The Burning Answer

21-07-2014

A friend handed me this book at the weekend, saying: "you'll want to read this." And so I do.

Any book with a chapter heading titled 'What is Light' will do it for me, even if it turned out to be a book of knitting patterns. But I suspect that this book is going to take me somewhere very different, though the significance of knitting pattterns may become apparent towards the end.

The blurb on the cover sets it out starkly enough:
Our civilisation faces a choice. We could be enjoying a sustainable lifestyle but we have chosen not to. In three generations we have consumed half of the oil produced by photosynthesis over eight million generations. In two generations we have used half our uranium resources. With threats from global warming, oil depletion and nuclear disaster, we are running out of options.
Solar power, as Keith Barnham explains, is the solution.

I like the idea that I might already be a life-long fan of the thing that could get us out of the hole that we're digging.

I don't know that there are many book-clubs around the lighting industry, but I'm going to post this to the Lighting Talk group on LInkedIn and invite anyone and everyone to get hold of a copy of the book and let's see if we can't get some sort of commentary going on whether Light really is the answer.

'The Burning Answer'(A User's Guide to the Soalr Revolution) is by Keith Barnham; published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

Oh yes, and if I needed any other reason to give this book my time; he quotes Joni Mitchell: "we are stardust . . . "