> Hot Air takes on climate change debate
Hot Air takes on climate change debate
Contact:
Mark Jaccard, 778.782.4219; mark_jaccard@sfu.ca
Ruta Liormonas, senior publicist, McClelland & Stewart, 416.598.1114 ext 293
Margaret MacKinnon-Cash, publicist, 604.733.9447, mmcash@telus.net
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
Mark Jaccard, 778.782.4219; mark_jaccard@sfu.ca
Ruta Liormonas, senior publicist, McClelland & Stewart, 416.598.1114 ext 293
Margaret MacKinnon-Cash, publicist, 604.733.9447, mmcash@telus.net
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.4323
October 2, 2007
A new book co-written by a renowned SFU energy expert and a high-profile national journalist is poised to clear the air on the climate change debate.
Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge, (McClelland & Stewart, 2007), is the collaborative work of professor Mark Jaccard, along with graduate student Nic Rivers, and Jeffrey Simpson, a political expert and columnist with the Globe and Mail.
The book, now available in bookstores, explains what is happening in Canada on climate change and what needs to happen — with politicians, business leaders, and even environmentalists taking their share of blame.
It also demonstrates how to bring about the policies that Canada needs to adopt in the short term to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades — and how they can be created to have minimal negative effects.
Jaccard and SFU colleagues developed a modeling system that is now widely used to determine the impact of certain environmental initiatives or policies.
"As an academic, I am increasingly frustrated that the obvious and consistent conclusion from independent research — about the necessity of a greenhouse gas tax and/or forceful, economy-wide emission restrictions — is not getting through to the media and public,” he says.
“So our politicians get away with setting bold-sounding targets without enacting the only policies that can achieve these, and Canada misses one emission reduction target after another — a 20-year history now.”
After writing columns about Jaccard’s 2005 book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, which won the Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy, Simpson asked him to lunch. “I told him (Simpson) I was writing a more popular book in order to get this message out, but I needed a good editor. We came up with the idea of co-authorship and the rest is history.
“I had a great time working with him, but it was challenging,” Jaccard admits. “Columnists write much faster than academics.”
Jaccard will give a talk at SFU’s Burnaby campus on Oct. 11 as part of the Climate Change speaker series (3 p.m., Academic Quadrangle, room C9001). He will also give a lecture and sign books at SFU’s Vancouver campus at Harbour Centre on Oct. 18 at 7 p.m.
Hot Air: Meeting Canada’s Climate Change Challenge, (McClelland & Stewart, 2007), is the collaborative work of professor Mark Jaccard, along with graduate student Nic Rivers, and Jeffrey Simpson, a political expert and columnist with the Globe and Mail.
The book, now available in bookstores, explains what is happening in Canada on climate change and what needs to happen — with politicians, business leaders, and even environmentalists taking their share of blame.
It also demonstrates how to bring about the policies that Canada needs to adopt in the short term to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades — and how they can be created to have minimal negative effects.
Jaccard and SFU colleagues developed a modeling system that is now widely used to determine the impact of certain environmental initiatives or policies.
"As an academic, I am increasingly frustrated that the obvious and consistent conclusion from independent research — about the necessity of a greenhouse gas tax and/or forceful, economy-wide emission restrictions — is not getting through to the media and public,” he says.
“So our politicians get away with setting bold-sounding targets without enacting the only policies that can achieve these, and Canada misses one emission reduction target after another — a 20-year history now.”
After writing columns about Jaccard’s 2005 book, Sustainable Fossil Fuels, which won the Donner Prize for best book on Canadian public policy, Simpson asked him to lunch. “I told him (Simpson) I was writing a more popular book in order to get this message out, but I needed a good editor. We came up with the idea of co-authorship and the rest is history.
“I had a great time working with him, but it was challenging,” Jaccard admits. “Columnists write much faster than academics.”
Jaccard will give a talk at SFU’s Burnaby campus on Oct. 11 as part of the Climate Change speaker series (3 p.m., Academic Quadrangle, room C9001). He will also give a lecture and sign books at SFU’s Vancouver campus at Harbour Centre on Oct. 18 at 7 p.m.