"A landmark study in the struggle to contain climate change, the
greatest challenge of our era. I urge everyone to read it."
--Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America
Since it first appeared, this book has achieved a classic status.
Reprinted many times since its publication, it remains the only work
that looks in detail at the political issues posed by global warming.
This new edition has been thoroughly updated and provides a
state-of-the-art discussion of the most formidable challenge humanity
faces this century.
If climate change goes unchecked, the consequences are likely to be
catastrophic for human life on earth. Yet for most people and for many
policy-makers too, it tends to be a back-of-the-mind issue. We recognize
its importance and even its urgency, but for the most part it is swamped
by more immediate concerns.
Political action and intervention on local, national and international
levels are going to have a decisive effect on whether or not we can
limit global warming as well as how we adapt to that already occurring.
However, at the moment, argues Giddens, we do not have a systematic
politics of climate change. Politics-as-usual won't allow us to deal
with the problems we face, while the recipes of the main challenger to
orthodox politics, the green movement, are flawed at source. Giddens
introduces a range of new concepts and proposals to fill in the gap, and
examines in depth the connections between climate change and energy
security.
