Read the full review here: http://climatesight.org/2009/11/05/two-great-canadians/

It's a rare day when you find a book about climate change written by a Canadian. The authors are American, mostly. Some are British or Australian. And that's a real shame, because there's a lot going on in Canadian politics about climate change - but you can't read about it anywhere. The newspapers don't report it (I hadn't even heard of Bill C311 until I went to PowerShift). The government website certainly doesn't report it. Currently, my only source of Canada-specific climate news is the One Blue Marble blog. We went into Copenhagen as the least committed and least cooperative developed nation in the world. And most Canadians don't even know it.

That's why it was so refreshing to read Keeping Our Cool by Andrew Weaver, a top Canadian climate modeler. He is a professor at the University of Victoria, the chief editor for the Journal of Climate, a lead author for the IPCC, and the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis. Certainly some impressive credentials. I sort of dream of doing my Master's under him.

The book was very well-rounded for climate literature. It covered basic scientific processes (with lots of fancy graphs), the history of climate science, and policy alternatives. But my favourite chapters had to do with the media and politics - purely because they were Canada-specific.

I know all about George Bush's inaction on climate change. But until I read Andrew Weaver's book, I didn't see just how blatantly Stephen Harper was carrying on the torch. I've read Boykoff and Boykoff's study, which surveys American newspaper articles. But I was less aware of how the Canadian media reported climate change, apart from my local newspaper and news channel (and Rick Mercer, of course).

It was so refreshing to have a sense of what was going on at home for once, after wasting so much time trying to figure it out for myself.

My only complaint was that the book was poorly organized. It constantly switched back and forth from scientific explanations, to Canadian news, to examples of vested skeptical interests, to Canadian politics. This was probably deliberate, so that the chapters wouldn't get monotonous, but it makes it a lot harder to find what you're looking for later (like while writing a book review!)

Reviewed by Kate
http://climatesight.org