Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming
Written by Mckenzie Funk
Narrated by Sean Runnette
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Editor's Note
Cashing in on climate change…
Meet entrepreneurs around the world who are cashing in on climate change. As upsetting as that sounds, their stories are engaging and illuminate the dangerous effects of global warming. It’s like “The Big Short” of global warming books.
Mckenzie Funk
McKenzie Funk is a journalist who writes for Harper's, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, The London Review of Books, Outside, Bloomberg Businessweek, and the New York Times Magazine. His first book, Windfall, won a PEN Literary Award and was shortlisted for an Orion Award and Rachel Carson Book Award. A National Magazine Award finalist and winner of the Oakes Prize for Environmental Journalism, Funk was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he studied economics and systems thinking. He lives near Seattle with his wife and two sons.
Related to Windfall
Related audiobooks
The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America's Coasts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Second Edition with a New Preface Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Electrify: An Optimists Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moving To Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Losing Earth: A Recent History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whose Water is it, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coal: A Human History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Knew: The US Federal Government's Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Catastrophes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Economics For You
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed or Fail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freakonomics Rev Ed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Economics 101: How the World Works Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Marvel Comics: The Untold Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Economics 101: From Consumer Behavior to Competitive Markets—Everything You Need to Know About Economics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nudge: The Final Edition: Improving Decisions About Money, Health, And The Environment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chip War: The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Genius of Israel: The Surprising Resilience of a Divided Nation in a Turbulent World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why the Rich Are Getting Richer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the United States in Five Crashes: Stock Market Meltdowns That Defined a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lords of Easy Money: How the Federal Reserve Broke the American Economy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Windfall
17 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming, journalist McKenzie Funk travels the world to personally visit the companies and people who are making a business from global warming, directly or indirectly. He avoids the obvious green energy windmills and solar panels and looks at others less obvious but no less important. For example Greenlanders who are discovering mineral deposits underneath melted glaciers; artificial snow makers (see the 2014 Olympics); genetically modified mosquitoes to ward off diseases spreading northward; sea-wall makers; deserts tree planting projects; and so on. In the end he lays out his vision of what will probably happen: the northern countries will have no choice but to implement Geo-engineering which will help the north but devastate the poorer countries since GE has regional differences and isn't a uniform solution. This is an extension of what has been happening for 200+ years as richer countries pour CO2 into the atmosphere for their own benefit and the loss of others, so it is a reasonable prediction, the patterns have long been in place, tragedy of the commons predates civilization.I believe this book would be an excellent rejoinder to climate denialists. How do you deny the existence of real businesses operated by free market libertarians who have embraced the "opportunity" of global warming? It's impossible to be both a global warming denialist and a supporter of private businesses profiting from global warming. Is it ethical to profit from disaster? It doesn't matter because people have, and are, and will.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thank 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.)