The Burning Question (book)
E436455
The Burning Question is a non-fiction book by carbon footprint expert Mike Berners-Lee that explores why simply improving energy efficiency and developing low-carbon technologies is not enough to tackle climate change without addressing our overall consumption of fossil fuels.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Burning Question (book) canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4382723 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Burning Question (book) Context triple: [Mike Berners-Lee, primaryTopicOf, The Burning Question (book)]
-
A.
The Ask and the Answer
The Ask and the Answer is a young adult science fiction novel by Patrick Ness, the second book in the acclaimed Chaos Walking trilogy, known for its intense exploration of power, morality, and resistance.
-
B.
The Burning
The Burning is a 1981 American slasher film, notable for its summer-camp setting and early special effects work by makeup artist Tom Savini.
-
C.
The Burning
The Burning was a Union scorched-earth campaign in the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War, aimed at destroying Confederate resources and crippling the region’s ability to support the Southern war effort.
-
D.
"Mortal Questions"
"Mortal Questions" is a widely studied collection of philosophical essays by Thomas Nagel that explores fundamental issues about life, death, meaning, and the nature of subjective experience.
-
E.
The Fire Raisers
The Fire Raisers is an English title for Max Frisch’s darkly comic play about complacency and the rise of fascism, in which a seemingly respectable citizen naively harbors arsonists in his home.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Burning Question (book) Target entity description: The Burning Question is a non-fiction book by carbon footprint expert Mike Berners-Lee that explores why simply improving energy efficiency and developing low-carbon technologies is not enough to tackle climate change without addressing our overall consumption of fossil fuels.
-
A.
The Ask and the Answer
The Ask and the Answer is a young adult science fiction novel by Patrick Ness, the second book in the acclaimed Chaos Walking trilogy, known for its intense exploration of power, morality, and resistance.
-
B.
The Burning
The Burning is a 1981 American slasher film, notable for its summer-camp setting and early special effects work by makeup artist Tom Savini.
-
C.
The Burning
The Burning was a Union scorched-earth campaign in the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War, aimed at destroying Confederate resources and crippling the region’s ability to support the Southern war effort.
-
D.
"Mortal Questions"
"Mortal Questions" is a widely studied collection of philosophical essays by Thomas Nagel that explores fundamental issues about life, death, meaning, and the nature of subjective experience.
-
E.
The Fire Raisers
The Fire Raisers is an English title for Max Frisch’s darkly comic play about complacency and the rise of fascism, in which a seemingly respectable citizen naively harbors arsonists in his home.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ |
| about |
economic incentives driving fossil fuel extraction
ⓘ
need to leave fossil fuels in the ground ⓘ public understanding of climate constraints ⓘ relationship between fossil fuel reserves and climate targets ⓘ role of governments and markets in climate mitigation ⓘ |
| argument |
Effective climate action requires policies that limit fossil fuel extraction and burning
ⓘ
Improving energy efficiency alone is insufficient to stop climate change if total fossil fuel consumption is not reduced ⓘ Most of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must remain unburned to avoid dangerous climate change ⓘ Technological progress can be undermined by increased overall energy use ⓘ |
| author | Mike Berners-Lee NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| coAuthor | Duncan Clark NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfPublication | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| genre |
climate change literature
ⓘ
environmental literature ⓘ non-fiction ⓘ |
| hasContributor |
Duncan Clark
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Mike Berners-Lee NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
carbon emissions
ⓘ
climate change ⓘ climate policy ⓘ energy efficiency ⓘ fossil fuel consumption ⓘ global warming ⓘ |
| notableFor |
explaining why efficiency gains can increase total energy use through rebound effects
ⓘ
popularizing the idea that most fossil fuel reserves are unburnable ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2013 ⓘ |
| publisher | Profile Books NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subject |
behavioral change and consumption
ⓘ
carbon budget ⓘ carbon footprint ⓘ climate economics ⓘ climate risk ⓘ energy policy ⓘ fossil fuel industry ⓘ fossil fuel reserves ⓘ global carbon budget ⓘ international climate agreements ⓘ limits of energy efficiency for climate mitigation ⓘ low-carbon technologies ⓘ politics of climate change ⓘ rebound effect ⓘ renewable energy ⓘ stranded assets ⓘ |
| subtitle | We can't burn half the world's oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit? ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
environmental professionals
ⓘ
general readers ⓘ policy makers ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Burning Question (book) Description of subject: The Burning Question is a non-fiction book by carbon footprint expert Mike Berners-Lee that explores why simply improving energy efficiency and developing low-carbon technologies is not enough to tackle climate change without addressing our overall consumption of fossil fuels.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.