"Straight Up" by Joseph Romm—book review

Joseph Romm impressed me with his book, Hell and High Water.  He showed what lies in store for humanity if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels.  He also debunked the notion that hydrogen cars are a feasible alternative to fossil fuel cars in the next 20 years or so.  He made it clear that electric cars fueled by renewable energy are a necessity if we are going to avoid climate catastrophe.

Straight Up, published in 2010, is a compilation of posts from his popular blog:  www.ClimateProgress.org .  Most of the posts are from 2009 with a few from 2008 and a few from early 2010.  They cover the science of climate change, the clean energy solution, the right-wing disinformation machine, and why progressives are so lousy at messaging.  Romm does everything he can to stir us to action.

Which raises the question—with all this arsenal of facts, why aren’t people marching on the Congress to demand clean energy?

To me, the simple answer is that the oil companies run the media and the Congress, so people simply don’t have the understanding or the power to make significant changes.

However, somehow we have to be able to reach people.  I found the most fascinating of part of Romm’s book to be where he explores the nature of rhetoric.  He quotes Plato,

If a rhetorician and a doctor visited any city you like to name and they had to contend in argument before the assembly or any other gathering as to which of the two should be chosen as doctor, the doctor would be nowhere, but the man who could speak would be chosen, if he so wished.

And so it is that a scientist can be cut to shreds by a radio talk show demagogue.  Rhetoricians have understood for centuries that a winning strategy is NOT to appear smarter than your opponent.  Romm points out that Shakespeare has Mark Antony say “I am no orater, as Brutus is, but—as you know me all—a plain blunt man. . . .I tell you that which you yourselves do know.”

So to win the global warming debate, we have to get people to know what they already know—namely that the climate is changing.  That part should be doable.  Then we have to get them to understand that the change is caused by fossil fuels—that gets a lot trickier since people with what Romm calls Anti-Science Syndrome (ASS) throw all sorts of gibberish on the scientific reality.  And finally, we need to convince people that we can do something about it—and that means government intervention in a country where people love to hate the government, and it means we need to throw out the good oil boys from Congress where corporations are now allowed unlimited spending to buy elected officials.

One weakness of the book is that in 2009 Romm was a bit too hopeful that Congress would pass the Waxman-Markey bill, which was scuttled by the Senate, and is now dead with the House of Representatives under the control of the Republicans.  But Romm’s daily posts on ClimateProgress are the best source that I have seen for up to the minute reporting on the rapid deterioration of earth’s climate, the battle to cut fossil fuels and support clean energy, and the challenge to learn how to talk about all this is plain, blunt terms.