Book Reviews
On this page you will find reviews of books that I have written and submitted to various publications. As there are many reviews, if you would like a list of the book reviews I have written please contact me.
Book Review The Heat Will Kill You First
Jeff Goodell
Little Brown and Company, New York, New York, 2023
385 pages
Of all the books on the climate crisis that I have reviewed, this is the only one that has the word heat in the title. When I found it at the local library, I thought perhaps the author might include an explanation of the meaning of that word. Early in the book the author describes a "pile of heat" drifting to the coast from the ocean. A bit later he describes his idea of the problem with the concept of heat, writing, "Who can tell the difference between a 71 -degree (Fahrenheit) day and an 81-degree (Fahrenheit) day?" Worse still, just a bit later Goodell describes heat as an "active force." As I see it, the problem is that very few folks can describe what temperature actually indicates, let alone what is involved in determining how much heat something contains. Please take a moment to think about the difference between temperature and heat?
Despite this shortfall, this is another book that does well identifying the challenges we face as the climate crisis becomes an emergency. We'll get back to the difference between temperature and heat later in this review.
Before the contents page in the book, the author lists what he has titled a "Heat Index." This is a list of eight numbers that mostly describe the human suffering currently caused by the changes in climate. These include 30 million people who live in temperatures above 85℉ mean annual temperature, a 210 million increase in the number of people who face acute food insecurity since 2019, and 489,000, annual worldwide deaths from extreme heat. Goodall quotes a former mayor of Greenville, Mississippi testifying before the U.S. congress stating, "We're all in the same storm, but we're not in the same boat. Some of us are sitting on aircraft carriers while others are just bobbing along on floaties."
Chapter 3, titled, "Heat Islands," includes information from Mikhail Chester, director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University. He describes the failures that result from a blackout in a large city like Phoenix, Arizona. These include loss of air conditioning in homes and office buildings, gridlock on highways, and overflow at hospitals with people suffering from heat exhaustion and heat stroke. When asked how likely such a disaster is to happen, Chester responded, "It's more a question of when, not if." Goodell titled the fourth chapter "Life on the Run." Here he sites the fact that climate change, in particular unpredictable rainfall, has caused mass migrations of people out of Southeast Asia, noting that eight million Southeast Asians have migrated toward Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Goodell writes that extreme heat, resulting in lack of food and water, drives the global migration of people.
Goodell spent some time with John Orlowski, a member of No More Deaths, an organization that assists migrants on the southern U.S. border. Goodell summarized the information about the U.S Border Patrol operations he got from Orlowski as weaponizing heat to deter illegal immigration. (An excellent book that describes the potential effect of the climate crisis on immigration is Nomad Century by Gaia Vince, which was reviewed in the Winter/Spring 2023 issue of the Teachers Clearinghouse for Science and Society Education Newsletter.)
In the fifth chapter of the book, Goodell comes close to explaining the nature of heat. He describes the investigation done by Count Rumford in 1797. Following the description, Goodell writes, "(Rumford) was transforming the energy of the horses (used in the investigation) into mechanical energy in the spinning of the drill bit (used to drill the barrel of a cannon) which was then converted into thermal energy by warming the water." Goodell comes close to identifying heat as a form of energy. But what is energy, and how is the amount of heat energy determined? Goodell quotes Rumford as writing, "It would be difficult to describe the surprise and astonishment expressed in the countenances of the bystanders, upon seeing so large a quantity of cold water… actually made to boil, without any fire."
Goodell then describes the history of climate science. He writes of the 1988 U.S. congressional testimony of NASA climate scientist James Hansen indicating it was a big turning point in concern about what was then called Global Warming. Goodell identifies Hansen as, "The Godfather of modern climate science." He writes in detail about the transformation of Frederike Otto into a climate scientist. Her PhD dissertation was titled, "Modeling the Earth's Climate-an Epistemic Perspective." After earning her PhD, she was hired to work at the University of Oxford. Her supervisor there, geophysicist Dr. Myers Allen, writing with his collaborator, Dr. Peter Stott, had a paper titled, "Liability for Climate Change" published in 2003. In the paper, "human influence" was identified as a factor in the cause of heat waves in Europe that resulted in the highest temperatures since the fifteenth century, when temperature record keeping began. Goodellalso noted that there is evidenceindicating that climate change is more easily found by analyzing heat waves than any other climate phenomena.
Later in the book Goodell writes that the ocean is the main driver of our climate system, noting the work of climatologist Hans-Otto Portner. Portner describes how small changes in the heat transport system of the ocean can have large impacts on the size and intensity of storms, rainfall patterns and sea level rise.
In a chapter titled, "Ice at the End of the World," Goodell provides valuable information about Antarctica, including a narrative of the time he spent on a National Science Foundation research vessel, the Nathaniel B. Palmer. The narrative covers his experiences starting on January 30, 2019, through March 2, 2019. Included is information about the use of Weddell seals to gather data sent by a radio receiver attached to the animals, which, when analyzed, is used to estimate the risk of ice-sheet collapse.
At the beginning of chapter ten, Goodell writes of the risk we face from mosquito-borne pathogens, indicating that, "Half the people who have ever lived have been killed by mosquito-borne pathogens." He writes that climate change is expanding the Goldilocks Zone of the mosquito, increasing the number of deaths from diseases like dengue, spread by mosquitos. Goodell notes a challenge from thawing permafrost in the arctic causing the release of pathogens that have not been encountered by humans for tens of thousands of years.
The next chapter, "Cheap Cold Air" includes the interesting story of the development of air conditioning. Included is a quote from a mayor of Houston, Texas, Fred Hofheinz, stating, "Without air conditioning, Houston would not have been built at all." The author notes that in 1961, the first airconditioned shopping mall in the U.S., the Sharpstown Center, opened in the Houston area. Goodell then writes of the discovery of the damage done to the ozone layer of the earth by the CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) released by air conditioning systems. He writes that today, as a result of the Montreal Protocol, 197 countries have outlawed the use of CFCs, and the ozone layer is slowly recovering. From this book I learned that the compounds that replaced CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are greenhouse gases and are as much as fifteen thousand times as potent as CO2. Goodell writes that HFCs are currently being phased out.
Goodell gathered information from an architectural historian, Daniel Barber, who describes the value of the comfort provided by air conditioning. Goodell quotes Barber as writing, "Comfort is destroying the future, one click at a time."
Goodell next writes of how dangerous heat waves affect different societies. He describes the situation in Pakistan, which produces 0.5 % of world-wide CO2 emissions. In 2021, Jacobabad, a city in Pakistan, had high temperatures of 126ₒ F for a week. In that country of more than 242 million people, there are 120 Pakistanis for each AC unit. Goodell evaluates that situation by writing, "(That) is how the climate crisis works: the rich pollute, the rest suffer."
The work of Baughman McCloud in establishing the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance, a global organization, is described. This led to the establishment of chief heat officers and heat health science panels. The Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (https://onebillionresilient.org/who-we-are/) became involved and established ranking and naming heat waves a top priority. Goodell writes of the objections of traditionally minded scientists to heat wave ranking and naming. He indicates that heat waves are the deadliest extreme weather events, "…killing far more people every year than hurricanes or floods."
He includes information about the importance of trees to the condition of our climate, noting that there are 3 X 1012 trees on our planet, and indicates that number is down forty six percent since the dawn of civilization. Much of the research that this reviewer does is facilitated by the website https://www.ecosia.org This site is nearly as reliable as Google, and as Google pledged early on, ecosia.org "does good." The opening page of the search engine illustrates the good they are doing by planting trees, based on searches done by users. I rarely use google to search for information or answers to questions.
Goodell spent time doing research in the Arctic and titled the chapter describing what he learned, "The White Bear." He characterizes the continent as, "vanishing," and goes on to depict how that is affecting our climate.
Goodell then describes two geoengineering projects. These include carbon capture and sequestration and spraying reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of earth. Goodell explains the large drawback of the second proposal. It would allow the continued burning of fossil fuels. Goodell indicates that Google and Microsoft have invested "billions of dollars" on direct air capture of CO2.
Goodell includes a title for the epilog of the book: "Beyond Goldilocks." He writes that, "The heat that propels us out of the Goldilocks Zone will not be accidental heat. It will be deliberate heat. Premeditated heat." He goes on to describe extreme heat as an extinction force, quoting James Hansen saying, "The planet will quickly get on the Venus express." Finally, Goodell writes, "Wherever we may be headed we are all on this journey together."
Getting back to a definition for heat, I would like you to consider a thought experiment. Within seven degrees Fahrenheit, you must determine the temperature of the water in a four- liter pan of "hot" water, and you must do it by coming in physical contact with the water. You are given two options for making the determination. The first involves using an eye dropper, and the second involves using an insulated one-liter cup.
Using one of these tools could result in a bit of mild discomfort, while the other could produce severe burns. The amount of heat a material holds depends not only on the temperature of the material, but also the mass of the material. A mathematical constant, characteristic of the material, is also involved. Values for this constant have been determined for many materials.
"The Heat Will Kill You First" includes an excellent glossary, but no definition of heat! The book is an excellent analysis of the challenges we face due to an ever-warming climate, and is an enjoyable and informative read.
Harvard Business Review Press, 2022
186 pages
ISBN 9781647820558
Reviewed by Frank Lock
With each passing day, artificial intelligence becomes more of a concern for many people, and exciting for others. In the introduction the author indicates that his concerns deal with, "How AI is changing our lives, values, and fundamental ways of being." This book deals more with the effect of AI on society, rather than the science of AI. Charmorro-Premuzic is a psychologist who has focused his research on human intelligence. He has used AI extensively in consulting with businesses to help employees "thrive at work." He indicates that his goal for the book is to focus on what has happened with AI so far. He achieves his goal by examining the effect of AI on our patience, narcissism intellect, bias, curiosity, and humanity.
The first chapter is titled, "Being in the AI Age What AI is and is not." Early on in the chapter Charmorro-Premuzic indicates, "History teaches us that even mundane technological innovations can have big psychological consequences when they scale." AI is significant because of its potential impacts on human behavior. The author identifies relatedness as a human need and indicates that AI fulfills the desire to connect and get along with others.
The author provides a brief analysis of the technological transitions we have made, going from the internet, to the internet of things, to the 'You of Things," which he describes as, "Our bodies as part of an enormous sentient digital network. In a section titled, "Our Dark Side Unleashed," the author writes, "This book is about how AI has not only exposed but also augmented some of our worst character traits." The author proposes that it is as if AI has hypnotized us by a never-ending flow of information "Immersed in a deep sea of digital distractions." He writes that AI is the most centralized form of attentional control, and that this will impact our ability to think seriously about important social and political issues.
He also notes data indicating that each day Americans sixty-five and older spend ten hours or more on their screens, and that the Feeling Of Missing Out (FOMO) is bigger than regrets about missing out on real-life activities. Charmorro-Premuzic sites research by Gregory Robinson at Iowa State University indicating that the consequence of sensory overstimulation is often intellectual understimulation.
Addressing the issue of patience, Charmorro-Premuzic writes, "We have digressed to the average patience level of an average five-year-old." He uses the term fast mindlessness, indicating that it becomes a real problem when it is the primary mode of decision-making. Time is a key factor in decision-making and when someone does not take the time necessary to make a good decision, it is difficult to tell the difference between factual information and information based on made up facts. Dealing with the topic of bias, the author writes, "Today everyone has a supercomputer in their pocket and they're not sure if the world is flat or if vaccines are filled with wizard poison." The question he addresses is whether or not AI can acquire a personality. Describing a chatbot identified as, "neurotic.AI," Charmorro-Premuzic lists the characteristics of that chatbot. These include being prone to making overconfident interpretations of data and focusing more on style than substance.
Importantly, the author does indicate that AI and machine systems are only as good as their inputs, and that AI can expose bias. He describes a Twitter chatbot trained by users to be foulmouthed, racist, and sexists, writing of AI being used as a reality check weapon, or a reality distortion tool. Charmorro-Premuzic writes, "Judging the moral character of AI is like judging the moral character of your dog."
Narcissism is addressed next and Charmorro-Premuzic ndicates that AI has normalized narcissism. Referring to a quote from author Kurt Vonnegut, the author writes, "We must be careful what we pretend to be." He also writes of broadcast intoxication taking place when reviews and reactions of others on social media are posted. In a section titled, "The Authenticity Trap," he provides advice that, rather than just being yourself, it is better to be the best version of you. Advice provided by the author for people in leadership positions is beneficial. The importance of humility is stressed and the author writes, "Humility is the possible cure for the malaise of arrogance and self-importance in the AI age."
In a chapter titled "How AI turned us into very dull creatures." Charmorro-Premuzic writes of AI generated passwords, which this reviewer has never used. I refuse to let Google make personal choices for me! The author writes, "There is a clear dehumanizing side to being managed by a machine." Fortunately, artificial general intelligence has not been developed, and the author writes of that making human intelligence valuable. He recommends that humans should demonstrate their creativity and be surprising and unpredictable, "To the chagrin of AI." Chagrin is an emotion, and there is evidence that AI is not able/will not be able to experience emotions.
In the chapter titled, "Automating Curiosity," Charmorro-Premuzic writes, "AI is way more obsessed with learning than humans are." Obsession is another example of an emotion that AI can mimic but is unable to "experience." Again, it is anticipated that it will be a very long time before AI will have the ability to experience real emotions. The author writes that countries where people have high curiosity levels have high levels of economic and political freedom and high GDPs.
Making reliable predictions is an important aspect of problem solving and may be the best aspect of science. Charmorro-Premuzic writes, "When AI masters and monopolizes the task of prediction, the fundamental role of human intelligence (will be) confined to two specific tasks: (1) structuring problems as prediction problems; (2) working out what to do with a prediction." This has to do with the human ability to wonder, as well as understanding the reasons for the predictions. These ideas made the reviewer wonder about AI gender. Charmorro-Premuzic does not address the idea of AI gender.
In the chapter titled, "How to Be Human," Charmorro-Premuzic sites Alexander von Humbolt, a physical and biological geographer; "The aim of existence is a distillation of the widest possible experience of life into wisdom." The author indicates that in the AI age the aim of our existence is to increase the wisdom of machines. Considering what characteristics are desirable and achievable for AI, this reviewer would replace the word wisdom with functionality. The author also indicates his belief that the AI age brings out some of the worst in us, and that, "Rather than raising the psychological standards of humanity, it has lowered them."
In concluding, Charmorro-Premuzic advocates that we should use AI to upgrade humanity, and writes, "The future starts today. The work starts now." Fear of AI, and excitement about the potential it has are currently at the forefront of our national and international concerns. This book provides the reader with thoughtful consideration about the issues involved with AI.
Book Review Nomad Century
Gaia Vince
Flatiron Books, U.S.A., New York 2022 $28.99
ISBN 978-1-250-82161-4 (hardcover)
260 pages
Reviewed by Frank Lock, retired high school physics teacher, Climate Reality Leadership Corps
The author of this book takes a worst-case scenario view of the effects climate change will cause on our planet. Unfortunately, humans tend to react poorly when worst-case scenarios become reality.
This reviewer found the two figures on pages xx and xxi to be quite striking. These are labeled The World 40 C-hotter, and Belts of habitability in a 40 C world. They illustrate a forecast of what our world could look like should climate change result in a 40 C increase in global temperature. Vince expects mass migration will occur to deal with the problems identified in that forecast.
In the preface the author anticipates two very different futures for humanity: humane treatment leading to smooth migration of populations, or violent conflict and unnecessary death. She indicates that to avoid catastrophic outcomes, we must produce much less energy, capture carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere, or produce energy without burning carbon. An excellent graph, labeled The global heating generation: How hot will it get in your lifetime, is found on page 4. Vince writes, "Within decades we risk a turbulent, conflict-ridden world with great loss of life and perhaps the end of our civilizations."
Vince describes possible conditions in 40 percent of the largest megacities, where residents will be facing dangerously high heat conditions. She also identifies 800 areas in India that are now described as "ghost villages," where residents have migrated away as temperature rise and drought have made agriculture almost impossible.
The third chapter of the book is titled, "Leaving Home," and opens with the sentence, "Migration is our way out of this crisis." She writes that migration is a survival strategy used widely by nature," and that humans have learned how to change their environment to suit their needs. Addressing the mass migrations that our changing climate could well demand, Vince writes that, "Describing differences between people based on the fallacy of biological race will no longer be credible." She also writes of the challenges mass migration can create and that these challenges must be faced with lawful, safe, planned and facilitated migration.
One fact introduced is that actual national identities were not officially established until just before the end of the eighteenth century. Vince writes, "The word international had no meaning and didn't appear until the end of the eighteenth century." It is noted that the nation state was created by French revolutionaries. After World War I nation states became common.
Vince writes of countries facilitating the movement of "stuff," but stymieing labor movement. She notes that in 2018 more than one hundred and sixty countries adopted the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and regular Migration. The list of countries not signing included the U.S.! Vince writes of a statistic released by the International Organization for Migration indicating that by 2050 as many as 1.5 billion people (out of 8 billion now on our planet) will have to leave their homes. An interesting statistic she sites indicates that more Chinese folks migrate for work than there are non-Chinese migrants. Another is that there are 50 million humans described as climate-displaced, and they outnumber those migrating due to political persecution.
A chapter titled "Wealth of Migrants" includes the statement, "Immigrants expand economies, innovation and wealth." Vince notes that professor of Economics at George Mason University Bryan Caplan advocates that opening borders would result in rapid elimination of absolute poverty on our planet. A challenge faced by Sweden has been depopulated villages. That nation has revived some of them by encouraging migrants to move to those villages and work there. (see
Nobody lives here! Rural depopulation in the EU and citizen engagement in "emptied Spain" • Eyes on Europe (eyes-on-europe.eu) )
Vince advocates for establishment of a global UN Migration Organization with the power to compel governments to accept refugees/migrants, and she describes a framework for the operation of the organization. This includes a proposal for a United Nations citizenship. The plan includes a form of Nansen passport.
(see The Nansen passport - an old solution for today's refugees (euobserver.com) ).
Vince opens the chapter titled "New Cosmopolitans" by writing, "People are moving, ready or not. We can and must prepare." Later she writes, "The question is whether they will be helped or whether the rest of the world will stand by and watch them die." She then describes actions that will need to be taken that will ease the transition to simplified migration. Actions taken by Singapore are sited, as well as Italy, where a one-year immigrant boot camp has been instituted. Vince optimistically indicates that mass migrations will result in a new world where humans and nature can thrive. She indicates that to deal with the challenges all of us will face, "We need some form of global governance with enforceable powers." The challenges overcome by Costa Rica in the 1970s are sited as an example.
Among the proposals advanced by Vince to deal with mass migration are charter cities, states within states, and regional geopolitical entities as opposed to nation states. She notes, "Workers in rich countries earn more partly because they live in societies that develop institutions that foster peace and prosperity." Spain has been successful in welcoming migrants. Vince quotes the government immigration spokesperson, Antonia Hernando, "Immigrants are working legally now, and paying the taxes that finance the pensions for a million Spanish people."
Vince sites statistics that indicate that environmental management of cities is crucial to dealing with climate challenges. She writes that cities on our planet consume two-thirds of all the energy we use and produce three-fourths of the GHG emissions on the planet. The chapter titled, "Anthropocene Habitats" includes many descriptions of strategies used and proposed for reducing the harmful effects of city environments. Vince indicates that government policies regulating carbon-pricing and fuel-fossil subsidies will need to be established. She describes in detail policies and strategies that will need to be put in place.
There are also many statistics on food production and food waste. Vince describes an integrated soil-system management project put in place in China from 2005 through 2015. It resulted in an average ten percent increase in crop yields, a drop in nitrogen fertilizer use of sixteen percent, and an economic saving of more than twelve billion dollars. Vince concludes the chapter on food by writing, "The question is whether we will manage the transition through calm preparation or wait until hunger and conflict erupt - an unconscionable outcome that would endanger us all."
This reviewer is an advocate for expanding nuclear power to deal with the immediate crisis that climate change has become. Vince writes of using small-scale modular nuclear reactors, which are expected to become available by the end of the 2020s. She describes a floating version of such a reactor developed in Russia, that is towable. In a chapter titled, "Restoration" Vince writes of the need for a plan for surviving an increasingly uninhabitable earth." "The better and faster we are at restoration, the fewer people will need to migrate and the more pleasant all of our lives will be." She notes that the total weight of all human-made infrastructure now exceeds the living biomass of the planet.
Vince also writes of genetic tools and geoengineering strategies that will need to be used to address the challenges we face. She concludes by writing that we need to own our future, and ends with a Manifesto. This includes the ideas that migration is an economic not a security issue; rich and poor countries must invest in alliances that increase climate resilience; and that we must work urgently to reverse the destruction of ecosystems and restore biodiversity to build resilience and protect natural systems.
Based on the author's presentation of this book, this reviewer has done some serious thinking about the future of our family. "Nomad Century" should be widely read and given careful consideration, especially by people in leadership positions and those who will assume leadership positions.
To read additional book reviews contact me at lockphys@gmail.com