4 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
You may have noticed over the past several years that natural disasters seem to come with increasing frequency and intensity. Think of Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, the earthquakes that rocked Japan and Haiti, Typhoon Haiyan, and the many other natural disasters that have destroyed homes, infrastructure, nuclear power plants, and most devastatingly, lives. Vinod Thomas’s book Climate Change and Natural Disasters shows the link between climate change and this rise in incidence and magnitude of natural disasters.
That’s not all you’ll learn in this book, though. Thomas’s book also examines natural disasters and climate change through an economic lens. That means that the reader will learn why less developed economies and lower income communities are disproportionately affected by natural disasters. The book will look at strategies that some communities have used to mitigate risks both in a general, global sense as well as specific strategies useful for a particular risk in a particular community. The author will also examine how economic policies, such as those related to investment in energy, housing, and infrastructure, can (and he would argue, should) be used to reduce risks related to disasters and climate change. The book calls for policy change around the globe, acknowledging that every State will address the issue differently but emphasizing that it is vital that every State does in fact address the issue.
Included are numerous insets: images, charts, tables, graphs, and examples of how past disasters have been handled. For instance, burning tropical forests in Indonesia to clear land for profitable products has resulted in a persistent, toxic smoke haze.The inset talks about some of the strategies being used to resolve the issue and shows a picture of Indonesian children learning to live with the smog. These insets help the vast amount of information become more tangible and feel more immediate.
As a whole, the book is fairly academic. Readers who already have a basic familiarity with climate-related issues will probably have a better experience with this book. Unless climate change is something you’re passionate about, if you are a fiction reader, you might want to think twice about this choice. That said, if you are passionate about environmental policy or climate change mitigation, this is an excellent book to increase your understanding of how the economy is intimately involved with this issue. Even if you just like to stay politically literate (in any country - the book is not State-specific), this book is worth perusing.
Overall, I rate Climate Change and Natural Disasters 4 out of 4 stars. While its genre does limit the readers to whom it would hold appeal, it is extremely well written. The book is informative enough to be a textbook (with notes and references provided), relevant both locally and globally, and accessible to a non-expert. It may not be the easiest read, but the time is well spent. Its page-count is very low, which helps it be less daunting, but Vinod Thomas utilizes each page with care and diligence. There’s a lot of learning to be done here.
******
Climate Change and Natural Disasters
View: on Bookshelves
Like L_Therese's review? Post a comment saying so!