In an effort to open up important books on climate change to the broader public, and to implant their key points in my mind, I’m going to excerpt crucial passages. Here’s a central point from James Lovelock’s The Revenge of Gaia, published by a Penguin imprint in 2006:
I am not recommending nuclear fission energy as the long-term panacea for our ailing planet or as the answer to all our problems. I see it as the only effective medicine we have now. When one of us develops late-onset diabetes as a consequence of overeating and insufficient exercise, we know that medicine alone is not enough; we have to change our whole style of living. Nuclear energy is merely the medicine that sustains a steady secure source of electricity to keep the lights of civilization burning until clean and everlasting fusion, the energy that powers the sun, and renewable energy are available. We will have to do much more than just rely on nuclear energy if we are to avoid a new Dark Age later this century.
From the first chapter, "The State of the Earth."
Kit Stolz 