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Former California EPA Chief's book outlines the peril of our oil addiction
Published on Oct 10, 2008 - 7:54:49 AM
By: Island Press
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Lives Per Gallon
The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction
by Terry Tamminen
Now In Paperback with New Preface by Author
Washington D.C. (October 2008) - Terry Tamminen believes that when it comes to stopping global warming, "We can all be action heroes." Tamminen should know. He is one of the nation's premier experts on oil, global warming and politics, along with the records and plans of the presidential candidates and political parties. Time Magazine named him an "Environmental Hero" and London's Guardian newspaper named him #1 in its list of "50 People Who Could Save the Planet."
As a trusted advisor to U.S. governors and world leaders, he helped craft historic policies to cut carbon pollution in California and 30 other states. He drives a hydrogen-fueled car that gets energy from the sun and emits only water. Tamminen is the author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, the hard-hitting book exposing how and why oil is killing us and what citizens and companies can do to end our dependence, stop wasting billions of dollars, and save lives.
Available for the first time in paperback with a new preface, Tamminen sets forth in Lives Per Gallon a creative, practical strategy to end our dependence on oil based on successful lawsuits by state governments against tobacco companies.
Oil and automobile companies have conspired for decades to hide the harms to human health that are created by their products. States spend billions each year to deal with petroleum pollution, global warming impacts, and health care costs for oil related illnesses and deaths-money that can be recovered in court from oil and auto companies in the same way that states recovered health care costs related to tobacco. By forcing these corporate giants to pay the true cost of their business practices (and remember that Exxon/Mobil alone posted $40.6 billion in earnings in 2007), the economics change in favor of more sustainable, healthier products.
Not content to simply point out the problem with petroleum, Tamminen presents a blueprint for the solution. He shows how we can evolve beyond oil use to products that are far cleaner and truly sustainable-more fuel-efficient vehicles, biofuels, and hydrogen fuel and vehicles. "Thousands of clean hydrogen powered cars, trucks, and buses are already in operation worldwide," he writes, "proving the technology and spurring development of a growing network of fueling stations."
Many of the chemicals found in petroleum products-and the air pollution caused by their manufacture, storage, distribution, and combustion-are defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as "materials that cause death, disease, or birth defects in organisms that ingest or absorb them." In addition to the staggering health costs, there are the costs of acquiring and securing new reserves. We are at war right now to stabilize the oil rich Middle East but the cost has been huge in terms of lives lost and dollars spent-and the region is slipping into greater chaos.
Lives Per Gallon tracks a single drop of oil from ground to gas tank to show the path of destruction it leaves in its wake-from drilling rigs and belching tankers to refineries and fueling stations. Not a single part of its journey is without peril, and Tamminen makes the case that by following three steps we can be on the on the path to energy independence in less than 20 years: conserve by "squeezing out more of the energy resources we already have," increase fuel efficiency by purchasing the most energy efficient vehicles available, and change to greater use of biofuels and ultimately hydrogen fuel.
"Lives Per Gallon is a battle cry for a new energy paradigm," says Charles Savitt, president and publisher of Island Press, a nonprofit environmental book publisher. "Many people talk about change, but Terry is one of a very few who are making real change happen."
Terry Tamminen served as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and Chief Policy Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger. In 2007 he was named the Cullman Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate Policy Program of the New America Foundation and an Operating Advisor to Pegasus Capital Advisors.
Island Press was established in 1984 to stimulate, shape, and communicate the ideas that are essential for solving environmental problems. Publishing approximately 40 books and other information tools a year, we use a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed approach that brings practical solutions to complex challenges like climate change, the depletion of our oceans, sustainable energy and agriculture, and species extinction. A nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, Island Press publishes for scientists, policy makers, environmental practitioners, students, journalists, and the general public. Island Press - Solutions that inspire change.
Lives Per Gallon by Terry Tamminen
An Island Press Paperback
Publication Date: September 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59726-506-5/ Pages: 264/ Price: $ 18.95
Available at www.islandpress.org
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