CAN WE GET OFF FOSSIL FUELS AND LIVE ON RENEWABLES ALONE? DAVID MACKAY'S VIEWS ON ENERGY

It is undoubtedly true that there is a great deal of hype and misinformation surrounding renewable energy. Sir David J C MacKay, FRS, FInstP, FICE (1967-2016) sought to clear this situation in his much acclaimed book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (2009).

This book, described by Bill Gates as "one of the best books on energy that has been written" is a free book and can be downloaded here. For those who don't have time to read, a one-hour video version of the book can be accessed on YouTube here.

LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE - PROFESSOR VACLAV SMIL'S OUTLOOK ON ENERGY EVOLUTION

Dr Vaclav Smil, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba, Canada and author of thirty interdisciplinary books and 500 papers is one of the big picture people and foremost thinkers on energy and environment. Bill Gates, in his blog GatesNotes, called Smil his favourite writer and this has led to his popularity among science aficionados.

Here I review a couple of books from his sprawling oeuvre: Energy Transition: History, Requirements, Prospects (2010) and Energy and Civilization: A History (2017).

HEALING DISEASES WITHOUT DRUGS OR SURGERY - A LOOK AT DEAN ORNISH'S BOOKS

Dean Ornish, M. D., is the founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. He received his medical training at Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical College and Massachusetts General Hospital. He has published his work in eminent scientific and medical journals such as Journal of the American Medical Association, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Lancet, etc.

THE CAUSES OF INEQUALITY - REVIEW OF ACEMOGLU AND ROBINSON'S "WHY NATIONS FAIL"

Renowned economists, Daron Acemoglu (of MIT) and James A Robinson (now of University of Chicago) have written a sweeping account of world history for the general audience - Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (2012). Their main objective is to answer the questions: Why is there inequality in the world? Why are some countries rich and some poor?

GETTING RICH THE SLOW AND SURE WAY – REVIEW OF MONIKA HALAN’S “LET’S TALK MONEY”

It was only in my late thirties that I got interested in my finances. Prior to that, especially in my PhD years, I was pretty lackadaisical about how much I was saving. One of my professors used to say: “Some people know how money works; some people know how ideas work.” That, pretty much, summed up my own opinions on money.

When I was thirty seven, I chanced upon the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad (1997) by Robert Kiyosaki. It proved to be a wake-up call for me. For one, it showed that money itself is just an idea and if we make up our mind we could do well in the money game as well.

TALE OF A SCIENTIFIC CONVERT - REVIEW OF MARK LYNAS'S "SEEDS OF SCIENCE"

This is the age of big questions: Will AI dominate the world? Will we find a suitable alternative to fossil fuels? Will Big Data make us lose our privacy? And will Genetic Engineering (GE) and Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) give rise to Frankenstein-like chimeras?

These questions do not have simple answers. They require a modicum of scientific learning even to appreciate all the implications. A person who has been fully educated in the arts and humanities may find himself or herself flip-flopping on the issues.

THE VISION OF GLOBAL WARMING THROUGH THE EYES OF LOMBORG – A LOOK AT BJORN LOMBORG’S BOOKS

A decade ago I read the book Earth in the Balance (1992) written by former US Vice President Al Gore. It talks about how “industrial civilization as presently organized, is colliding violently with our planet’s ecological system”

It details the gradual destruction of the world’s rainforests, of the ozone layer, of fertile agricultural land, of the climate balance and warns that things could only go worse. It left a significant imprint on my mind. What kind of world are we leaving our children, I thought to myself. This dismal mood continued until recently when I chanced upon Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (2001).