Beyond Smoke and Mirrors

among the public. Burton Richter, a Nobel Laureate in physics, has written a cogent analysis of what is known - and not known - about climate change and about the components of the energy system that contribute to climate change or that are offered as a means to mitigate it. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: A Citizen's Guide to Climate Change and Energy brings sophisticated insights and common sense to the issues, but is fully accessible to the public. This book should be required reading for anyone who seeks to understand one of the most significant global challenges that confronts humankind.' Richard A. Meserve, President of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Former Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 'Burt Richter has packed a remarkable amount of two very important and rare commodities in a short compass: reliable information on energy and climate change and (even rarer) good judgment. He has done all this with a light touch and engaging style which will draw the intelligent reader's sustained interest. The reader will be able to improve greatly the level of the important debates on policy in these fields.' Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University '[T]he clearest guide yet to the facts and issues of climate and energy - without smoke or mirrors. ... Richter has no special interest, and his book's survey of all the evidence for climate change and all the available energy sources is a model of rational discourse in this time of inflammatory arguments.' David Perlman, San Francisco Chronicle "Please point me to a short overview of energy and climate, with numbers but not equations, and with a no-nonsense view of the politics.' ... At last, I am comfortable with my answer: read Beyond Smoke and Mirrors. ... An unpretentious yet deeply insightful book. Richter comes across as someone who enjoys nothing more than a conversation with a serious, intelligent nonspecialist. He takes on climate change in 40 small pages, energy options in another 150, policies that link energy and climate in 20 more, and we are done. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors - what a title! It epitomizes the entire book if we unpack it properly. Smoke and mirrors are the tools of deception, and by contrast Richter is promising to talk straight ... He is asking us to trust him, and we do. ... Such candor is rare and refreshing.' Robert H. Socolow, American Journal of Physics 'With so many books so obviously written to catch your eye ... it's hard to know where to start. But one book is truly outstanding: Beyond Smoke and Mirrors, by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Burton Richter. This book lays out the facts carefully and thoroughly without trivializing or condescending. Here's Richter's bottom line: there is global warming, and we humans are responsible for it. Even if you take into account random fluctuations - one swallow does not a summer make, and one hot July doesn't make a crisis - the globe is getting hotter.' Chronicle of Higher Education '[This book] is [an] important contribution to the semitechnical literature on the human components of climate change: what they are, what expected impacts they will have over the next decades, and what can be done to mitigate the effects ... an admirably succinct book which effectively presents the key aspects of climate change, human energy use, and the options of changing the latter to help mitigate the effects of the former. It will be a valuable read for anyone concerned about these issues - highly recommended.' The Leading Edge '... a wonderfully balanced overview. It opens with a fine summary of the science linking carbon to climate ... provides a concise primer on the economics of long-term climate policy, and concludes with a short, sensible, and well-argued set of opinions and policy recommendations.' Physics Today 'I would recommend anyone with an interest in climate change to read this book with complete understanding toward those with a background in high school level general science.' Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Bulletin