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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 9, NUMBER 7, JULY 1996

BOOKS AND PROCEEDINGS...
GENERAL INTEREST & POLICY

Item #d96jul30

Green Globe Yearbook 1996, 368 pp., 1996, $55/£35 (Oxford). Prior volumes (1992 through 1995) are also available separately, or for a reduced price if ordered with the 1996 edition.

This is the fifth annual yearbook of international cooperation on environment and development, from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute. The "Evaluation Section" looks at the Montreal Protocol and other international agreements, protection of the marine environment, the environmental organization Greenpeace, and integration of environmental concerns with development assistance. The "Reference Section" systematically lists key data on the most important agreements on environment and development. New features in this section are country profiles that summarize the performance, main commitments and objectives of 13 OECD countries, as well as Internet sources.

Item #d96jul31

Adapting to Climate Change: Assessments and Issues, J.B. Smith, N. Bhatti et al., 475 pp., 1996, $99.95 (Springer).

Addresses measures that can be taken to anticipate the effects of climate change and how governments, institutions and individuals can prepare. Adaptation measures are discussed for agriculture, water and coastal resources, forests and wildlife, fisheries, and human settlements.

Item #d96jul32

Economic Theory for Environmentalists, J.M. Gowdy, S. O'Hara, 1995, $39.95 + shipping (St. Lucie).

Examines the implications of neoclassical economic theory and how it relates to the environment. Addresses the conflict between market forces and environmental integrity and explains how neoclassical economic theory views the relationship between economic activity and the natural world. Examples illustrate regional and international policy questions.

Item #d96jul33

Eco-facts and Eco-fiction: Understanding the Environmental Debate, W.H. Baarschers, May 1996, £45 hbk./£14.99 pbk. (Routledge).

The publisher's promotion quotes James Lovelock, "...Baarschers' philosophy offers cool common sense as an antidote to the fevered protests of the green lobbyists and the special pleading of their industrial opponents."

Item #d96jul34

World in Transition: The Way Towards Solving Global Environmental Problems, German Panel on Global Environmental Change, Oct. 1995. Available from German Environ. Ministry, POB 120629, D-53048, Bonn, Ger. (tel: 49 228 305 2015; fax: 49 228 305 2016).

Calls for the World Trade Organization to assume a global environmental police function, and to avoid global warming, for global CO₂ emissions to be reduced by 1% per year for more than 15 years. Also recommends that the industrial world play a lead role in CO₂ emissions reduction because it accounts for 80% of the world's energy use. International agreements need to be enacted and strengthened. Calls for joint implementation by industrialized and developing countries to reduce CO₂ emissions. (See Intl. Environ. Rptr., pp. 861-862, Nov. 15, 1995.)

Item #d96jul35

Global Environmental Science Update, Vol. III, 1996, $75 North America/$85 elsewhere (Cutter).

A collection of interpretive summaries of studies on climate change (observations and trends; modeling and predictions; and sources and sinks), and ozone depletion, as well as information resources. Taken from material that appeared in Global Environ. Change Rep. in 1995. Written for nonspecialists.

Item #d96jul36

Perspectives on the Environment 2. Interdisciplinary Research on Politics, Planning, Society and the Environment, 248 pp., Apr. 1995, $63.95/£37.50 (Avebury).

Contains essays from the Second Conference of the Interdisciplinary Research Network on the Environment and Society (INRES) held in Sheffield, U.K., Sep. 1993. Included are examinations of: the construction of global climate models; international politics of the environment in Britain, Ukraine, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia; planning and sustainability in Japan and Britain.

Item #d96jul37

Global Environmental Change: An Integrated Modelling Approach, M. den Elzen, 263 pp., £45 pbk. (Jon Carpenter Pub.).

Extensive review by J.A. Edmonds in Quart. J. Royal Meteor. Soc., pp. 789-791, Apr. 1996 Part A. Concerns IMAGE 1—Experimental Version 1.6, one of the earliest integrated assessment models, developed at the Dutch National Institute of Environmental Health and Protection (RIVM). Documents methodological advances in this approach, with applications of the techniques of uncertainty and risk analysis. Includes a chapter on international agreements. (See review of related book on IMAGE 2.0, below.)

Item #d96jul38

Environmental Economics, G. Boero, A. Silberston, Eds., 325 pp., 1995, £50, ISBN 0312125798 (Macmillan).

Reviewed by T. Crowards in Intl. J. Environ. Studies, Vol. 50, p. 71, 1996. This is not a comprehensive text, but a compilation of papers on the topic presented at a 1993 conference of the Confederation of European Economic Associations. Papers were presented primarily by younger European economists who focused on narrow issues such as the double dividend of environmental taxation, carbon emissions reduction, and environmental policy and trade.

Reviews of Previous Entries: General Interest and Policy

Item #d96jul39

Negotiating Climate Change: The Inside Story of the Rio Convention, I.M. Mintzer, J.A. Leonard, Eds., 392 pp., 1994, $59.95 hbk./$22.95 pbk. (Cambridge, for Stockholm Environ. Inst.). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General Interest and Policy, Mar. 1995.)

Reviewed by D.A. Wirth (Environ. Sci. & Technol., p. 45A, Jan. 1996), who comments that the editors adopt a highly congratulatory view, characterizing as strengths what many observers consider the convention's flaws, but finds it nevertheless to be an authoritative source on how the climate convention came about.

Item #d96jul40

Shaping National Responses to Climate Change: A Post-Rio Guide, H. Lee, Ed., 324 pp., Apr. 1995, $48/$24.95 pbk. (Island). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General Interest and Policy, Aug. 1995.)

Reviewed by S. Boehmer-Christiansen (Energy Policy, p. 490, May 1996), who finds that the 14 papers included ignore energy interests as a political actor, assume uncritically that the environmentalist position is true, and encourage global technological cooperation that will ensure economic benefits for the U.S.

Item #d96jul41

Climate Change 1994: Radiative Forcing of Climate and an Evaluation of the IPCC 1992 Emission Scenarios, J.T. Houghton, L.G.M. Filho et al., Eds., 250 pp., 1995, $47.96 hbk./$19.96 pbk. (Cambridge). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General and Policy, Oct. 1995.)

Reviewed by B.J. Mason (Quart. J. Royal Meteor. Soc., pp. 323-324, Jan. 1996 Part A), who concludes that the small amount of new material the report adds to the valuable 1990 major IPCC assessment does not justify the efforts of the dozens of writers and reviewers involved. Their time could have been better spent reducing outstanding uncertainties.

Item #d96jul42

Atmosphere, Climate, and Change, T.E. Graedel, P.J. Crutzen, 196 pp., 1995, $32.95/£19.95 (W.H. Freeman). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General Interest and Policy, Aug. 1995.)

A review by M.C. MacCracken (Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., pp. 986-990, May 1996), who concludes that the book, a general survey that is part of the Scientific American Library series, has much of interest for the casual reader. For generally knowledgeable readers, there are a number of frustrating errors but they do not diminish the overall value of the book.

Item #d96jul43

Human Impacts on Weather and Climate, W.R. Cotton, R.A. Pielke, 288 pp., 1995, $64.95 hbk./$24.95 pbk. (Cambridge). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General and Policy, Oct. 1995.)

Reviewed by S.A. Changnon (Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., p. 132, Jan. 1996), who strongly commends the understandable treatment of the many complex subjects addressed, and the honesty about the lack of knowledge of atmospheric scientists, the tendency toward false claims by some atmospheric scientists, and the often poor management of science.

Item #d96jul44

Valuing Climate Change: The Economics of the Greenhouse, S. Fankhauser, 176 pp., 1995, £14.95 (Earthscan). (Previous Digest entry in Books/General Interest and Policy, June 1996.)

Reviewed by J.C. Burgess (Intl. J. Environ. Studies, Vol. 49, pp. 294-296, 1996), who considers the book a comprehensive state of the art review of the current literature, addressing in detail the potential costs and benefits of global warming, at the regional and international levels across a wide range of sectors.

Item #d96jul45

IMAGE 2.0: Integrated Modeling of Global Climate Change, J. Alcamo, Ed., 328 pp., May 1994, $128 (Kluwer). (Previous Digest entry in Books/Earth System Science, Nov.-Dec. 1994.)

Reviewer D.L. Hartmann (Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., pp. 569-570, Mar. 1996) finds the book to be valuable documentation of a significant effort to develop a model of unprecedented comprehensiveness. (See related new book by den Elzen, listed above.)