Solomon’s review of answers to big problems displays her expertise and optimism in a pragmatic, inspiring package.
A study of how successful campaigns to curb dangerous chemicals and pollution point to a way forward on climate change.
Apocalyptic despair over the issue of climate change is common. However, according to veteran atmospheric chemist Solomon, it is a waste of energy that could be productively employed. She has won acclaim for her four decades of work in her field, and in this book, she examines how a range of environmental crises have been addressed. She was directly involved in some, such as repairing the hole in the ozone layer; regarding other projects, she has drawn together extensive primary and secondary research. Compiled in this way, the list is surprisingly long, including the removal of lead from paint and gasoline, the banning of dangerous pesticides, and reductions in air pollution and acid rain. The ban on chlorofluorocarbons, writes the author, provides a framework for effective cooperative action. Beginning with scientific research, the process moved to policy changes in a few countries, followed by global agreements and workable regulation and action. Problems bring forth answers, which might be new technology or a change in thinking. Trying to bully people into acceptance of painful reform is usually counterproductive. Explanation and persuasion might be slow but will be more effective in the end. In relation to the climate change debate, Solomon does not underestimate the problems, but she believes that a tipping point for dynamic action has been reached. “If we seize the day within this decade, we can craft a better future for life on Earth,” she writes. “Understanding the basic science, the global politics, key economic factors, and the essential roles of the public and of technology-steering shows that the world is on the cusp of a brighter future.”
Solomon’s review of answers to big problems displays her expertise and optimism in a pragmatic, inspiring package.Pub Date: June 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780226827933
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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