An very informative book about green investing in an age of climate change. The full title is Investing in the Era of Climate Change and the author is Bruce Usher.

Climate change is happening now and getting worse as we pump more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. There is flooding, a rise in sea levels, and more severe weather. It is obvious that this will affect values of investments going forward but how should we handle this?

I had hoped this book would a guide into this relatively new reality and I was mostly pleased with this book.
There were many problems with the Kindle version in the review copy I received.

It was missing most or perhaps all numbers and many figures were unreadable. These problems did not seem to occur in in the Netgalley app but that lacks many features of the Kindle.

I requested this book to review from NetGalley, given my undernourished financial education and my desire to save the world. Overall, I think it is best suited to people from the US, who like Elon Musk and Apple, and perhaps aren't too into women's opinions. But let's dig deeper.

Firstly, I have to say that there were some issues in the review copy I received. Namely, it was missing every number from the book, as well as the letter 'f', letters following 'f', and all instances of 'th''. Given the book presented a lot of data, this meant I will not have had full impact of the figures presented. Think, "e scale and speed of the e orts demanded" or "In the years to , US real GDP grew percent and emissions declined percent". But I'm going to assume this was a NetGalley issue, not a book issue!

I did like the opening chapters of this book, where there was discussion of different climate technologies, as well as some basics of investing. When it got into the nitty-grittier chapters though, talking about specific strategies, it felt like the author was bored of writing--and it was a real grind to try and get through. It seemed like reading a list that didn't actually grab you at all. Very dull, and not especially applicable.

In my opening lines I do suggest who this audience is for, and the book is definitely written for a US audience, with US investing strategies discussed quite a bit. There is also a clear LOVE for Elon Musk, with Tesla spoken about at great length, and the now-defunct Solar City mentioned. A certain amount of Apple fan-boying is also present. One thing that really struck me though, was the lack of women pictured, cited, or otherwise referenced. I believe I counted three over the course of the book, as opposed to a virtual tide of men. This is particularly surprising, given the author thanks his predominantly-female-named research assistants for helping with the book; and frankly, it's an embarrassment to be so focused on works written by men in 2022. This is even more egregious in light of the fabulous women economists working on new ways to format or conceptualise the economy (e.g. Mazzucato, Raworth). Even experts in the environmental field are missing--noticeably, in the discussion about climate pessimists etc, Christiana Figueres. I get that economics and finance more broadly has typically been dominated by men--my PhD is in polisci, where the same issue occurs. But it's really not that hard to expand your horizons and incorporate relevant literature and authors.

The biases in this book made me think less of its contents, whether in terms of the gender dynamic or Musk fanboying, but I do still feel that I learned or consolidated some knowledge, exclusively about climate technologies, if not investment.

2.5 stars.

This is a decent overview of various technologies and strategies related to investing in climate change. But it simply touches on each area, provides very little guidance. While interesting in some spots, it's not particularly helpful. So I guess I'd categorize it as a primer.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

This is an incredibly detailed and fascinating book about the technologies that are impacting climate change and different methods of investing depending on your goals. There is A LOT of information, so the average investor might skip a few of the more detailed sections. I found the information about EVs very interesting and I learned a lot I didn't know before. I also feel like this has enabled me to be a more responsible investor even though I am just one person, and I can feel better about what I'm doing with my money. I'm a fairly novice investor mainly focusing on index mutual funds, but even so I didn't feel like this was over my head. All of the information is clearly laid out and it's easy to skip to the chapters that are most relevant to you.

Thank you to Columbia University Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to access this free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.