The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success.

• Date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Boyd, Roy

The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success, by Mark Jaccard. (Cambridge University Press, 2020). 295 pages, ISBN 978-1-108-74266-5 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-108-74266-5 (online open access pdf)

In this book Mark Jaccard attempts to fill an important gap in the literature on Climate Change and Climate Change policy. To date, most of that literature fits into two broad categories. (1) Highly technical books and articles dealing with various aspects of the climate science, engineering, or economic issues involved, and (2) Impassioned pleas by either environmental advocates calling for immediate action, or more conservative authors (generally aligned with the fossil fuel industry) cautioning against costly carbon restrictions. Here, by contrast, the author writes a generally non-technical book, which, though advocating strong policies to advance carbon abatement, tries its best to avoid hyperbole in making its arguments. Instead, he calls on his many years of expertize in both climate science and public policy to logically and persuasively argue why certain policies are much more likely to succeed than others, and why some ideas advocated by environmentalists actually run the risk of being counter-productive.

In the opening chapter of the book, Dr. Jaccard briefly summarizes the chapters to come and lays out three of the primary themes...