"It was Eunice Newton Foote, an American scientist and woman's rights campaigner living in Seneca Falls, New York, who first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide could send temperatures here on Earth soaring. This was back in 1856. At the time, no one paid much attention. Our Biggest Experiment tells Foote's story, along with stories of the many other scientists who came before and after her, helping build our modern understanding of climate change. It also tells the story of ourenergy system, from whale oil to kerosene and beyond, the first steamships, wind turbines, electric cars, oil tankers and fridges. The story flows from the Enlightenment into World War Two and beyond, tracing the development of big science and our advancing realisation that global warming was a significant global problem, along with the growth of the environmental movement, climate scepticism and political systems like the UN climate talks. As citizens of the twenty-first century, it can feel like history's dealt us a rather bad hand with the climate crisis. In many ways, this is true. Our ancestors have left us an almighty mess. But they left us tools for survival too, and Our Biggest Experiment tells both sides of the story"-- - (Baker & Taylor)
Drawing from science, politics and technology, this illuminating book sheds new light on the little-known scientists throughout history who helped build our modern understanding of climate change. - (Baker & Taylor)
Traversing science, politics, and technology, Our Biggest Experiment shines a spotlight on the little-known scientists who sounded the alarm to reveal the history behind the defining story of our age: the climate crisis.
Our understanding of the Earth's fluctuating environment is an extraordinary story of human perception and scientific endeavor. It also began much earlier than we might think. In Our Biggest Experiment, Alice Bell takes us back to climate change science's earliest steps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the point when concern started to rise in the 1950s and right up to today, where the “debate” is over and the world is finally starting to face up to the reality that things are going to get a lot hotter, a lot drier (in some places), and a lot wetter (in others), with catastrophic consequences for most of Earth's biomes.
Our Biggest Experiment recounts how the world became addicted to fossil fuels, how we discovered that electricity could be a savior, and how renewable energy is far from a twentieth-century discovery. Bell cuts through complicated jargon and jumbles of numbers to show how we're getting to grips with what is now the defining issue of our time. The message she relays is ultimately hopeful; harnessing the ingenuity and intelligence that has driven the history of climate change research can result in a more sustainable and bearable future for humanity. - (Random House, Inc.)
ALICE BELL is a climate campaigner and writer based in London. She co-runs the climate change charity Possible, working on a range of projects from community tree planting to solar-powered trains. She has a PhD in science communication from Imperial College London and a BSc in the history of science from University College London, and has worked as both an academic and journalist, writing about everything from the radical science movement of the 1970s to plastic recycling in labs. - (Random House, Inc.)
Library Journal Reviews
This book by climate activist Bell stands out from the herd of recent titles on climate change, for its unlikely origin (as an alternative walking tour of London) and its lively account of the innovators, inventors, instigators and investigators of industry, energy, and climate in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States. Bell's account of the climate crisis is both historical (spanning the 18th through 21st centuries) and personal and fully demonstrates her PhD in science communication. It's especially readable and engaging for its fascinating narratives of little-known climate scientists and activists who first sounded the alarm, and its particular attention to Black innovators whose scientific contributions have been overlooked. She adeptly recognizes the impact of scientific and technological developments on social ills; for instance, she considers the real and projected implications of switching from fossil fuels to electricity. Bell's outlook for the future is dim, given the irreversibility of some climate effects, but she's ultimately hopeful that climate scientists and technologists still have options for altering the current trajectory. Bell runs a UK climate action non-profit called Possible, whose name says it all. VERDICT If readers seek just one book to explain how the world arrived at the current climate crisis, this one would be a great suggestion. Bell's accessible writing will find a wide audience.—Teresa R. Faust, Coll. of Central Florida, Ocala
Copyright 2021 Library Journal.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
The discovery of climate change arrived not with a bang but slowly over many centuries of lesser-known findings, writes activist and journalist Bell (Can We Save The Planet?) in this thorough and sweeping history of the climate crisis. Bell traces "how we built systems, technologies and deeply embedded cultures for the burning of coal, gas and oil at scale" to track "how we discovered the climate crisis was happening in the first place." She begins in 1851, at England's Great Exhibition, which was among the first events to rely heavily on coal-powered steam engines and marked "an age of prosperity" powered by fossil fuels. Subsequent biographies include John D. Rockefeller and his control of the oil industry and Eunice Newton Foote, who discovered the greenhouse effect in 1856. (Meanwhile, "the first recorded tree huggers" emerged in India in 1730.) Bell makes a convincing case that in order to effectively deal with climate change, people must understand how the world got to this point: "We've inherited an almighty mess, but we've also inherited a lot of tools that could... help us and others survive" through modern climate science. Impressive in scope, this deserves wide readership. Agent: Donald Winchester, Watson Little. (Sept.)
Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly.