BookTalk.org

Let your fellow Booktalkers know that you plan to read and discuss How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going with them. Just make a quick post here so that everyone knows they won't be discussing this book just with themselves.

Aye! Books! Check them out!

https://www.amazon.com/How-World-Really ... 09CDB69WT/

Yes, I have bought this book and have read half of it. His main theme is how strongly world prosperity and stability depend on existing carbon-based technologies in major sectors such as construction, materials and agriculture, and the sheer impossibility of achieving the proposed rapid transition to net zero emissions. This is a critically important message for world politics, highly controversial and well worth debating. Smil is attacked by climate action advocates, but these attacks tend to be incoherent. So far I have not seen Smil acknowledge that global warming is a primary threat, so that is a weakness in his argument. My view is that the logical conclusion for this debate is that action to brighten the planet should be a main strategic focus, and it is perplexing that this basic idea never gets the required media and political discussion.

I now have my copy of the book. I hope to contribute after reading the first few chapters.

LevV wrote: ↑Wed Jan 18, 2023 8:09 pm I now have my copy of the book. I hope to contribute after reading the first few chapters.

That's great Lev. I am two thirds of the way through. This is an excellent book. It is quite dry, but valuable for placing major political questions into a factual framework. Smil's background as an immigrant from Czechoslovakia to Canada, oriented to understanding the big practical questions of science and technology facing the world, provides a valuable perspective. I want to read the whole book before commenting in detail on chapters, as there is a sense that it is essential to get his views on a range of topics - globalisation, risk, energy, climate - in order to put his specific comments into the right context.

Yes, please.

Just got the book from the library. I'm on about page 3 of the introduction.