Is flying dangerous? How much do the world’s cows weigh? And what makes people happy?
From earth’s nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energize them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world – and how all of this affects the planet itself – in Numbers Don’t Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking.
Packed with ‘well-I-never-knew-that’ information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we see how it is too soon to judge shale gas, that vaccination yields the best return on investment, and why electric cars aren’t as great as we think (yet). There’s a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics.
Should you trust unemployment figures? Is China’s rise unstoppable? And what’s worse for the environment: your car or mobile phone?
Unclouded by pessimism or optimism and unafraid of big questions, Smil explains why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature but why the Paris Agreement does not go far enough. These issues are not straightforward and progress takes longer than you think, but with Smil as our authoritative and entertaining guide we get a healthy shot of realism.
Urgent and essential, Numbers Don’t Lie is a powerful rallying cry for interrogating what you take to be true in these significant times. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey?
Nils Rune Langeland har en unik penn. Historiens spøkelseshær
Woke tosh.
Grensen mot Russland er blitt en grense mellom krig og fred. Gjennom tre måneder har Nils Rune Langeland reist fra Kirkenes i nord til Georgia . . .
The great forces of population change – the balance of births, deaths and migrations – have made the world what it is today. They have . . .
Niall Ferguson
A riveting study of Africa’s demographics – its youth and growth – and what they mean for the continent, today and into the future. Africa’s . . .
World leaders have made a forceful statement that climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. However, little progress has been . . .
As Einstein pointed out in his famous equation, E=MC2, all matter can be described as energy. It is everywhere; it is everything. In this engaging . . .
Packed with fascinating facts and insight, this book will fuel dinner party debate, and provide readers with the science and politics behind the world’s most . . .
«Sam Huntington, one of the West’s most eminent political scientists, presents a challenging framework for understanding the realities of global politics in the next century. . . .
Europa er inne i en brytningstid. Kartet stemmer dårlig overens med terrenget. De arvede sjablongene, begrepene som vi har brukt til å forstå vår samtid . . .
«For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be . . .
Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s . . .
False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet Hurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across . . .
Unsettled is a remarkable book–probably the best book on climate change for the intelligent layperson–that achieves the feat of conveying complex information clearly and in . . .
Delightfully contrarian, this is the one book you need to read to understand our modern world We have never had so much information at our . . .
China has concentration camps now. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique? It is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western . . .
Det går nedenom og hjem med vestlig kultur. «Britain today presents a puzzling spectacle. Outwardly, materially, the country is prospering, and there is no particular . . .
This is the century of whiteshift. As Western societies are becoming increasingly mixed-race, demographic change is transforming politics. Over half of American babies are non-white, . . .