The Great Disruption: How the climate Crisis will Transform the Global Economy

Author Paul Gilding was director of Greenpeace International until 1994 and left to work with global corporations as a sustainability consultant for 15 years (Dupont, Ford, Cina Light and Power etc). He has recently been researching how the global sustainability crisis can be addressed, and how society responds to crises.

His conclusion is that societies generally avoid crisis until something so bad happens that they cannot avoid them any longer. At that point they go into overdrive and commit everything to solve the problem, usually with considerably effect. He specifically cites WWII, and the recent global financial crisis as examples.

He says that we are currently in denial about sustainability, and climate change in particular, and it will take a massive impact on our economy to bring us out of it. However, if we do it within 10 years, we can still save the planet (although we may lose a billion or so people), and even keep temperature rise to below 1 degree. China, he says, has seen the need to act, and is acting quite determinately.

The book (290 pages) contains considerable detail and supporting references, but there are inevitable gaps. I am a little uneasy about his confidence in his predictions, but at they are plausible. It is a relatively easy read.