We are funded! The minimum we needed, 5,000 euros, has been funded with additions outside this campaign! Now its a question of how many books we get to Paris!

Note: For Finnish-speakers, you can also get the book in Finnish:
Suomea paremmin lukevat voivat pyytää kirjan suomenkielisen version (paperiversioita rajattu määrä, sähköisiä rajaton). Lähetä osallistuttuasi sähköpostia: climategamble@gmail.com ja kerro toiveesi.

What is this Climate Gamble about?

We are two independent authors and researchers on energy and climate change from Finland. We have been following and participating in the debate on mitigating climate change for years. What we have found out has been alarming. The utter failure of humankind to respond to the growing emergency of decarbonizing our energy systems has been striking. And it does not end there. Many people still seem to think that we should not use all of the tools available to mitigate climate change. This simply does not make any sense.

So we wrote a book about it. It’s called “Climate Gamble – Is Anti-Nuclear Activism Endangering Our Future?”

In the book, we go through the climate realities and present all the main arguments against and for nuclear, in a hundred pages or so. We do it in an easy to read manner, applying logic, latest research and evidence based data. The book has already been published in Finnish (March 2015), and it also became available in English, from Amazon worldwide (August 2015).

Then we had a great idea. At least we think it’s great. Why not have a non-profit campaign to supply as many books as possible to the climate negotiations held in Paris this December? The sad thing is, many of the negotiators get their information on climate change mitigation and nuclear power mainly from the prevailing environmental organizations. Many of the negotiators even have a background there. This information is – as we found out when we did background research for our book – horribly biased, based largely on fallacious argumentation and cherry-picked, even falsified, evidence. It’s no wonder that the negotiations have all but ignored what is – based on real world evidence – one of our most effective ways to decarbonize energy production: nuclear power.

We will try to get hundreds, and with your active help and contribution, thousands of books printed and delivered to Paris. We will go there and distribute them to the thousands of negotiators and tens of thousands of other participants. Some of them will read it, others will have a glance at it, and some may just check out the key takeaways of each chapter which we will be inserting to this edition. The book will give them an evidence-based view on how we can overcome what is probably our biggest challenge so far. We are in it – for our own part – to save the world. And we need your help.

Help us to help the climate!

Our goal is to give at least 500 and preferably 10,000 books to the delegates and negotiators at the COP21 climate summit. For this we need to raise 5,000 to 50,000 euros. Most of that will go to printing the books. Smaller portion will go to expenses in getting us to Paris to distribute the books (the amount of people going is dependent on the amount we raise). We will also plan to use 5 – 10 percent of the budget to market the campaign, both to raise more money as to raise more interest to the climate negotiations in Paris in general and nuclear energy as an evidence-based mitigation tool in particular.

We do have families to feed, and planning and running the campaign – let alone writing and self-publishing the book – has not been without expenses and lost income. If the campaign goes well, us, the authors, earn for our troubles a commission that is at most 50 cents per book per author (1 euro in total). This is the maximum, and we will be the last ones to get paid.

With this included, and depending on the final level of funding we get, the total price, including taxes and such, per book delivered to Paris is estimated to be between 5 and 10 euros. The more funding we get, the lower the price will be per book: fixed costs will be about the same, irrespective of the size of the print run.

We are based in Finland, and the law on accepting donations here is a bit tricky. In practice, we have to sell something in order to accept money. That’s why we are offering you, our dear prospective funder, something concrete for your money. You can get anything from a pdf version of the book, to a paperback signed by the authors to having your name on our website or even the book itself as a key supporter. If you have or work in an organization (or if you have a bit more money) you can also get a full box of the books to do as you like with. It’s a great Christmas present for family, friends and the businesses that your organization works with! Imagine: “This present is a part of a campaign that is trying to save the world.”

As the top-level perk, you get one (or even both) of us to give a presentation on the subject in a forum and location of your choosing. Of course there will be traveling expenses added, but otherwise than that, this will be something we are prepared to do on our own time to support the campaign, without pay. Both of us are experienced and entertaining presenters who are not afraid to say things like they are.

If Paypal is not a good way for you or your organization to pay, please contact us directly at climategamble@gmail.com. Other ways to fund the campaign are also possible, and we will try to get funding everywhere we can. It will all be added up when the campaign ends.

We have divided the goals between 5,000 and 50,000 euros, and 500 and 10,000 books, respectively (these are rough estimates). We are confident that we will reach the lowest level, and anything above that, whether it meets the next level or not, will be used for getting more books to Paris and raising awareness on the message. If we don’t get to the lowest level, we will try to find ways to get at least some books to Paris with the money we have raised.

What we plan to achieve

We already have some great people on board and supporting the campaign in their own various ways. These include:

-  Energy for Humanity, an environmental NGO

-  Ecomodernist Society of Finland, an environmental NGO

-  Tom Blees, the author of the excellent book Prescription for the Planet (link to free pdf) and the President of the Science Council for Global Initiatives.

If you'd like to support us and see your organization or name listed here, please contact us at climategamble@gmail.com.

With help from you andother supporters, we believe that we can spread information on this campaign and the message of the book far and wide. Like our good friend, now the executive director of the Finnish chapter of World Energy Council, said: “I think that amongst all the different campaigns and initiatives going to Paris this December, this is one of those that might actually have some impact”.

The facts are clear: without nuclear power we simply do not have a fighting chance at stopping climate change in time. This is the message coming from basically every major institution, including IPCC, IEA and others. Stopping climate change will be extremely hard even with nuclear power. Yet there are people who openly oppose nuclear power and campaign that its use as a decarbonization tool should not be allowed. They are even campaigning in Paris. To support their cases, they have flashy and catchy slogans, and use rhetorical tricks that would make any climate denial veteran proud. Some of the arguments seem legit, and some are even true, at least from a very narrow point of view in a world where no comparisons or cost/benefit analysis need to be made.

The thing is, there is nothing new. Every argument used has been discussed in Climate Gamble and in various other works. Yet they pop up again and again, going in endless circles not unlike the "discussion" about climate change and humanity's role in it does, just to "keep the debate alive" and the public unsure about the science and evidence. 

There is no rational base to claim that mitigating climate change – which is, and should be, the ultimate goal – will be easier, faster and cheaper if we limit our tools and options arbitrarily. Logic and numerous scientific studies support the inclusion of nuclear power. Many of those studies are referred in our book. We, as environmentalists, have accepted the scientific consensus on climate change. Now we have to accept the scientific consensus that nuclear needs to be a part of the solution.

We have run some similar, if an order of magnitude smaller, campaigns. We crowdfunded 300 free books (the Finnish version of Climate Gamble) to be distributed in a big Energy Debate last spring, which was held as a part of our parliamentary elections. The debate was organized by the big environmental organizations in Finland. Incidentally, they were not that happy to see us there. They did not permit us to distribute the books inside the event, and even moved us and the books farther from the entrance to the building. 

When the 200 members of the parliament were elected, we crowdfunded another campaign that got a copy of our book delivered to each of them. In June, we managed to get funding to get 250 copies of our book, along with us authors, to Paris as part of ENYGF 2015 (European Nuclear Young Generation Forum). There, we distributed the books to the participants and gave a presentation, telling the participants of this upcoming campaign we have now launched. We have also managed to get funding for smaller patches of the book to be delivered to various audiences from young political activists to employees and managers in the energy industries.

And now, we aim for COP21 in Paris.

This campaign will come to an end near the end of November. That gives us a good month to print the necessary amount of books and send them to Paris.

What are the biggest risks & challenges?

Obviously, if the campaign falls flat then it falls flat. As a result, ignorance about the importance of nuclear power might become even more widespread, as anti-nuclear activists with their signs and chants will definitely be in Paris. We are not saying that this project will save the world. It is just a small piece in a big puzzle. However, we are confident that we can have at least some impact. And we need to try. If enough people and enough good pieces get put together, things start changing.

How we will get and store the books in Paris, to be distributed? We know some people there, and we will map out their willingness to take the boxes as they arrive. Some have already agreed. We will also go there ourselves, with hopefully a few assistants in tow, to distribute them. We also know people from other like-minded campaigns and organizations, one being Nuclear for Climate and another being Energy for Humanity, that we will likely co-operate with.

Getting excited? Here are some other ways to help

If you don’t have the means to participate directly, but want to help us – or if you want to help us in addition to getting one of the perks available – here are some things you can do. These are important stuff.

1.  Spread the word

Obviously, our campaign can succeed only if people know about it. Every tweet with a quote and a link, Facebook posting or recommendation at the coffee table helps. Any one of them could be the step that helps this campaign to break through to a wider audience still. Indiegogo has some wonderful sharing tools as well. Use them.

2.  Write a review of the book / campaign

Do you have a blog? Do you have an Amazon account? Have you written something to a local paper? Are you an actual journalist with thousands, or millions, of readers? We would certainly appreciate any reviews, be they for a personal blog, Amazon’s page of our book, or a paper. If you want to have a free review-copy, let us know at climategamble@gmail.com and we will send you one to your email.

3.  Become a supporter

If you are a local or a global person of interest (a journalist, a climate/energy researcher, a celebrity, a famous activist or a mover/shaker in the energy or climate mitigation business), we would love to add your name to the list of people who are supporting this campaign.

4.  Give us good ideas

If you get a great idea that we could do, please, please let us know. We spend most of our time “inside the Box”, and we realise that. Any ideas that come “outside the Box” are greatly appreciated. Let us know at climategamble@gmail.com.

5.  Help us realise those ideas

Even better than giving us an idea, which we may or may not have the time to put in to action, is to offer to help us see it done. Become a part of the team and earn a big, heartfelt thank you.

And now you have earned a big thank you for reading all the way down here: Thanks for reading, now let’s get to action!