Fawcett, Tina

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Fawcett, Tina

PERSONAL:

Education: Imperial College, M.Sc.; University College, London, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Rd., Oxford OX1 3QY, England; UK Energy Research Centre, 58 Princes Gate, Exhibition Rd., London SW7 2PG, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

University of Oxford, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford, England, researcher, 1996—; Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford, England, Personal Carbon Trading and Equity, researcher.

WRITINGS:

DECADE: Domestic Equipment and Carbon Dioxide Emissions: 2MtC, Two Million Tonnes of Carbon, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute (Oxford, England), 1997.

(With Harriet Griffin) Country Pictures: Supporting Material for Lower Carbon Futures, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute (Oxford, England), 2000.

(With Brenda Boardman) Competition for the Poor: Liberalisation of Electricity Supply and Fuel Poverty: Lessons from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute (Oxford, England), 2002.

(With Andrew Hurst and Brenda Boardman) Carbon UK, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute (Oxford, England), 2002.

(With others) Lower Carbon Futures for European Households, University of Oxford Environmental Change Institute (Oxford, England), 2002.

Investigating Carbon Rationing as a Policy for Reducing Carbon Emissions from UK Household Energy Use, University of London Press (London, England), 2005.

(With Sudhir Chella Rajan and Mayer Hillman) The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tina Fawcett is a researcher at the UK Energy Research Centre and the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. She began her research as a doctoral candidate, during which time she investigated how carbon rationing might eventually effect a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, thereby improving the atmosphere and slowing the progress of global warming over the United Kingdom. She approached her research not only from an environmental point of view, but also from social, political, and moral perspectives in an attempt to determine what roadblocks might exist to prevent environmental policies from advancing.

Fawcett previously worked at the Environmental Change Institute, during which time she had participated in many different studies dealing with ways in which altering household usage of carbon and energy might assist with waste management and emissions. She has written and/or cowritten several books on the subject, including Carbon UK, Lower Carbon Futures for European Households, and Investigating Carbon Rationing as a Policy for Reducing Carbon Emissions from UK Household Energy Use. Through all of her efforts, she stresses the need to shift away from what she refers to as ‘the throwaway culture’ in an interview for the Climatex Web site.

The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe, which Fawcett wrote with Sudhir Chella Rajan and Mayer Hillman, paints a grim picture of the state of the planet. While the authors acknowledge that some small measures have been attempted to slow or halt the effects of global warming, they maintain that the situation has grown far too severe to be improved upon by such minor attempts to rectify the situation. Using charts and statistics, The Suicidal Planet illustrates how the ways in which human beings live and use their resources have set the planet on a disastrous course—one which only drastic measures have any hope of improving. There is a strong focus on the use of oil, in particular the automobile culture in the United States, and the authors stress the need to radically reduce each person's rate of carbon emissions. The book then goes on to suggest that carbon limitations be set, with allowances allocated and tracked by federal governments in an effort to stem the destruction of the atmosphere. Colleen Mondor, in a review for Booklist, commented on the effect of the book on the reader, stating: ‘A lot of work went into the crafting of this book's arguments and the gathering of its wealth of information.’ A reviewer for Publishers Weekly called the book ‘a clear-eyed and well-documented overview of global warming, and an optimistic but practical plan for avoiding the worst of the damage,’ praising the writers for their honest and forthright approach to a topic that has frequently been minimized and made to seem less pressing than it is.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 2007, Colleen Mondor, review of The Suicidal Planet: How to Prevent Global Climate Catastrophe, p. 9.

British Medical Journal, June 10, 2006, ‘How We Can Save the Planet,’ p. 1398.

Publishers Weekly, February 5, 2007, review of The Suicidal Planet, p. 49; February 26, 2007, ‘PW Talks with Mayer Hillman and Sudhir Challa Rajan: The Climate Challenge,’ p. 70.