This book is the spin-off from the phenomenally successful Freakonimocs by the same authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

On tackling Global warming: SuperFreakonomics contains a controversial idea from a firm owned by the controversial Nathan Myrhvold of Intelletual ventures. The most controversial of the company's solutions is a “stratoshield”, which involves the controlled injection of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to cool ground temperatures, which mimics the natural cooling effects of a big volcanic eruption like Mount Pinatubo. This sort of “geoengineering” solution is intensely disliked within environmental circles, and the book discusses the reasons why.

Other topics discussed in Superfreakonomics:

- How pimps are like Realtors.
...prostitutes and their clients are rational beings and the whole business operates according to the laws of supply and demand. But why should anyone be surprised by this? We are told that the price prostitutes in Chicago can charge for oral sex has plummeted over the past 100 years. The explanation is that as oral sex has become more available and acceptable in the wider culture, so prostitutes have been unable to charge a premium for performing a service people can get elsewhere (Levitt and Dubner call this the demise of the "taboo tax"). T

- Why suicide bombers should buy life insurance.
- How Iran uses incentives, and not altruism, to get kidney donors.
- Children who watch a lot of TV are more likely to engage in crime when they get older.
- The profit motive encourages doctors to administer chemotherapy, even though it's not effective in saving more lives.
- The Endangered Species Act has perverse incentives for landowners, causing them to clear habitat.
- Buying locally produced food increases greenhouse-gas emissions.
- You're more likely to solve global warming by throwing sulfur dioxide into the air than through any incentives Al Gore has in mind for getting people to use less energy.
- Monkeys can learn the value of money, but don't let them go too far or they'll be having sex every minute.
- Walking drunk is much more deadly than driving drunk.

[From the Great Books Series. Also see The Success Manual  - Encyclopedia of Advice, which contains summaries of 100+ Most useful books.]