Challenged by Carbon
Cambridge University Press, 10/15/2009
EAN 9780521197014, ISBN10: 0521197015
Hardcover, 232 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Is there a low-carbon future for the oil industry? Faced with compelling new geological evidence, the petroleum industry can no longer ignore the consequences of climate change brought on by consumption of its products. Yet the global community will continue to burn fossil fuels as we manage the transition to a low-carbon economy. As a geologist, oil man, academic and erstwhile politician, Bryan Lovell is uniquely well placed to describe the tensions accompanying the gradual greening of the petroleum industry over the last decade. He describes how, given the right lead from government, the oil industry could be environmental saviours, not villains, playing a crucial role in stabilising emissions through the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide. Challenging prejudices of both the environmentalists and the oil industry, Lovell ultimately assigns responsibility to us as consumers and our elected governments, highlighting the need for decisive leadership and urgent action to establish an international framework of policy and regulation.
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Geologists on the road to Kyoto
2. A crucial message from 55 million years ago
3. An Atlantic divide in Big Oil
4. What is the oil industry supposed to do?
5. The size of the problem and the scale of the answer
6. Safe storage
from villain to hero
7. Taking it a decade at a time
8. The proof in the Puddingstone
References
Index.
'The author's enthusiasm leaps out of every page and the result is a very readable, jargon-free and informative book on climate change. As a geologist he sets the present in the context of past changes. Anecdotes, personal reminiscences and clear science will captivate and inform the general reader and may well offer new insights to the specialist. A really good read.' Lord Oxburgh, House of Lords Science and Technology Committee