Books on Sustainability
Welcome back to Way to Zero Waste, in this post we bring you four ideal books to inform you about the context of the sustainability of the planet and all the essential aspects that this entails.
The Green New Deal - Jeremy Rifkin
Jeremy Rifkin, New York Times bestselling author, visionary of major economic trends and policy advisor to several governments, proposes in his new book a practical and urgent plan for moving away from the fossil fuel economy and tackling climate change.
The key sectors that make up the infrastructure of the global economy are rapidly decoupling from fossil fuels and turning to solar and wind energy. The market is already signaling such a shift, and every government will have to follow the market or face the consequences. Governments that lead the way in scaling up new zero-carbon green infrastructure and creating new business opportunities, and the jobs that go with them, will stay ahead of the curve. The rest will be doomed.
Rifkin starts us on a journey of change, alternatives and progress; where he reviews all the key aspects, with a Western view, on the green transition from an economic and political perspective.
Rifkin warns us that:
"how we adapt to the new planetary reality before us will determine our future fate as a species." "Living off Carboniferous fossil fuel deposits for more than two centuries has given us the false sense of an unlimited future where everything was possible at a very low price."
The Green New Deal Global is a key reading to understand that the situation we live in is going to require a major collective effort of recovery, and that this recovery comes in the form of a more sustainable model than the current model of production and consumption.
How to Avoid Climate Disaster - Bill Gates
In this book, Gates lays out a comprehensive, functional and affordable plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero and avert an environmental catastrophe in time.
Bill Gates has spent a decade researching climate change. With guidance from experts in physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance, in 'Avoiding Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Already Have and the Breakthroughs We Need' (Plaza &Janés) he focuses on determining what steps we must take to stop the planet's race toward irreversible environmental disaster.
There are two numbers related to climate change that are worth knowing. The first is 51 billion. The second is zero. Fifty-one billion is the approximate number of tons of greenhouse gases that the world puts into the atmosphere each year. Although the figure may increase or decrease slightly from year to year, it generally tends to grow. This is the situation today. Zero is the amount to which we should aspire. With this reflection Gates presents us with some of the challenges we face and against which he is fighting together with his wife in their foundation: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
We recommend the documentary series about his foundation available on Netflix (Watch).
"When it comes to climate change, the poor have the most to lose".
Some of the other reflections Gates sets out in his book are as follows:
We have never made a transition like the one we will have to make in the next 30 years.