Straight Up

Summary

The title of the book's introduction, "Why I blog", is a play on the title of George Orwell's essay, "Why I Write". Romm states, "I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to force us to face unpleasant facts. From this starting point, Romm posits that global warming is a bipartisan issue. He writes, "Averting catastrophic global warming requires completely overturning the status quo, changing every aspect of how we use energy – and doing so in under four decades. Failure to do so means humanity's self-destruction." The book collects, reprints and updates postings from his blog, ClimateProgress.org, as the main part of his content, adding introductions and some new analysis.

In his first chapter, Romm argues that the media perpetuates the status quo through laziness and a misunderstanding of how to present a "balanced" story. For example, he believes that the media did a bad job of assessing the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December 2009. Romm comments that global warming is a science story, but that the traditional news media, which has scaled back on specialized reporting, has given the story to political reporters who don't understand, and have not time to research, the scientific consensus. He next presents research concerning the science of climate change, as explained by what Romm calls "uncharacteristically blunt scientists".

In the third chapter, Straight Up presents proposed solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the use of clean energy technologies and other currently available technologies. For example, it describes what Romm believes are the advantages of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, generation of energy through wind and solar power, including concentrated solar power using mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy. He writes that "A 20 percent reduction in global emissions might be possible in a quarter century with net economic benefits". "Our plan", says Romm, must be "Deployment, deployment, deployment, R&D, deployment, deployment, deployment." The next chapter discusses peak oil.

The next chapters move into the politics of global warming and what Romm sees as a "right-wing disinformation machine" that confuses and misleads the public, by, for example, fostering what Romm calls "Anti-Scientific Syndrome". The book says, "the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater – what exactly is the 'price' of 5 feet of sea level rise in 2100 ... and losing all of the inland glaciers that provide a significant fraction of water to a billion people? Or the price of losing half the world's species? ... the bottom line is that the economic cost of action is low, whereas the cost of inaction is incalculably greater". Romm calculates that deployment of existing technologies on the massive scale that can save the climate can be accomplished at the cost of 0.12 percent of global GDP per year.

Romm advocates citizen action to pressure Washington and industry to act quickly and decisively to reduce greenhouse emissions. Otherwise, he argues, we will fall behind in the race to commercialize profitable technologies. "China has a excellent track record of achieving gains in energy efficiency and has begun to ramp up its efficiency efforts and aggressively expand its carbon-free electricity targets (recently committing, for instance, to triple its wind goal to 100,000 MW by 2020). ... will the United States be a global leader in creating jobs and exports in clean energy technologies or will we be importing them from Europe, Japan, and the likely clean energy leader in our absence, China"?

In the last chapter, Romm posits that progressives are "lousy" at educating the public, and he offers ways in which he thinks they can be more effective at messaging. In his conclusion at the end of the book, Romm argues that the global economy is a sort of ponzi scheme, in which our failure to prevent the worst effects of climate change now could eventually cause the world economy to fall apart just like a ponzi scheme.

Reception

Initial reviews

A review in USA Today called the book "a gut-wrenching wakeup call". Thomas L. Friedman, in his op-ed column in The New York Times, called the book "insightful", agreeing with Romm's arguments in the book that the proposed "cap and trade" climate bill "is a step in the right direction toward reducing greenhouse gases and expanding our base of clean power technologies". Former US Vice-President Al Gore endorsed the book as "important" on his blog, writing, "If you are interested in the fight to solve the climate crisis, I recommend you read this book."

The book has been reviewed by many of the "green" websites. For example, the blog of the American Solar Energy Society, Solar Today, commented, "It's a collection of spirited and readable critiques of the delaying forces – the corporations and institutions who want to see no changes in national policies and tax codes that now work to make them rich. In particular, Romm eviscerates the American news establishment for ignoring climate catastrophe issues". ... It's full of solid fact-based arguments, properly referenced within the text (no footnotes!), along with a lot of low-carbon fire and brimstone. Daily Kos commented, "Romm's forceful, impassioned blogging – and his book publishing – are a shining light in the confrontation of those 'misguided seals of approval'" being given out by the mainstream press to climate disinformers. The review continues, "Romm is a tenacious fighter ... ready to take on all comers to the point that he can even rub 'friends' and allies the wrong way at times. ... Romm's knowledge, writing skills, and passion enable most to see past those conflicts since, on so many issues, Romm is simply – well – correct and laying out viable paths forward. ... Simply put, if the 'nation' would read Straight Up and follow Romm's prescriptions, we would find ourselves moving away from decline into a new era of prosperity." The Green Energy Reporter stated that "Straight Up's indictment of "status-quo media" like The New York Times lays bare the inadequacies of traditional he-said-she-said media coverage when faced with a civilizational challenge like climate change. ... Strong opinions, muscular writing."

Reporter Tyler Hamilton calls the book "a stinging critique of how poorly the mainstream media has covered global warming" and says that the book, like Romm's blog, "cuts through the crap in a way no mainstream media outlet has or will." A review in TreeHugger termed the book "an essential guide to climate, energy, and politics for the blog era." It continued, "nobody knows the game like Romm – both in terms of ability to interpret and explain the latest science, and in boasting expertise on the politics and policy process that, whether you like it our not, is going to be instrumental in mitigating climate change on a large scale." Even for readers of Romm's blog, the book "provides an important narrative flow, and condenses everything you need to know about the current state of climate science and politics into a nice, quick read. While extremely thorough, it may make some beginners' head spin, and it can get combative and wonky in places. But such is the nature of this beast – climate change should make a beginner's head spin, and as Romm makes clear, addressing it is going to be messy, politically charged, and a daunting battle." The Environmental Defense Fund review opined, "Straight Up is well-researched, provides insightful political analysis, and showcases compelling data on the economic benefits of climate change solutions."

Later assessments

In June 2010, FDL Book Salon said of the book, "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. By pulling together the very best content from the blog and thoughtfully organizing it in a logical way, the book achieves ... cohesiveness. ... [What makes Romm's] writing on climate change and energy policy so valuable is his comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter." A review the same month in the New Zealand climate blog Hot Topic contains a detailed summary of the book. A July 2010 review in RenewableEnergyWorld.com agreed with Romm that "with the little time we have left to avert climate chaos, we must devote most of our resources to deploying existing technologies like solar, wind and geothermal that we know can bring atmospheric carbon back down down to safe levels."

In July 2010, Bill McKibben wrote in Washington Monthly:

Romm ... knows his climate science ... cold. Trained as a physicist, he is unintimidated by scholarly work, and is able to synthesize huge amounts of complex data. He has been a persuasive voice for the most important truth about global warming: that it is a far worse problem than either politicians or the general public understand. In his posts and in his previous book Hell and High Water Romm has made the stakes clear. "If we stay anywhere near our current emissions path," he writes, the century will bring "staggeringly high temperature rise ... [and] sea level rise. ... Dust bowls will cover the southwestern United States and many other heavily populated regions around the globe. Massive species loss will occur on land and sea – affecting 50 percent or more of all life." These changes ... are relatively uncontroversial middle-of-the-road projections. ... Romm's willingness to repeat these concerns ... has been essential in emboldening a few opinion writers – Tom Friedman, for instance – to keep this message in the mainstream media. ... Romm has been consistent in insisting that we have much of the technology necessary to at least begin tackling the problem. He regularly documents the gains we could easily squeeze from commonsense efficiencies ... [and current technologies,] the plug-in hybrid car, for example. ... Romm is very clear on the economics of climate change: any large-scale adjustment, while not cheap, is affordable, and neglecting the issue as we have done will prove to be very expensive in the long run. Indeed, it's hard to read him without understanding just how disingenuous and shortsighted is the Republican argument that we should ignore global warming because it will cost us money. ... The [2009] McKinsey report ... estimate[s that] most of the first few decades of carbon trimming will actually make us money. ...