Review by Choice Review
Hard Choices admirably tries to summarize climate change manifestations, causes, projections, and policy response options. The Canadian focus implied by the title is potentially very interesting but not uniform throughout, e.g., chapter 1 repeats information from the IPCC reports and could benefit from additional information from other sources and a greater focus on Canada. The book is generally quite pessimistic in terms of both market- and legislation-driven efforts to reduce anthropogenic modification of atmospheric composition, e.g., chapter 4 is overly negative with respect to the potential for using renewable energy sources to supply electricity and offers no innovative suggestions for integrating technology into climate change policy. Also, chapter 7 seems to view mitigation efforts solely as "costs" and hence advocates adaptation to climate change rather than adoption of technology or other avenues for emission reduction. This would seem contrary to prior experience that technological innovation is frequently associated with economic benefit in the long term. The book is generally well written, informative, and uses a consistent style, though inclusion of more tables and figures, particularly in the latter chapters, would have improved it. No glossary, but the index appears to be both accurate and informative. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates; two-year technical program students. S. C. Pryor Indiana University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
