Reviews

Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming by McKenzie Funk

arguhlincozzi's review against another edition

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This is actually a did not finish, because I can't do it. I know that climate change is real, a crucial topic to be addressing, and I do. I think about it daily, and as I make decisions on what to buy, who to vote for, and how I live my entire lifestyle. I support researchers who work on the topic. I do what I can, to both mitigate my household's impact and also try to help move society forward in a direction we need. But I can't manage reading this book - the casual destruction of the environment by so many governments and businesses in the name of the economy is too much for me to bear. It's a horror I can't abide to read so much detail about.

Funk writes engagingly, descriptively, and with an obvious amount of research, shining lights in dark shadows many of us are not privy to. Doesn't mean I am capable of looking, especially during Coronavirus times.

jnkay01's review

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4.0

My review for The Associated Press: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/windfall-explores-business-climate-change

Apparently, if you look at climate change the right way, it looks like money instead of disaster — if you're looking at it from a corporate boardroom, for example, and not, say, coastal Bangladesh.

Journalist McKenzie Funk spent six years traveling the world to report "Windfall," his account of how governments and corporations — many of whom heavily contribute to the problem of global warming but balk at mandates to cut greenhouse gas emissions — are confronting climate change with engineering, money and lawyers. ... (to read more, follow the link above)

bluepigeon's review against another edition

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5.0

Thank you GoodReads First Reads for a free copy of Windfall in exchange of my honest review.

I was a bit hesitant about starting Windfall, as I do not need to read a book about "the truth" of global warming or climate change. I was delightedly surprised to find that McKenzie Funk wrote, instead, a book that is truly as advertised: a book about the economics of climate change. As such, Funk reports expertly on the efforts of sovereign states, tiny islands, giant oil companies, think tanks, and various businesses who are/have been aiming to profit from the climate changes that are happening and are continuing to happen.

Funk travels to many places and meets with many influential men (all men, hmm...), who are all possibly small and large players in the next world war to come, whenever it may be. The book connects many dots with thin, invisible, tangible strings that bind the whole of Earth in a very tight and uncomfortable network; from the independence movement of Greenland to the wall of trees being built in Senegal to the wire fence India is building around Bangladesh to the snow machines that were inspired by the Russian gulags, Windfall witnesses the silent decisions that are shaping the future of humans and the Earth now.

Funk took six years to investigate and write this book, and a great job he has done. His writing is precise and crisp, with a good balance between every-day personal experiences and an account of his findings from his travels and interviews as well as his research.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the politics of immigration, poverty, water rights, and international relations. Also recommended for anyone who has children or plans on having children. Expect a page-turner, albeit a rather bleak one (if you are socialist leaning, that is; otherwise a happy read, if you live and earn in the rich, Northern countries of the world.)