Go to your carbon book store

There’s a lot about books and authors this week. Of course books store carbon but many of them also contain great content. Anna Clark’s “Green, American Style”; Jon Dee’s “Sustainable Growth”; Flemming Bermann’s “Global Warming for Young Minds”, Simon Tay’s “Asia Alone” and a New Scientist review of “The Climate Files” by Fred Pearce. This “book-burst” is not because we’ve been feeling guilty about promoting our own “The ABC of Carbon” book, but there is a lot out there worth taking notice of and that’s our job to let you have it! Tim Flannery always has something worthwhile to listen to, this time some timely advice for Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Adaptation and the fate of the Pacific Islands comes into focus this week, along with news of the demise of South East Asia’s only glacier. Europe is leading the world with its commitment to renewable energy and IBM is a stand-out for the environment. Plug in electric vehicles are coming to California, while President Obama invests billions in solar plants. Buildings, which come in for added scrutiny as big emitters, also offer great opportunity for efficiency measures, while Giles Parkinson get stuck into Australia for its very poor energy efficiency ranking. Carbon Planet and Greenfleet have some things to say about both the demise of the Greenhouse Friendly program and what’s replacing it. Let’s offset what we cannot reduce. – Ken Hickson