There’s no such thing as a free launch

MeltingNew Zealand melted before our very eyes at Wednesday night’s launch of Hot Topic, but serious flooding of the Minter Ellison boardroom was avoided, thanks to carefully planned adaptive strategies (and two large blue buckets). Scott Gallacher from Minter Ellison got things moving, followed by AUT vice chancellor Derek McCormack, who welcomed the arrival of AUT Media’s first book. I did my mini-Al Gore presentation – just the one slide, showing water plunging down a moulin in Greenland – and then David Cunliffe, who holds ministerial portfolios for Immigration, Communications, Information Technology and Associate Economic Development (standing in at short notice for David Parker, the climate change minister), made it clear to all that the government intended to take the issue very seriously. Then it was down to the real business of assessing the carbon neutral status of Grove Mill‘s products. A good night was had by all, including at least one freeloader, who has subsequently offered the contents of his/her “goody bag

9 thoughts on “There’s no such thing as a free launch”

  2. You’ve spotted the drawback. All that launch publicity, and no books in the shops. On Wednesday, after Campbell Live, loads of bookshops were ringing up… so I changed the blurb under the book cover on the right: out on Aug 10th. Ask PaperPlus to keep a copy aside for you – and they can increase their order with the distributors any time they like!

    Plus: we should have a pdf/e-book edition before too long, and I’ll be selling signed copies off my Limestone Hills web site.

  5. Just FYI, checked at Borders today, and they said it was received but still in the packaging so prob not on shelves until next week sometime.

  8. Well, I’ve read your book Gareth, and have some bouquets and brickbats.
    You’ve obviously spent a lot of time studying the stats and talking to the experts. Hot Topic is very compehensive in addressing the science of GW and covers things well from the New Zealand perspective, I didn’t spot any factual flaws and found your position and arguments sound and appropriately cautious.
    I’m disappointed that you decided not to kick the denialists and their claims about a bit more and address some of the more outrageous alarmist claims in detail, the politics is what sells, it’s the only reason that AGW is a hot topic as far as the general public is concerned, and amongst many, many people, especially in the rural communities, AGW is still not settled.
    Giving identities to the more important players involved in the science and in the politics of AGW here and overseas could also have improved Hot Topic’s readability for those interested in the subject, another 100 pages would have done it.
    I’ll buy my older sister a copy, she’s a PhD chemist living near Lincoln and is interested in environmental stuff, but not one for my dad who, though an ex pharmacist, would just not get into the scientific information dense nature of the book.
    Cheers

  9. My first review – and appropriately even-handed…

    My very first idea was to tell the story through the people involved in NZ (a bit like Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes From A Catastrophe) but that just wasn’t possible with the deadline we set – or the economic realities of publishing in NZ. Next time, perhaps…

    I took a very conscious decision to relegate the sceptics to an appendix. As I say in the intro to that section, they’re now a distraction and an irrelevance. And I think rural views are changing – they are round my way, at least.

    Thanks for the kind comments, Andrew. Much appreciated.

Leave a Reply