The Great Disruption

The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring on the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World by Paul Gilding             Audio Book: 11 hours    Hardback Book:  304 pages  

Very illuminating book.   I enjoyed it.   Difficult topics are broken down into laymen’s terms, all topics are addressed clearly and concisely without a lot of  rhetoric.    Paul Gilding provides highly researched prognostications on the outcomes of global warming,  overpopulation,  depletion of food sources and land to grow it on or feed meat sources on,  economic failure in all countries, and more.   He points out that man is killing the planet and sustainability at the current rate is a ticking time bomb unless major changes come.    The four major areas of sustainable energy sources that need further investment and development the author says are currently Hydro Power (water),  Wind,  Solar and Thermal (energy generated within the earth’s core and stored in the earth).     While burning fossil fuels – coal, oil have been the standard the rampant use of these fuels is putting so much carbon into the air that the earth’s temperature is rising which is the reason for the ice melting at the poles causing the oceans to rise.   Not long ago, scientists projected or were projecting at the rate we are going there might be 50 years before the chaos would begin, climates changing, super weather cells developing causing mass devastation in their paths as these occurrences multiply and break out globally, economic and financial collapse as international debt grows,  overpopulation causes less available space on the planet and so on.    Those same scientists are astonished and are having to reassess as many of their projections are being seen in the world today.    He poses the current problems on the path as it stands today and the potential outcomes, then, he lights a candle in the darkness and assures the reader that it is not all gloom and doom that a small percentage of work is being done to preserve life as we know it and given the human nature, man will work on solutions to counteract all of the dire problems we are experiencing in the environment as we know it.   New thoughts, new ways of doing things will eventually have to be done whether corporations like it or not.   He talks about new technologies evolving sparking growth of new industries which in turn will boost the slagging economies.  He discusses how in the past man’s ingenuity has bailed him out of hard times and created innovative ways of solving dilemmas and changing the way man lives.   Newer, better ways of doing things are never easy nor cheap but mankind is rapidly approaching the brink where either things change or man will go the way of the dinosaur.    Progress has gotten us here now progress is going to have to create a better way to endure.   Man is a thinker and a survivor and Gilding believes there are enough people in the world who will come up with creative solutions to get us through and offers much information on how ways are being worked on even as we speak to get over some of the hurdles.   Lots of good information here.   It keeps you intrigued to find out where he is going will all the heart stopping subjects, what is being said on both sides of all the issues he brings up,  where moral turpitude is leading us and answers to counteract the negatives with positives.   Gilding has really done his homework.   He spells it all out, he delivers what is being said and done globally to address it,  then just when things look the most bleak, he tells the reader how optimistic he is that things are going to be o.k. and then presents details on why he believes that.   Really good book.