Tom Rand - Waking the Frog: Solutions for Our Climate Change Paralysis

WAKING the FROG

Solutions for Our Climate Change Paralysis

TOM RAND

ECW Press

Praise for Waking the Frog

Great bookvery readable. Scary, but helpful and hopeful. It says all thats needed to be said. And so thoughtfully.

George Butterfield, businessman and philanthropist

In Waking the Frog Tom Rand shows us clearly that climate leadership is not an issue of right or left but of right or wrong. Tom is a refreshing exceptiona business leader who speaks with clarity and passion about the looming climate crisis.

Tzeporah Berman, environmental activist and author

A brilliant analysis of why we are stuck in our collective response to climate changeand, more importantly, convincing recommendations for solutions and a path forward.

David Miller, politician and CEO, WWF Canada

This is the perfect read for people who are sick of the polarized sound bites that currently dominate the climate debate. Its relatable and non-threatening but also blunt and to the point. Toms clearly an authority working within the system but inspires people to mobilize and make change. A great read.

Kali Taylor, executive director, Student Energy

A polymath at his best, Tom Rand gets it. Climate change isnt just about scienceits culture, psychology, economics, the works. Waking the Frog is highly readable stuff. Even funny at times!

David Buckland, artist and founder, Cape Farewell

In Waking the Frog Tom Rand manages to do something that no other book I know of on climate disruption has done. He takes a multi-disciplinary approachblending economics, politics, psychology, statistics, and business analysesto thoroughly dissect why inaction on this massive problem is so pervasive and what urgently needs to be done going forward.

Ed Whittingham, executive director, Pembina

In this lucid, timely, and highly readable exploration of the climate crisis, Tom Rand details the predicament the world finds itself in and the insidious mind traps that make it so hard for us to work our way out of it.

William Seager, professor, department of philosophy, University of Toronto

One of the best things about the very good Waking the Frog is Tom Rands relentless, fact-based optimism. Its impossible to read this thing and not come away thinking Gee, maybe this climate change puzzle is solvable after all! Highly recommended.

Rick Smith, co-author, Slow Death by Rubber Duck, and executive director, Broadbent Institute

Tom Rand explains why were stuck, and why we need to get moving and take up the challenge of climate change as soon as possible, and most importantly how and why we should engage the power of private sector capitalism to transform promising ideas into real solutions.

Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, regents professor and Texas state climatologist

[Waking the Frog] is an important piece of work from one of Canadas great entrepreneurs and change agents.

Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District

Intriguing and very readableit zips along nicely and shows some impressive scholarship. Well done!

Dominic Geraghty, executive-in-residence, EnerTech Capital Partners, ex-director of R&D, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Waking the Frog is an engaging, informative, and interesting wake-up call for a world that is sleepwalking towards disaster. Its also a surprisingly readable book, without undermining the seriousness of the topic.

Andrew Heintzman, author and financier

Take Tom Rands deep knowledge and erudition on climate change and mix in Toms inimitable style and youre left with a read that is energizing, highly informative, and entertaining all at once.

Alex Wood, senior director of policy and markets, Sustainable Prosperity

Tom Rands clarion call to us, his fellow frogs, could not be clearer: Lets stop sitting here simmering and do something about it! As an experienced entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he shows how practical, achievable measures can turn the climate threat into a promise.

Walt Patterson, associate fellow, Chatham House, UK

This book is dedicated to everyone who stays hopeful while working to move the needle on carbon. You inspire me.

PREFACE

There are no passengers on spaceship Earth, only crew.

Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher

The arrow is in flight. As I write these words in late 2013, the Philippines is trying to recover from Typhoon Haiyan and the U.S. remains gripped in the worst drought in living memory. Sure, well bounce back. Maybe next year will be great. But we sense whats happening. Changes are afoot. Theyre not good, and theyve only just begun. This years droughts, fires, and storms are but an appetizer for what the climate has in store. We cant stop it, but we might just be able to slow it down.

Progressives tend to see climate change as a real threat and conservatives do not. This book is for both. I hope the fact that I am a capitalist who operates within the system Im critiquing makes those criticisms harder to dismiss. Im not an outsider looking in but an insider looking ahead.

Since selling a global software company in 2005, Ive dedicated my capital and time to moving the needle on carbon. When I built Planet Traveler, the lowest-carbon hotel in North America in 2010, I did it partly to show the business community what can be done with our buildings today and at a profit. I invest in emerging clean-energy technologies not just because I believe the market economy delivers rewards commensurate to the problems you solve, but because I passionately believe its the most important work I can do. I decided to speak and write publicly on the carbon issue because, for reasons I didnt fully understand at the time, I wasnt seeing many of my peers in the business community speaking openly about whats at stake with our changing climate. The late, great Ray Anderson American carpet magnate turned eco-evangelist was a wonderful exception. There are others, like Bullfrog Powers Greg Kiessling, but most business leaders have yet to step up to the plate.

Captains of industry, pundits, and other civic leaders dont need to know the science (although it doesnt hurt). You need only make the reasonable judgment that NASA , the collection of National Academies of Science, and the International Energy Agency are more credible than Fox News or groups funded by billionaire industrialists, such as the Koch brothers. Our most august institutions are ringing the alarm as loudly as they can.

I write a lot about the United States in this book. Without the moral, financial, political, economic, and intellectual leadership of the U.S., the rest of us cannot possibly address climate change. With the U.S. absent, its like rowing with half the oars out of the water and no coxswain to call the timing. America, we need you.

My own country, Canada, is equally absent from the scene. Were small but have a proud history of acting on the important issues of our times: the Second World War, peacekeeping missions, the ozone layer, the basis of the Right to Intervene weve consistently punched above our weight. Our reputation as a nice (but tough) country was deserved. Those days are long gone. As a moral light Canada has faded.

Were a scourge on the planet. We silence our scientists and kneecap our finest environmental groups (including the National Roundtable on the Economy and Environment hardly tree-huggers). We provide comfort to countries that prefer to dither by refusing to act ourselves. We were the first to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N.s international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Current federal leadership argues that Canadas tiny two percent of global emissions makes no difference. We could use that same argument to talk ourselves out of voting. This is a churlish position, devoid of moral leadership or vision. It is also economically short-sighted. If Canada captured two percent of the global clean energy market, by 2020 our cleantech industry would be larger than our aerospace or automotive sectors. We live in a market economy. Those who solve big problems earn big rewards, and climate change has become the mother of all problems.