent some years showing companies how they could retrofit their companies(or, I think, build new ones) to be more energy efficient and in every case they took a profit in doing so! We do want to give credit to those in business, some among the GOP, who understand the need for clean energy. In this book, Romm has married both arts of science and fine writing. The intro refers back to George Orwell's Essays on Politics and the English Language, particularly the chapter, "Why I Write". Joe calls his "Why I blog." Kudos to him for opening completely to readers about his motivations so you know exactly where he's coming from and that his not just a political axe to grind. Climate Change, as he says, is a bipartisan issue. There's a good section on the science of the most energy efficient car(hybrid plug-ins), the feasibility of the different new, but not impossibly new, forms of energy, including a wild(but not new) one I'd never heard of, CSP, which involves using mirrors to catch the sun's light and direct it into energy creation. Romm discusses most of the alternative forms out there as wedges of a pie that would get us to be much less dependent on oil. And it must be done yesterday but there's still hope. Romm also points out that the media did a terrible job of assessing the outcome of Copenhagen. They called that international summit on climate change underwhelming. In fact, a lot went on! "Read all about it." It also goes without saying that media too often feels that it has to present both sides of every story- even when only one side is supported by the facts. But Romm says it here with a vengeance. This book comes out at an auspicious time when Kerry and Lieberman just presented a Bill last week. Here's a quote from today, May 20, 2010, where Romm urges the Senate to act on it: "WashPost: Senate needs to act now on climate bill Quotes IEA: 'Every year the world fails to seriously deal with climate change raises the price tag by $500 billion -- a lot of whi

Real Climate Realism

If you haven't bought or read Straight Up, please do so immediately. Joe Romm has an amazing ability to stay fact-driven and optimistic even as the anti-science ideologues become even more entrenched. It is this passionate science-based activism (and similar efforts by so many others) that may preserve a livable climate for our children and grandchildren. My favorite aspect of the book is Romm's dedication to realism and honesty. Romm states, "Affection for the planet is unrequited. We need to focus on saving ourselves." By separating himself and climate-change from traditional environmentalism, Romm is able to focus on the true challenge: preserving a livable climate for humans. Combined with the "why I blog" section of the book, Romm makes it clear that he and many other Climate-change activists are not driven by an environmental or liberal idealism, but rather the rational and science-based understanding of the consequences of business-as-usual (i.e. worst-case-scenario.) We can only hope this kind of inspection of both the science and the solutions (and the barriers to each) will become more pervasive, and finally transform the undeserved perception of "alarmism."