With COP-15 less than a month away -- for an unusual coalition's
response to the international "Conference of Parties" of the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, check out
http://www.hopenhagen.org -- we're lucky to have three of the
world's leading advocates and experts, Al Gore, Lester Brown and Guy
Dauncey, delivering some of the best-ever climate change books
focusing on solutions. And while not that long ago ago we worried
that many in the climate change world had not recognized the
importance of transportation electrification and the near-term
benefits possible with today's technology, that's no longer the case.

(Shortly after it goes out on email, this posting will also be
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Find these books at your local bookstore or order them via the link
at http://www.calcars.org/books.html (the CalCars Books Page):

* PLAN B 4.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION by the Earth Policy
Institute's Lester Brown has been substantially revised and expanded.
It inclludes extended discussions about integrating wind power and
plug-in cars, and it reviews the water and climate change
complexities of biofuels. It presents a persuasive description of the
components for a global transition to a sustainable and more
equitable world. If you want to show people you're what Amory Lovins
calls a "practical idealist," buy this book so you can read and be
able to convey the story on pages 259-261: the all-important
post-Pearl Harbor mobilization of U.S. manufacturing was led by the
auto industry. Everyone was skeptical about President Roosevelt's
call for 60,000 planes -- but the transformed industry turned out
229,600 in three years. See a review at Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/13/lester-brown-new-book-plan-b-4-0-mobilizin\
g-to-save-civilization/
.

* THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE: 101 SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL WARMING, by Canadian
author, speaker and journalist Guy Dauncey, fulfills the promise of
its title in ways that many "list books" don't: it's comprehensive as
well as specific. Jumping out of 2-page-spread-by-spread are 35 key
challenges, then 10 solutions each for individuals, champions,
communities, businesses, farmers, transportation, energy companies,
government, and developing nations. It ends with 10 global
solutions. PHEVs appear prominently in three main solutions, with
the final one, "Develop a Sustainable Vehicles Strategy" highlighting
Andy Grove's advocacy of conversion of millions of gas-guzzlers. We
won't be spoil the plot when we say #101 is "One Solution for All of
Us: Don't Sit this One Out." You can learn more and order the book
from the author directly at http://www.theclimatechallenge.ca .
Disclosure: we're delighted that a CalCars PHEV is among the 15
photos on the cover (and larger inside)(, and that the inside pages
include our blurb. We said, "Finally here's a book that combines
thorough explanations for newcomers with innovative perspectives for
experts and effective answers for people, industries and
institutions. The Climate Challenge's imaginative format is
up-to-date, comprehensive, and immensely handy. It's as if Whole
Earth Catalog had been reborn 40 years later. Guy Dauncey pulls no
punches and is deeply, urgently persuasive. Anyone who reads this
will be moved to act."

* OUR CHOICE: A PLAN TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS, by Al Gore, is the
long-awaited sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth." If you felt that
wake-up call lacked a focus on solutions beyond those for individual
consumers, now you have a bonanza. Like the other two above, this
book is comprehensive. In fact, it's almost encyclopedic, reflecting
the advice of hundreds of experts and including effective
illustrations and graphics. Though Gore had much help, this is not a
ghost-written product: you can hear his voice in almost every
sentence. In the Super Grid chapter a section starting on page 286
focuses on the benefits of plug-in cars in providing energy storage
solutions, concluding with a two-page graphic envisioning the future
grid, with a PHEV plugged in to a house via a grid transmitter and
smart meter. And it includes an excellent introduction to "black
carbon." And for those who may say the book has toomuch "wonkish"
detail, as we see it, there's no need to be defensive about science
and facts. Michelle Obama understood that when she praised Energy
Secretary Steven Chu in a Nov. 5 morale-building visit to the DOE,
saying "we are so incredibly grateful for his leadership. My husband
loves his Cabinet. He was extremely excited that he had a real nerd
on his team. (Laughter.) He talked about it for weeks on end."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-first-lady-department-energy-\
event-0
And a few days later, Chu agreed with the First Lady telling her, at
a mock National Science Bowl event, that the competition " elevates
the social status of nerds everywhere."
http://www.er.doe.gov/News_Information/News_Room/2009/Nov%2010_ScienceBowl.html

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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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