If you’re a football enthusiast and want to know the facts about climate change, then Climate Change for Football Fans: A Matter of Life and Death, by James Atkins, is the book for you. It's written as a series of conversations between Joe, a football-mad Burnley FC fan, and Professor Igor who is obsessed with climate change. Read on to find out more.
Joe thinks worrying about climate change is a waste of time, and Igor can't understand why 22 grown men would put on shorts and run around after a ball. Igor and Joe spend a season together going to every Burnley game and, in return, Joe and his family listen to the Professor rattle on about climate policy. The publisher’s blurb about the book says it's funny, written in the earthy and irreverent language of the football fan and that it works as a story, with good cartoon illustrations.
Climate change is a hot topic and probably the most important topic of this decade, but getting people interested in it, and explaining it to them in a way which will make them aware enough to take action is the hard part. This book aims to make it interesting; as the author says: “This book is about climate change policy, one of the most boring topics in the world. So it also includes stuff about football, which is one of the most interesting subjects in the world. But the serious sub-text about climate change also works – education by stealth.” The book explains why cutting emissions is about people, not about machines.
At the back of the book there is a notes section, summarising all the serious climate-change material. This allows the reader to look up the important messages in the book. The publishers suggested the book has broad appeal to girlfriends who want to improve their football-mad boyfriends awareness of climate change, teachers who wish to motivate reluctant students with the football tag, people who just enjoy an unusual read, and of course those interested in the economics and science of climate change.
It certainly is not your typical climate change policy book and, in that sense, it is unique. I think this book offers an innovative way to get the global warming-climate change message to people in a way that will appeal to them. If it works, maybe the technique of linking the climate change message with the interests of particular segments of society should be used more often by book authors to entice all segments of society to do their bit to halt global warming.
I did a search of the Environmental Impact subset of the CABI database and found over 27,000 records on climate change, including 79 books and over 1600 reports.
Link to Climate Change for Football Fans: A Matter of Life and Death website