Dangerous Years: Climate Change, the Long Emergency, and the Way Forward

David W Orr

Yale University Press

£22.50

David Orr, distinguished professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, has written this seminal work on the threats of climate change to the planet and society.

I predict the book will reach the same status and extensive readership as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, E O Wilson's Naturalist and Tim Jackson's Prosperity Without Growth.

Orr's book is full of philosophical wisdom, founded on environmental evidence, which can help us to generate a more sustainable planet. A key driver in the book is the Paris Agreement of December 2015, stemming from the UN Climate Change Conference COP21, when widespread international consensus was reached on the need to reduce emissions.

However, since then, President Trump has questioned the wisdom of his predecessor signing this agreement, claiming that climate change is a "hoax invented by the Chinese". Therefore, I hope that he receives a copy of this work as compulsory reading before he risks plunging the planet into further turmoil.

Besides carrying highly important political and environmental messages, it is written in the most eloquent prose, which will be a pleasure to read for those with specialist interests in the field and for lay people alike.

Professor Jim Lynch OBE FRSB