How to Stop the Planet From Burning

By George Monbiot, South End Press
Posted on May 2, 2007, Printed on May 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/51006/

We know that climate change is happening. But can it be stopped? George Monbiot's book "Heat" shows how it can.

The following is an excerpt from George Monbiot's Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning (South End Press, 2007).

All over Washington, you can hear the giant scraping sound of officials and legislators frantically back-tracking. After years of obfuscation, denial, and lies about climate change, all but the most hardened recidivists are rebranding themselves as friends of the earth.

In February, two senior White House officials published an open letter seeking to correct inaccurate stories in the press "that the President's concern about climate change is new. In fact," they reported, "climate change has been a top priority since the President's first year in office." To prove it, they had found 37 words Bush said about the subject in 2001; 46 words in 2002; and 32 words in January 2007. In January 2007 he had even managed to say "climate change." This demonstrated, they claimed, that he has shown "continued leadership on the issue."