Animals and Global Warming (Al Gore's Our Choice)

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, by Al Gore (Rodale Inc., 2009), although full of useful information, manages to discuss the state of the environment while barely mentioning animals. It treats the environment as if it consisted only of an atmosphere which is changing and one species -- humanity -- whose industries are changing it. It says nothing about how the processes of life itself created and stabilize atmosphere and climate (so we must make sure of going to James Lovelock and E.O. Wilson et al for that story). It draws on and addresses not the "natural philosopher" or ecologist, but the energy systems engineer. The sources and byproducts of energy -- carbon-based, nuclear and alternative -- are its main subject. There is a good chapter on deforestation which includes mention of the ecosystem services which biodiversity provides, but (except for a cute picture of some organutans), wildlife is barely covered -- nothing on apex predators, no listing of mammals, fish or marine life in the index, and birds only in connection with windmills killing them (and then only to say the windmills are more important than the birds).

The environmental horror of the beef industry is not discussed, nor are Earth's one billion cattle except in an understated aside about methane. Agriculture as a whole occupies a central chapter however and segues well into the heart of the book: the horrific overbundance of human mouths consuming the resources of the planet. If you only read one chapter, make it chapter 11, "Population," which explains why the education of girls (turning developing world women into working professionals instead of serial breeders) will be the lynchpin solution to global warming and mass species die-offs.

Also particularly informative is the chapter on "Political Obstacles," which vividly presents what Gore, as a politician rather than a biologist, is in a position to know most about from personal experience: the objectionable disinformation tactics of industry-financed climate change deniers. The response to such people is to make sure a copy of Our Choice finds its way into every school library in the world -- and that three billion new girl students will get their hands on it.