Clearing the Air
The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $23.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tim Bentinck
-
By:
-
Tim Smedley
About this listen
Shortlisted for The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2019
Air pollution has become the world's greatest environmental health risk, and science is only beginning to reveal its wide-ranging effects. Globally, 19,000 people die each day from air pollution, killing more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and car accidents combined.
What happened to the air we breathe?
Sustainability journalist Tim Smedley has travelled the world to try to find the answer, visiting cities at the forefront of the fight against air pollution, including Delhi, Beijing, London and Paris. With insights from the scientists and politicians leading the battle against it, and people whose lives have been affected by it.
Clearing the Air tells the full story of air pollution for the first time: what it is, which pollutants are harmful, where they come from and - most importantly - what we can do about them.
Air pollution is a problem that can be solved. The stories uncovered on this journey show us how.
Clearing the Air is essential listening for anyone who cares about the air they breathe. And this much becomes clear: in the fight against air pollution, we all have a part to play. The fightback has begun.
©2019 Tim Smedley (P)2020 W F HowesListeners also enjoyed...
-
Crossings
- How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
- By: Ben Goldfarb
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they're practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the US alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill.
-
-
Great book, but narration doesn’t fit.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-23
By: Ben Goldfarb
-
Romney
- A Reckoning
- By: McKay Coppins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, McKay Coppins
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection.
-
-
Political and intellectual biography at its best!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-23
By: McKay Coppins
-
Light to Life
- The Miracle of Photosynthesis and How It Can Save the Planet
- By: Raffael Jovine
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Light to Life, biologist Raffael Jovine takes us on a journey of discovery into the intricate, beautiful and often surprising processes that convert energy from the sun into life and how all-important these are to our survival. Despite the unprecedented challenges the Earth faces from global warming, habitat loss, air pollution and population growth; Jovine shows us that there is hope to be found. Photosynthesis is the very source of life: it has the power not just to produce food, but to reshape continents, drive biogeochemical cycles, stabilise the climate and regulate weather.
By: Raffael Jovine
-
The Heat Will Kill You First
- Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
- By: Jeff Goodell
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow.
-
-
Eminently Skipable for Climate Science Believers
- By Chad on 07-15-23
By: Jeff Goodell
-
Physics of the Future
- How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku - the New York Times best-selling author of Physics of the Impossible - gives us a stunning, provocative, and exhilarating vision of the coming century based on interviews with over 300 of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs. The result is the most authoritative and scientifically accurate description of revolutionary developments taking place....
-
-
Interesting Content, Irritating Reader
- By Dirk Turgid on 12-15-11
By: Michio Kaku
-
Water Always Wins
- Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge
- By: Erica Gies
- Narrated by: Linda Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As new climate disasters remind us every day, our world is not stable—and it is changing in ways that expose the deep dysfunction of our relationship with water. But as we grapple with extreme weather, a hard truth is emerging: our development, including concrete infrastructure designed to control water, is actually exacerbating our problems. Because sooner or later, water always wins. In this quietly radical book, science journalist Erica Gies introduces us to innovators in what she calls the Slow Water movement who start by asking a revolutionary question: What does water want?
-
-
Any interesting look into an over looked subject
- By Keegan K. on 07-17-23
By: Erica Gies
-
Crossings
- How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet
- By: Ben Goldfarb
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they're practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as entirely alien forces of death and disruption. In Crossings, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb travels throughout the United States and around the world to investigate how roads have transformed our planet. A million animals are killed by cars each day in the US alone, but as the new science of road ecology shows, the harms of highways extend far beyond roadkill.
-
-
Great book, but narration doesn’t fit.
- By Anonymous User on 09-22-23
By: Ben Goldfarb
-
Romney
- A Reckoning
- By: McKay Coppins
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, McKay Coppins
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump’s GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president’s supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection.
-
-
Political and intellectual biography at its best!
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-23
By: McKay Coppins
-
Light to Life
- The Miracle of Photosynthesis and How It Can Save the Planet
- By: Raffael Jovine
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Light to Life, biologist Raffael Jovine takes us on a journey of discovery into the intricate, beautiful and often surprising processes that convert energy from the sun into life and how all-important these are to our survival. Despite the unprecedented challenges the Earth faces from global warming, habitat loss, air pollution and population growth; Jovine shows us that there is hope to be found. Photosynthesis is the very source of life: it has the power not just to produce food, but to reshape continents, drive biogeochemical cycles, stabilise the climate and regulate weather.
By: Raffael Jovine
-
The Heat Will Kill You First
- Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
- By: Jeff Goodell
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow.
-
-
Eminently Skipable for Climate Science Believers
- By Chad on 07-15-23
By: Jeff Goodell
-
Physics of the Future
- How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Physics of the Future, Michio Kaku - the New York Times best-selling author of Physics of the Impossible - gives us a stunning, provocative, and exhilarating vision of the coming century based on interviews with over 300 of the world’s top scientists who are already inventing the future in their labs. The result is the most authoritative and scientifically accurate description of revolutionary developments taking place....
-
-
Interesting Content, Irritating Reader
- By Dirk Turgid on 12-15-11
By: Michio Kaku
-
Water Always Wins
- Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge
- By: Erica Gies
- Narrated by: Linda Jones
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As new climate disasters remind us every day, our world is not stable—and it is changing in ways that expose the deep dysfunction of our relationship with water. But as we grapple with extreme weather, a hard truth is emerging: our development, including concrete infrastructure designed to control water, is actually exacerbating our problems. Because sooner or later, water always wins. In this quietly radical book, science journalist Erica Gies introduces us to innovators in what she calls the Slow Water movement who start by asking a revolutionary question: What does water want?
-
-
Any interesting look into an over looked subject
- By Keegan K. on 07-17-23
By: Erica Gies
-
Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
-
-
Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
-
SuperFreakonomics
- By: Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
- Narrated by: Stephen J. Dubner
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
SuperFreakonomics challenges the way we think all over again, exploring the hidden side of everything with such questions as: How is a street prostitute like a department-store Santa? What do hurricanes, heart attacks, and highway deaths have in common? Can eating kangaroo save the planet? Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling like no one else.
-
-
Just ok. Not sure if I believe it all though.
- By Duane Touchet on 10-31-09
By: Steven D. Levitt, and others
-
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
-
-
Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
-
A Question of Power
- Electricity and the Wealth of Nations
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Robert Bryce
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Global demand for power is doubling every two decades, but electricity remains one of the most difficult forms of energy to supply and do so reliably. Today, some three billion people live in places where per-capita electricity use is less than what's used by an average American refrigerator. How we close the colossal gap between the electricity rich and the electricity poor will determine our success in addressing issues like women's rights, inequality, and climate change.
-
-
Not the complete story
- By John on 08-11-20
By: Robert Bryce
-
How the World Really Works
- The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: Stephen Perring
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts.
-
-
Let me save you a credit: progress is hard
- By Dalton on 06-06-22
By: Vaclav Smil
-
Unstoppable
- Harnessing Science to Change the World
- By: Bill Nye
- Narrated by: Bill Nye
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just as World War II called an earlier generation to greatness, so the climate crisis is calling today's rising youth to action: to create a better future. In Unstoppable, Bill Nye crystallizes and expands the message for which he is best known and beloved. That message is that with a combination of optimism and scientific curiosity, all obstacles become opportunities, and the possibilities of our world become limitless.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening!
- By Kevin Lewis on 11-12-15
By: Bill Nye
-
Walkable City
- How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
- By: Jeff Speck
- Narrated by: Jeff Speck
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
-
-
Interesting topic and thoughtful insight, subpar recording.
- By Andrew Nicks on 05-12-18
By: Jeff Speck
-
The Grid
- The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
- By: Gretchen Bakke
- Narrated by: Emily Caudwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.
-
-
A disappointment
- By Ronald on 09-24-16
By: Gretchen Bakke
-
The Story of Stuff
- By: Annie Leonard
- Narrated by: Annie Leonard
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have a system in crisis, but Annie Leonard shows us that this is not the way things have to be. It's within our power to stop the environmental damage, social injustice, and health hazards caused by polluting production and excessive consumption, and Leonard shows us how. Expansive, galvanizing, and sobering yet optimistic, The Story of Stuff transforms how we think about our lives and our relationship to the planet.
-
-
A wonderful eye opening book everyone should read!
- By Meghan N on 04-24-10
By: Annie Leonard
-
Whole Earth Discipline
- An Ecopragmatist Mainfesto
- By: Stewart Brand
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Stewart Brand (afterword)
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An icon of the environmental movement outlines a provocative approach for reclaiming our planet. According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization - half the world's population now lives in cities, and 80 percent will by midcentury - is altering humanity's land impact and wealth.
-
-
This book is incredible
- By cuban_merch87 on 11-03-16
By: Stewart Brand
-
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better. How can this be? The explanation is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We're taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives.
-
-
A different point of view
- By Ballofyarn on 01-12-17
By: Alex Epstein
-
The Vanishing Face of Gaia
- A Final Warning
- By: James Lovelock
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, British scientist James Lovelock predicts global warming will lead to a Hot Epoch. Lovelock is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia theory in the 1970s, with Ruth Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. We ignore this interaction at our peril.
-
-
A New Perspective - A Must Listen - Very Moving
- By Thomas on 01-29-12
By: James Lovelock
Critic reviews
"Read this book and join the effort to terminate air pollution." (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
"Compulsory reading." (Chris Boardman)
Related to this topic
-
Green Metropolis
- What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability
- By: David Owen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.
-
-
A stupid and dangerously short sighted view
- By Gare&Sophia on 11-13-12
By: David Owen
-
No Immediate Danger
- Carbon Ideologies, Volume One
- By: William T. Vollmann
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age. Now, Vollmann turns to a topic that will define the generations to come - the factors and human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger by examining and quantifying the many causes of climate change, from industrial manufacturing and agricultural practices to fossil fuel extraction, economic demand for electric power, and the justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort.
-
-
Look at the brightside always and die in a dream!
- By Darwin8u on 04-14-19
-
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
-
-
Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
-
Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
-
-
I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
-
Coal
- A Human History
- By: Barbara Freese
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.
-
-
Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda
- By Kismet on 08-22-06
By: Barbara Freese
-
Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
-
-
Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
-
Green Metropolis
- What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability
- By: David Owen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.
-
-
A stupid and dangerously short sighted view
- By Gare&Sophia on 11-13-12
By: David Owen
-
No Immediate Danger
- Carbon Ideologies, Volume One
- By: William T. Vollmann
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his nonfiction, William T. Vollmann has won acclaim as a singular voice tackling some of the most important issues of our age. Now, Vollmann turns to a topic that will define the generations to come - the factors and human actions that have led to global warming. Vollmann begins No Immediate Danger by examining and quantifying the many causes of climate change, from industrial manufacturing and agricultural practices to fossil fuel extraction, economic demand for electric power, and the justifiable yearning of people all over the world to live in comfort.
-
-
Look at the brightside always and die in a dream!
- By Darwin8u on 04-14-19
-
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
- The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
- By: Bill Gates
- Narrated by: Wil Wheaton, Bill Gates
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."
-
-
Be curious, not furious
- By Axel Merk on 02-20-21
By: Bill Gates
-
Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper
- How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
- By: Robert Bryce
- Narrated by: Steven Menasche
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.
-
-
I thought I was getting a book on the future.
- By Grant on 08-02-14
By: Robert Bryce
-
Coal
- A Human History
- By: Barbara Freese
- Narrated by: Shelly Frasier
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fascinating, often surprising story of how a simple black rock altered the course of history. Yet the mundane mineral that built our global economy, and even today powers our electrical plants, has also caused death, disease, and environmental destruction. In this remarkable book, Barbara Freese takes us on a rich historical journey that begins three hundred million years ago and spans the globe.
-
-
Uses Coal to push her Political Agenda
- By Kismet on 08-22-06
By: Barbara Freese
-
Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
-
-
Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
-
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
- By: Alex Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Epstein
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For decades environmentalists have told us that using fossil fuels is a self-destructive addiction that will destroy our planet. Yet by every measure of human well-being, from life expectancy to clean water to climate safety, life has been getting better and better. How can this be? The explanation is that we usually hear only one side of the story. We're taught to think only of the negatives of fossil fuels, their risks and side effects, but not their positives.
-
-
A different point of view
- By Ballofyarn on 01-12-17
By: Alex Epstein
-
A Brief History of Motion
- From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted fans and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of technology - personal transportation - and explores how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia. Beginning around 3,500 BCE with the wheel - a device that didn't catch on until a couple thousand years after its invention - Standage zips through the eras of horsepower, trains, and bicycles, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in.
-
-
Great listen
- By CKerb on 11-09-21
By: Tom Standage
-
Walkable City
- How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
- By: Jeff Speck
- Narrated by: Jeff Speck
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
-
-
Interesting topic and thoughtful insight, subpar recording.
- By Andrew Nicks on 05-12-18
By: Jeff Speck
-
The Vanishing Face of Gaia
- A Final Warning
- By: James Lovelock
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, British scientist James Lovelock predicts global warming will lead to a Hot Epoch. Lovelock is best known for formulating the controversial Gaia theory in the 1970s, with Ruth Margulis of the University of Massachusetts, which states that organisms interact with and regulate Earth's surface and atmosphere. We ignore this interaction at our peril.
-
-
A New Perspective - A Must Listen - Very Moving
- By Thomas on 01-29-12
By: James Lovelock
-
Living in the Long Emergency
- Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward
- By: James Howard Kunstler
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century - the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now - surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.
-
-
Please Read Before Buying
- By K. Skoog on 05-12-20
-
Climate Change
- What Everyone Needs to Know
- By: Joseph Romm
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."
-
-
Religious not scientific claims and preachings
- By Jeanne Renzo on 09-19-19
By: Joseph Romm
-
Meltdown
- Nuclear Disaster and the Human Cost of Going Critical
- By: Joel Levy
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the pioneers of Los Alamos who got up close and personal with the cores of atomic bombs, to the hapless engineers in Soviet fuel-processing plants who unwittingly mixed up a disaster in a bucket, and from the terrifying impact of a tsunami at Fukushima to the mystery of the recent Russian incident, Meltdown explores the past and future of this extraordinary and potentially lethal source of infinite power
-
-
A less well written version of another book
- By Amazon Customer on 01-10-22
By: Joel Levy
-
Abundance
- The Future Is Better Than You Think
- By: Steven Kotler, Peter H. Diamandis
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing synthetic biology, and other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous 200 years.
-
-
Perhaps multiply his time estimates by 10
- By Rick on 11-06-21
By: Steven Kotler, and others
-
Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
-
-
Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
-
Street Smart
- The Rise of Cities and the Fall of Cars
- By: Samuel I. Schwartz, William Rosen - contributor
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With wit and sharp insight, former Traffic Commissioner of New York City, Sam Schwartz a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the most respected transportation engineers in the world and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American cities became so beholden to cars and why the current shift away from that trend will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing short of a revolution in how we get from place to place.
-
-
Interesting, thought provoking, and hopeful
- By JKuster on 03-07-20
By: Samuel I. Schwartz, and others
-
End Times
- A Brief Guide to the End of the World
- By: Bryan Walsh
- Narrated by: Bryan Walsh, Corey Carthew
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable - and inevitable - end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.
-
-
Important topic ruined by needless political blather
- By J. Gordon on 08-29-19
By: Bryan Walsh
-
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated
- The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
- By: Thom Hartmann, Neale Donald Walsch - associate editor
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While everything appears to be collapsing around us - ecodamage, genetic engineering, virulent diseases, water shortages, global famine, wars - we can still do something about it and create a world that will work for us and for our children's children. The inspiration for Leonardo DiCaprio's feature documentary movie The 11th Hour, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight details what is happening to our planet, the reasons for our culture's blind behavior, and how we can fix the problem.
-
-
One of the Most Important Books of our Time
- By Jana on 04-24-20
By: Thom Hartmann, and others