Climate Change for Football Fans: A Matter of Life and Death

James Atkins is Chairman of Vertis Environmental Finance, an emissions trading company in Hungary which he established in 1998. He studied modern languages at Cambridge and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen. Originally from Cumbria, he has lived in Budapest since 1995. He supports Manchester United, and is married with two children. He writes: "I have been feeding off climate policy for over 10 years, having set up an emissions trading company, Vertis Environmental Finance, Hungary. We trade carbon credits in an artificial market created by the European Commission which aims to encourage industrial companies to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. During this time I have thought a lot about environmental problems and climate change and what governments and individuals can do about them. I have also written about this in articles and in my blog The Bustard http://www.thebustard.com "In 2009 a friend suggested that I compile the blog entries into a book in order to expand the readership. Not wanting to repeat what had already been written I started reading around the topic. But I found I kept nodding off or flicking idly to the BBC sport website. Books on climate change are the literary equivalent of a nil-nil draw in a lower division on a wet day. Unlikely to attract much of a crowd. Few books on climate change are readable or enjoyable, despite it being an extremely important topic. So I scrapped what I had written and started trying to find a way of making the book more entertaining. Partly through putting dialogue and humour in it, and partly through introducing the parallel of a more interesting subject."