This is a book that speaks to the heart of the issue of climate change and offers the unvarnished truth underpinning our glacially slow progress in tackling this existential threat.

If you seek to understand the warped logic that underpins the last forty year's lack of timely action on climate change then I urge you to absorb the content of this excellent and very readable book.

The author, who knows more than a thing or two about his subject here, concisely summarises the backstory to the climate change 'debate' since the mid 80s - examining it through the lenses of public and scientific opinion as well as the perspective of self-serving big businesses with vested interests. The inherent inertia of politicians the world over is also laid bare, together with the factors that policymakers have to struggle with in constructing any sort of national or super-national unifying coherent trajectory that can address this urgent issue.

As well as dealing with the science, the book exposes the public's lack of attention to, and appetite for, grappling with what, until recently, seems to them to have been a vague future threat that was weakly articulated. The author conjectures that this general malaise could well persist until we are burned, drowned or displaced in sufficient numbers that notice has to be taken. By this time, of course, it will likely be too late.

Fire & Flood also describes the historical mischief-making by those with vested interests in maintaining the commercial business-as-usual, and describes the national political processes that are slow, never proactive, and too nationalistic to benefit from any truly coordinated, global strategic thinking.

For me, most strikingly, the author's view of the reasons why the insurance/reinsurance sector has not brought about a faster shift in pricing up realistic risk assessments - be those flood, fire or threat of stranded assets – has made things much clearer. I thought the likes of Swiss Re and Munich Re would have ridden to our rescue in the 2000s – they didn’t.

The book also explains how our unsustainable capitalist models both encourage the gaming of risk and reward hedging. All this provides, in part, a clear insight into how we have ended up facing the dangerous peril that confronts us.

This excellent book will leave you angered, disappointed and frustrated in equal measure.

In the last chapter there’s the obligatory note of optimism; continuing improvements in technology, a genuine spread in social democracy and tariffs are advocated as our possible saviours, and who could disagree? That, I would add, along with a healthy dose of public enlightenment, critical thinking and smelling of the coffee.

This book provides the reader with a significant spur to confront the issue that will, inevitably, have to be squared up to very much sooner rather than later.

Many thanks to NetGalley and to the book’s author & publishers for access to this e-ARC in exchange for my review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Linden is an excellent populizer and this book is compelling and informative, a story of climate and people.
I appreciated it and it's recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine