Half gone - Jeremy Leggett > Reviews (1)

In this year's State of the Union address George Bush admitted that "America is addicted to oil", and it is this addiction that Jeremy Leggett addresses in his powerful new book 'Half Gone'. As a former oil company employee, Chief Scientist at Greenpeace UK and member of the UK's Renewables Advisory Board, Leggett is well placed to issue a wake up call to those who believe that the world can continue with its present addiction to the burning of fossil fuels. Leggett makes a convincing case for the view that oil and gas are running out, and that when the financial markets take their fingers out of their ears and hear what the geologists are saying, will respond with a stampede that will destabilise the global economy to the extent that war will replace trade as the only reliable way for nations to secure enough food, water and energy for themselves.
Leggett goes on to conclusively demonstrate that we cannot afford to burn the remaining stocks of oil, whether peak oil's 'tipping point' is 2008 (as Leggett argues) or 2030 as the oil companies would have us believe. With the build up of atmospheric carbon monoxide accelerating, the environmental implications will witness increasing extremes of weather patterns, which on its own has the potential to bankrupt the world insurance industry and thereby the entire global economy. The worst case scenario would see global warming triggering a runaway greenhouse effect, leading to a massive release of further carbon from drying soils, dying forests, stratifying oceans and melting permafrost. Faced with such a catastrophe, the assumptions on which we have based our daily lives for decades will come tumbling down.
The final section of Leggett's book - the good news, if we have the will to tackle the clear and present danger facing Mankind - deals with the steps that we can take now to mitigate the worst effects of global warming. For those tempted to swallow the propaganda of the nuclear industry, Leggett comprehensively trashes the sophistry lying at the heart of their claims to produce cheap, clean and safe power. Leggett concludes by making an impassioned and persuasive case for renewables - solar, wind, tidal power, biofuels and the rest - that can (and must) swiftly replace coal, oil and gas and, even now, haul us back from the brink.
This is a book that ought to be read by everybody. As Johan Hari, columnist for the London 'Independent' put it recently:
'What we choose to do about these scientific warnings will answer a fundamental question about human beings.
Are we a rational species, capable of understanding the damage we are doing and acting in our own self-defence - or are we addled hedonists, too high on our fumes to see the truth?"