This is a beautiful book.  The illustrations, mostly glorious but sometimes disturbing, are indeed each worth a thousand words.  'Until . . . the rise of humankind, the diversity of life on Planet Earth was at its greatest in its entire history' (page 150).  God is not mentioned by name, but for those who believe in a loving Creator, His presence, His tears, His demand for justice for the poor and for the environment shine through.  Indeed, 'Unless steps are taken to protect ecosystems . . . [there is] little prospect of ending poverty' (page 208).  This is a book to refresh the spirit before preaching a sermon or hearing a talk on our duty of care to this wonderful world!  If you need convincing that honest science and pure religion can, and must, work in harmony, then read Saving Planet Earth with the eye of hope and faith.

 

The 'can-do' attitude of the latter part of the book more than compensates for any sense of depression induced by accounts of the sixth major extinction, threatened habitats and human greed and stupidity (the land to provide one tank-full of biofuel would feed a person for a year (page 219)).  Juniper does not disguise the fact that humankind faces a huge and immediate challenge from degradation of the environment and global warming.  But we can take heart from the way governments have united and acted resolutely when their people understood the urgency.  America put a man on the Moon, lead was banned from petrol, ozone-destroying gases were restricted and [although it took time to get the USA on board] the Allies defeated Hitler.

 

The section on the origin and dangers of global warming is the most lucid and straightforward that the reviewer has seen.  It would be worth reading the book just for this (there is a good index, although references are not given).  Clearly Juniper's intention is not to frighten or cajole us into taking grudging action but to inspire us to act out of love for our breath-taking home while there is opportunity.  St. Paul understood: '[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.'  Not that Juniper advocates an ascetic approach: 'We have the means to live in paradise . . . now we just need to do it.'  For example: (hypothetically) to buy up the whole Amazon Basin rainforest for posterity would only cost the world's military expenditure for three weeks (page 86).  There is the usual (if ignored) list of individual actions - followed by a call to campaign for general carbon reduction legislation.

Apart from the possibly naive assumption that people will act if the necessity is pointed out to them, and a skating-round some contentious issues (such as how many people could have been saved from malaria by judicious use of DDT), there are only two quibbles.  Pages 48 and 49 are reversed (a 'deliberate mistake' to check that reviewers really do read the book?).  Then, although one hesitates to cross-swords with a doyen of Friends of the Earth, the proposal that developed countries reduce their CO₂ emissions by 80% by 2050 (page 160) would, according to the latest science, only give about a 50:50 chance of keeping within a 2^oC temperature rise (e.g. see page 17 of the summary UN Development Report 2007/8).  We need 90% cuts by 2030, i.e. 10% year-on-year reductions.  However you look at it, there's no time to waste.

Charles Jolly