What should we be doing about global warming? Sustainability for a Warming Planet Humberto Llavador, John E. Roemer, Joaquim Silvestre (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; 2015) ISBN: 9780674744097.

Sustainability for a Warming Planet, written by three distinguished economists, addresses the greatest challenge of our age, and does so exceptionally well. Human numbers have steadily increased over the centuries. Partly as a result of the growth of systematic scientifi c understanding, the rate of population growth has greatly accelerated in recent times. In one of Walt Whitman’s poems, he conjures up an image of our looking over our shoulders at past generations: “Row upon row rise the phantoms behind us.” To the contrary, and underlining the singularity of our time, if we could organise all humans ever to have previously lived in orderly rows behind each individual alive today, demographic estimates suggest each of us would see at most a few dozen such phantoms behind us. We truly do live in a singular time for our particular planet. Not only are human numbers increasing, but our patterns of growth in economic activity — which we thoughtlessly assume will indefi nitely continue — are not sustainable. In particular, the greenhouse gases generated by our burning fossil fuels is warming our planet to a worrying extent. It is imperative that we address these problems. Of primary importance is the need to restrict the atmospheric concentration of carbon to a level no greater than its present state, and preferably somewhat lower than that. This book is particularly good in recognising that it is the developed world which has enjoyed most of the growth in living standards, which in turn is derived from burning fossil fuels. The authors emphasise that the restrictions in further growth that the developed world must Book review