The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet

"I think this one got through—and I think some of my colleagues were surprised that it made it onto the shortlist—because it’s a very polemical book. Michael Mann is a well-known climatologist; he has been involved in this area for years and was one of the people behind the hockey stick graph that shows the extraordinary take-off of global temperatures caused by fossil-fuel burning after the Industrial Revolution . He is firmly on the side of those warning of the dangers of climate change, and this is a book that really takes it to those who think that simply delaying action and deflecting responsibility are ways to deal with it. He’s got quite a lot to say about the systemic measures that should be taken—like carbon pricing or an end to subsidies for fossil fuel. That’s where he thinks the real action should be taken. Personal actions can’t do any harm, but he says that focusing on individual behaviour—have you lagged your loft or stopped eating meat—is a rather devious deflection tactic. He’s unhappy with it being the major focus of attention, and actually thinks it’s a new form of climate denialism. So it’s a strong book and I think that as well as the very pressing urgency of the problem, it gets on the shortlist because it’s written in a way that does generate some feeling. It’s probably one of the strongest polemics to make the list since we started the prize."