Best of
Climate-Change
2021
Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters
Steven E. Koonin - 2021
But according to science, all of these statements are profoundly misleading.When it comes to climate change, the media, politicians, and other prominent voices have declared that “the science is settled.” In reality, the long game of telephone from research to reports to the popular media is corrupted by misunderstanding and misinformation. Core questions—about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts will be—remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, but the why and how aren’t as clear as you’ve probably been led to believe. Now, one of America’s most distinguished scientists is clearing away the fog to explain what science really says (and doesn’t say) about our changing climate. In Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Steven Koonin draws upon his decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to provide up-to-date insights and expert perspective free from political agendas. Fascinating, clear-headed, and full of surprises, this book gives readers the tools to both understand the climate issue and be savvier consumers of science media in general. Koonin takes readers behind the headlines to the more nuanced science itself, showing us where it comes from and guiding us through the implications of the evidence. He dispels popular myths and unveils little-known truths: despite a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures actually decreased from 1940 to 1970. What’s more, the models we use to predict the future aren’t able to accurately describe the climate of the past, suggesting they are deeply flawed. Koonin also tackles society’s response to a changing climate, using data-driven analysis to explain why many proposed “solutions” would be ineffective, and discussing how alternatives like adaptation and, if necessary, geoengineering will ensure humanity continues to prosper. Unsettled is a reality check buoyed by hope, offering the truth about climate science that you aren’t getting elsewhere—what we know, what we don’t, and what it all means for our future.
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
Bill Gates - 2021
Gates says, "we can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." His interest in climate change is a natural outgrowth of the efforts by his foundation to reduce poverty and disease. Climate change, according to Gates, will have the biggest impact on the people who have done the least to cause it. As a technologist, he has seen first-hand how innovation can change the world. By investing in research, inventing new technologies, and by deploying them quickly at large scale, Gates believes climate change can be addressed in meaningful ways. According to Gates, "to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to get to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This problem is urgent, and the debate is complex, but I believe we can come together to invent new carbon-zero technologies, deploy the ones we have, and ultimately avoid a climate catastrophe."
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World
Katharine Hayhoe - 2021
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future
Elizabeth KolbertElizabeth Kolbert - 2021
Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a super coral that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation.
The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves
J.B. MacKinnon - 2021
B. MacKinnon investigates how we may achieve a world without shopping.We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma.The economy says we must always consume more: even the slightest drop in spending leads to widespread unemployment, bankruptcy, and home foreclosure.The planet says we consume too much: in America, we burn the earth’s resources at a rate five times faster than it can regenerate. And despite efforts to “green” our consumption—by recycling, increasing energy efficiency, or using solar power—we have yet to see a decline in global carbon emissions.Addressing this paradox head-on, acclaimed journalist J. B. MacKinnon asks, What would really happen if we simply stopped shopping? Is there a way to reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse? At first this question took him around the world, seeking answers from America’s big-box stores to the hunter-gatherer cultures of Namibia to communities in Ecuador that consume at an exactly sustainable rate. Then the thought experiment came shockingly true: the coronavirus brought shopping to a halt, and MacKinnon’s ideas were tested in real time.Drawing from experts in fields ranging from climate change to economics, MacKinnon investigates how living with less would change our planet, our society, and ourselves. Along the way, he reveals just how much we stand to gain: An investment in our physical and emotional wellness. The pleasure of caring for our possessions. Closer relationships with our natural world and one another. Imaginative and inspiring, The Day the World Stops Shopping will embolden you to envision another way.
Consumed: On Colonialism, Climate Change, Consumerism, and the Need for Collective Change
Aja Barber - 2021
And how these oppressive systems have bled into the fashion industry and its lack of diversity and equality. She will also reveal how we spend our money and whose pockets it goes into and whose it doesn't (clue: the people who do the actual work) and will tell her story of how she came to learn the truth. In the second 'unlearning' half of the book, she will help you to understand the uncomfortable truth behind why you consume the way you do. She asks you to confront the sense of lack you have, the feeling that you are never quite enough and the reasons why you fill the aching void with consumption rather than compassion. And she makes you challenge this power disparity, and take back ownership of it. The less you buy into the consumer culture the more power you have. CONSUMED will teach you how to be a citizen not a consumer.
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet
Thich Nhat Hanh - 2021
But many of us feel powerless and uncertain what we can do. Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) is blazingly clear: there’s one thing that we have the power to change—and which can make all the difference: our mind. How we see and think about things determines all the choices we make, the everyday actions we take (or avoid), how we relate to those we love (or oppose), and how we react in a crisis or when things don’t go our way.Meditation trains us to see reality as it is. But many of us have a distorted view, caused by negative stories about the world and ourselves that have become ingrained. To use our mind for change, we must see clearly. Thay shows us how us to alter our way of thinking, to break free from the notions that block our way, to find truth and touch reality as it is. By breaking down these old stories, we gain the insight and energy we need to take the right kind of action to save the planet and ourselves. Filled with powerful examples of engaged action he himself has undertaken, inspiring Buddhist parables, and accessible daily meditations, this powerful spiritual guide offers us a path forward, opening us to the possibilities of change and how we can contribute to the collective awakening and environmental revolution our fractured world so desperately needs.
Going South
Ella Yelich-O'Connor (Lorde) - 2021
It documents her experience visiting the continent of Antarctica in January 2019 with photos taken by New Zealand photographer Harriet Were. Lorde expressed an interest in exploring the region of Antarctica since she was old enough to read. In January 2019, she visited Scott Base and McMurdo Station, Antarctica, travelling as an Antarctic Ambassador. During her visit, she observed microscopic species in environmental laboratories and spoke with scientists. Lorde described the book as "sort of a perfect precursor" to her upcoming third studio album. It will feature over 100 pages of images taken by New Zealand photographer Harriet Were and writings from Lorde. All proceeds will be used to fund a postgraduate scholarship created by Antarctica New Zealand, a government agency.
The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis
Amitav Ghosh - 2021
A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning. Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.
Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World
Kimberly Nicholas - 2021
It's us. We're sure. It's bad. But we can fix it.After speaking to the international public for close to fifteen years about sustainability, climate scientist Dr. Nicholas realized that concerned people were getting the wrong message about the climate crisis. Yes, companies and governments are hugely responsible for the mess we're in. But individuals CAN effect real, significant, and lasting change to solve this problem. Nicholas explores finding purpose in a warming world, combining her scientific expertise and her lived, personal experience in a way that seems fresh and deeply urgent: Agonizing over the climate costs of visiting loved ones overseas, how to find low-carbon love on Tinder, and even exploring her complicated family legacy involving supermarket turkeys.In her astonishing book Under the Sky We Make, Nicholas does for climate science what Michael Pollan did more than a decade ago for the food on our plate: offering a hopeful, clear-eyed, and somehow also hilarious guide to effecting real change, starting in our own lives. Saving ourselves from climate apocalypse will require radical shifts within each of us, to effect real change in our society and culture. But it can be done. It requires, Dr. Nicholas argues, belief in our own agency and value, alongside a deep understanding that no one will ever hand us power--we're going to have to seize it for ourselves.
Maya of the In-between
Sita Bennett - 2021
One is Dystopian—in which humans ignore the repercussions of excessive industrialisation on Nature, and the other Utopian—where humans live in Harmony with Nature and each other.Planet Earth has been depleted, and natural disasters have wiped the land bare in a final attempt to restore balance and survive. All remaining human life is contained in one City. A City of iron and technology where the citizens are safe but they are not free. Until recently, MAYA lived there in hiding, painting visions of a vibrant valley where nature still thrives. She's an inter-dimensional Sëer, a Mystic, a Feeler... and a Rebel.Life imitates art when she sees the man she paints—a young, bright-eyed German officer, BJÖRN—who tells her the world she's been painting is real, and he's determined to find it. In a race against the Control and a quest for truth and freedom, they escape the City and cross dimensions to seek the help of a sophisticated race of beings—keepers of the Earth's sacred mysteries—to save it from total self-destruction.Only to discover they do not believe the Old World is worth saving.COMPARABLE TO the Anastasia Ringing Cedars' series, meets a 1984-like Dystopia.
Everywhere Blue
Joanne Rossmassler Fritz - 2021
After twelve-year-old Maddie's older brother vanishes from his college campus, her carefully ordered world falls apart. Nothing will fill the void of her beloved oldest sibling. When her parents fly out to Strum's college to search for answers, Maddie is left in the care of her sixteen-year-old sister, who seeks solace in rebellion and ignores Maddie. Drowning in grief and confusion, the family's musical household falls silent.Though Maddie is the youngest, she knows Strum better than anyone. He used to confide in her, sharing his fears about the climate crisis and their planet's future. So, Maddie starts looking for clues: Was Strum unhappy? Were the arguments with their dad getting worse? Or could his disappearance have something to do with those endangered butterflies he loved . . .Scared and on her own, Maddie picks up the pieces of her family's fractured lives. Maybe her parents aren't who she thought they were. Maybe her nervous thoughts and compulsive counting mean she needs help. And maybe finding Strum won't solve everything--but she knows he's out there, and she has to try.
Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation
Paul Hawken - 2021
For three decades, scientists and the United Nations have urged us to address future existential threats, an effort that culminated in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Although 188 countries made commitments to prevent global warming from exceeding 2 degrees centigrade, as of 2021, 182 failed, and the G7 countries did not even come close. The result so far: 98 percent of the world is disengaged from the greatest danger civilization has ever faced. Instead, extreme weather is increasing, climate migration is disrupting borders and politics in the EU and US, while fossil fuel energy companies dig in their heals to prevent the advent of renewable energy. Journalistic lingo that says we should combat climate change, but by using war metaphors, climate became a story of one more conflict, a framing that has left out humanity.In Regeneration Paul Hawken has flipped the narrative, bringing people back into the conversation by demonstrating that addressing current human needs rather than future threats is the only path to solving the climate crisis. Regeneration is the first book to define, delineate, and set standards for regeneration, offering a comprehensive explanation of its meaning and application Why regeneration? Because every single economic sector in the world extracts life from the planet and by doing so harms it. The way to reverse a heating planet and human indifference is to reverse planetary degeneration.Using regeneration as a foundation for understanding and action includes everyone and shows how people the world over can benefit by creating rather than reacting. Regeneration contains an extraordinary array of initiatives that include but go well beyond solar, electric vehicles, and tree planting to include such solutions as marine protected areas, bioregions, azolla fern, food localization, regenerative agriculture, forest farms, and the #1 solution for the world: electrifying everything.Paul Hawken and the non-profit Regeneration are launching a series of initiatives to accompany the book that will include a streaming video series, curriculum, podcasts, teaching videos, and climate action software. Regeneration is the inspiring and needed guide to inform the burgeoning climate movement.
Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future
Saul Griffith - 2021
We have to do something now--but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint--optimistic but feasible--for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest "climate loans." Griffith's plan doesn't rely on big, not-yet-invented innovations, but on thousands of little inventions and cost reductions. We can still have our cars and our houses--but the cars will be electric and solar panels will cover our roofs. For a world trying to bounce back from a pandemic and economic crisis, there is no other project that would create as many jobs--up to twenty-five million, according to one economic analysis. Is this politically possible? We can change politics along with everything else.
Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis
Samantha Montano - 2021
Most people see disasters as freak, natural events that are unpredictable and unpreventable. But that simply isn’t the case – disasters are avoidable, but when they do strike, there are strategic ways to manage the fallout.In
Disasterology
, Dr. Montano, a disaster researcher, brings readers with her on an eye-opening journey through some of our worst disasters, helping readers make sense of what really happened from a emergency management perspective. She explains why we aren’t doing enough to prevent or prepare for disasters, the critical role of media, and how our approach to recovery was not designed to serve marginalized communities. Now that climate change is contributing to the disruption of ecosystems and worsening disasters, Dr. Montano offers a preview of what will happen to our communities if we don’t take aggressive, immediate action. In a section devoted to the COVID-19 pandemic, what is thus far our generation’s most deadly disaster, she casts light on the many decisions made behind closed doors that failed to protect the public.A deeply moving and timely narrative that draws on Dr. Montano's first-hand experience in emergency management,
Disasterology
is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how our country handles disasters, and how we can better face them together.
Speed & Scale: A Global Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now
John Doerr - 2021
And we have to start now.In Speed and Scale, award-winning author and investor John Doerr convenes the world's foremost change-makers to show us how we can, if we fully commit to a high-stakes action plan, cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and reach Net Zero by 2050. He shares practical efforts that we must take, applying Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) - the simple but powerful tools that scale small ideas into global movements - to our climate goals, setting out the standards that we need to reach as leaders. Featuring exclusive interviews with the world's most influential climate thinkers, including Bill Gates and Al Gore, this is the definitive plan of action which will save our planet.
Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It (Politics of the Living)
Derrick Jensen - 2021
And we hear all the time that 'solar power will save the planet.' But a) will 'renewables' actually power the economy? and b) are 'renewables' good for the planet?The answer in both cases is no.In fact, the answer is worse than no, in that because of these bright green lies much of the environmental movement has been transformed from being about saving wild places and wild nature into being about powering the industrial economy. These bright green lies have turned much of the environmental movement into a lobbying arm for a sector of the industrial economy, such that you can have 100,000 people marching on the streets of Washington, D.C., and if you ask them why they're marching, they'll say, 'To save the planet," but if you ask them for their demands, they'll say, "Subsidies for the solar industry." There has never been another social movement so completely coopted.Bright Green Lies systematically debunks many of the lies and distortions that characterize the discourse of those who argue that 'technology will stop global warming' or that 'technology will save the planet.' The book has a chapter devoted to debunking claims that each of following will individually or collectively power this culture sustainably; or help the planet: solar power, wind power, recycling, 'efficiency, ' batteries and other forms of energy storage, changes in the electrical grid, and hydropower. The authors also provide their own solutions, and more importantly, a way of looking at these problems that centers on the health of the planet.This book has taken six years to research and write. And no one is more qualified to write this book. The book's co-authors share between them seventy years of front-line grassroots environmental activism. In addition, Derrick Jensen is the author of twenty-five books, including the acclaimed A Language Older Than Words and Endgame. Lierre Keith is the author of The Vegetarian Myth, Deep Green Resistance, and others. Max Wilbert has been researching and writing about the environmental harms caused by solar, wind, and other 'renewables' for nearly a decade.
Under the Blue
Oana Aristide - 2021
Is this the end of the world?Meanwhile two computer scientists have been educating their baby in a remote location. Their baby is called Talos, and he is an advanced AI program. Every week they feed him data, starting from the beginning of written history, era by era, and ask him to predict what will happen next to the human race. At the same time they're involved in a increasingly fraught philosophical debate about why human life is sacred and why the purpose for which he was built - to predict threats to human life to help us avoid them - is a worthwhile and ethical pursuit.These two strands come together in a way that is always suspenseful, surprising and intellectually provocative: this is an extraordinarily prescient and vital work of fiction - an apocalyptic road novel to frighten and thrill.
Dr Karl's Little Book of Climate Change Science
Karl Kruszelnicki - 2021
(We can!)
A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis
Vanessa Nakate - 2021
In A Bigger Picture, her first book, she shares her story as a young Ugandan woman who sees that her community bears disproportionate consequences to the climate crisis. At the same time, she sees that activists from African nations and the global south are not being heard in the same way as activists from white nations are heard. Inspired by Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, in 2019 Nakate became Uganda’s first Fridays for Future protestor, awakening to her personal power and summoning within herself a commanding political voice. Nakate’s mere presence has revealed rampant inequalities within the climate justice movement. In January 2020, while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as one of five international delegates, including Thunberg, Nakate’s image was cropped out of a photo by the Associated Press. The photo featured the four other activists, who were all white. It highlighted the call Nakate has been making all along: for both environmental and social justice on behalf of those who have been omitted from the climate discussion and who are now demanding to be heard. From a shy little girl in Kampala to a leader on the world stage, A Bigger Picture is part rousing manifesto and part poignant memoir, and it presents a new vision for the climate movement based on resilience, sustainability, and genuine equity.
The High House
Jessie Greengrass - 2021
Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long? Caro and her younger half-brother, Pauly, arrive at the High House after her father and stepmother fall victim to a faraway climate disaster—but not before they call and urge Caro to leave London. In their new home, a converted summer house cared for by Grandy and his granddaughter, Sally, the two pairs learn to live together. Yet there are limits to their safety, limits to the supplies, limits to what Grandy—the former village caretaker, a man who knows how to do everything—can teach them as his health fails. A searing novel that takes on parenthood, sacrifice, love, and survival under the threat of extinction, The High House is a stunning, emotionally precise novel about what can be salvaged at the end of the world.
A Wild Idea: The True Story of Douglas Tompkins—The Greatest Conservationist (You've Never Heard Of)
Jonathan Franklin - 2021
Over the next twenty-five years, Tompkins built these modest shops into 2 of the world’s most beloved brands. Esprit became the envy of retail, upending the way fashion apparel is produced, marketed, and sold. Breaking from traditional corporate leadership, Tompkins practiced what he called, “management by absence,” calling into the office four to six months a year from Tibet, the Swiss Alps, Siberia, and other remote locations where he could kayak, ski, trek across a glacier, or climb mountains. Successfully summiting the peaks of capitalism, Tompkins realized he had climbed the wrong mountain. Determined to make a change, he sold his company and flew 6,400 miles south to Patagonia to live amid the wild beauty in a shack he dubbed “The Hobbit House.” From there Tompkins launched an unprecedented conservation campaign to create a National Parks system—a 12-million-acre swath of protected land stretching from Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego—and prevent the destruction of South American ecosystems. But the battle wasn’t easy. Opposed by anti-environmental forces, including the Chilean military and Catholic Church, Tompkins waged a multi-million-dollar Monkey Wrench-style guerrilla campaign targeting national and international companies devastating the environment for profit. Though Tompkins died in a kayaking accident in 2015, his legacy endures. In addition to his conservation victories, Tompkins also inspired a new generation of environmentalists and conservationists who continue the fight. A tale of determination, innovation, and triumph, illustrated with black-and-white photographs throughout, A Wild Idea is a celebration of a complicated and often contradictory man, a stern taskmaster who obsessed over detail yet often ignored his children; a multi-millionaire who preferred to sleep on a couch; an environmentalist who drove a red Ferrari; and a visionary who pursued his dreams, abandoned them, then chased new ones, becoming among most notable conservationists of his time.
A People’s Green New Deal
Max Ajl - 2021
It has become a watchword in the current era of global climate crisis. But what - and for whom - is the Green New Deal?In this concise and urgent book, Max Ajl provides an overview of the various mainstream Green New Deals. Critically engaging with their proponents, ideological underpinnings and limitations, he goes on to sketch out a radical alternative: a 'People's Green New Deal' committed to decommodification, working-class power, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology.Ajl diagnoses the roots of the current socio-ecological crisis as emerging from a world-system dominated by the logics of capitalism and imperialism. Resolving this crisis, he argues, requires nothing less than an infrastructural and agricultural transformation in the Global North, and the industrial convergence between North and South. As the climate crisis deepens and the literature on the subject grows, A People's Green New Deal contributes a distinctive perspective to the debate.
The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
Michael E. Mann - 2021
Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on individual behavior is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals.Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame (think "guns don't kill people, people kill people") or greenwashing (think of the beverage industry's "Crying Indian" commercials of the 1970s). Meanwhile, they've blocked efforts to regulate or price carbon emissions, run PR campaigns aimed at discrediting viable alternatives, and have abdicated their responsibility in fixing the problem they've created. The result has been disastrous for our planet.In The New Climate War, Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters-fossil fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petrostates. And he outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change, including:A common-sense, attainable approach to carbon pricing- and a revision of the well-intentioned but flawed currently proposed version of the Green New Deal;Allowing renewable energy to compete fairly against fossil fuelsDebunking the false narratives and arguments that have worked their way into the climate debate and driven a wedge between even those who support climate change solutionsCombatting climate doomism and despair-mongeringWith immensely powerful vested interests aligned in defense of the fossil fuel status quo, the societal tipping point won't happen without the active participation of citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward. This book will reach, inform, and enable citizens everywhere to join this battle for our planet.
Soil: The incredible story of what keeps the earth, and us, healthy
Matthew Evans - 2021
A saga of bombs, ice ages and civilisations falling. Of ancient hunger, modern sicknesses and gastronomic delight. It features poison gas, climate collapse and a mind-blowing explanation of how rain is formed. For too long, we've not only neglected the land beneath us, we've squandered and debased it, by over-clearing, over-grazing and over-ploughing. But if we want our food to nourish us, and to ensure our planet's long-term health, we need to understand how soil works - how it's made, how it's lost, and how it can be repaired. In this ode to the thin veneer of Earth that gifts us life, commentator and farmer Matthew Evans shows us that what we do in our backyards, on our farms, and what we put on our dinner tables really matters, and can be a source of hope.
The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World
Hannah Moloney - 2021
Her honesty, insight and conviction are the building blocks of the good life” (Costa Georgiadis)."Citation from Good Life Permaculture
Hot Money
Naomi Klein - 2021
As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.
White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism
Andreas Malm - 2021
What disasters happen when they meet?In recent years, the far right has done everything in its power to accelerate the heating: an American president who believes it is a hoax has removed limits on fossil fuel production. The Brazilian president has opened the Amazon and watched it burn. In Europe, parties denying the crisis and insisting on maximum combustion have stormed into office, from Sweden to Spain. On the brink of breakdown, the forces most aggressively promoting business-as-usual have surged - always in defense of white privilege, against supposed threats from non-white others. Where have they come from?The first study of the far right in the climate crisis, White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism presents an eye-opening sweep of a novel political constellation, and reveals its deep historical roots. Fossil-fueled technologies were born steeped in racism. None loved them more passionately than the classical fascists. As such forces rise to the surface, some profess to have the solution - closing borders to save the climate. Epic and riveting, White Skin, Black Fuel traces a future of political fronts that can only heat up.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Andreas Malm - 2021
Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With the stakes so high, why haven’t we moved beyond peaceful protest?In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop—with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines.Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women’s suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire.
Climate Change Is Racist: Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice
Jeremy Williams - 2021
Climate change doesn’t work that way. It is structurally racist, disproportionately caused by majority White people in majority White countries, with the damage unleashed overwhelmingly on people of colour. The climate crisis reflects and reinforces racial injustices.In this eye-opening book, writer and environmental activist Jeremy Williams takes us on a short, urgent journey across the globe – from Kenya to India, the USA to Australia – to understand how White privilege and climate change overlap. We’ll look at the environmental facts, hear the experiences of the people most affected on our planet and learn from the activists leading the change.It’s time for each of us to find our place in the global struggle for justice.
The Physics of Climate Change
Lawrence M. Krauss - 2021
Here you’ll find the facts, the processes, the physics of our complex and changing climate, but delivered with eloquence and urgency. Lawrence Krauss writes with a clarity that transcends mere politics. Prose and poetry were never better bedfellows.” —Ian McEwan, Booker Prize-winning author of Solar and Machines Like Me “Lawrence Krauss has written the ideal book for anyone interested in understanding the science of global warming. It is at once elegant, rigorous, and timely.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer, The New Yorker, and Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “A brief, brilliant, and charming summary of what physicists know about climate change and how they learned it.” —Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Metcalf Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Boston University “The distinguished scientist Lawrence Krauss turns his penetrating gaze on the most pressing existential threat facing our world: climate change. It is brimming with information lucidly analysed. Such hope as there is lies in science, and a physicist of Dr. Krauss’s imaginative versatility is unusually qualified to offer it.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker and Science in the Soul “Lucid and gripping, this study of the most severe challenge humans have ever faced leads the reader from the basic physics of climate change to recognition of the damage that humans have already caused and on to the prospects that lie ahead if we do not change course soon.” —Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona, author of Internationalism or Extinction? “Lawrence Krauss tells the story of climate change with erudition, urgency, and passion. It is our great good luck that one of our most brilliant scientists is also such a gifted writer. This book will change the way we think about the future.” —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Good Boy and She’s Not There “Everything on climate change that I’ve seen is either dumbed down and bossy or written for other climate scientists. I’ve been looking for a book that can let me, a layperson, understand the science. This book does just what I was looking for. It is important.” —Penn Jillette, Magician, author of Presto! and God, No! “The renowned physicist Lawrence Krauss makes the science behind one of the most important issues of our time accessible to all.” —Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego “Lawrence Krauss is a fine physicist, a talented writer, and a scientist deeply engaged with public affairs. His book deserves wide readership. The book’s eloquent exposition of the science and the threats should enlighten all readers and motivate them to an urgent concern about our planet’s future.” —Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, former president of the Royal Society, author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity
Tech to Table: 25 Innovators Reimagining Food
Richard Munson - 2021
You would never taste the difference, but these technologies might just save your health and the planet’s. Today, landmark advances in computing, engineering, and medicine are driving solutions to the biggest problems created by industrialized food.Tech to Table introduces readers to twenty-five of the most creative entrepreneurs advancing these solutions. They come from various places and professions, identities and backgrounds. But they share an outsider’s perspective and an idealistic, sometimes aggressive, ambition to rethink the food system.Reinvention is desperately needed. Under Big Ag, pollution, climate change, animal cruelty, hunger, and obesity have festered, and despite decades of effort, organic farming accounts for less than one percent of US croplands. Entrepreneurs represent a new path, one where disruptive technology helps people and the environment. These innovations include supplements to lower the methane in cattle belches, drones that monitor irrigation levels in crops, urban warehouses that grow produce year-round, and more. The pace and breadth of change is astonishing, as investors pump billions of dollars into ag-innovation. Startups are attracting capital and building markets, with the potential to upend conventional agribusiness’s stranglehold on the food system. Not every invention will prosper long-term, but each marks a fundamental change in our approach to feeding a growing population—sustainably. A revolution in how we grow and eat food is brewing. Munson’s deftly crafted profiles offer a fascinating preview of the coming future of food.
How to Change Everything: The Young Human's Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other
Naomi Klein - 2021
Fires in the Amazon. Superstorms. These are just some of the effects of climate change that we are already experiencing. The good news is that we can all do something about it. A movement is already underway to combat not only the environmental effects of climate change but also to fight for climate justice and make a fair and livable future possible for everyone. And young people are not just part of that movement, they are leading the way. They are showing us that this moment of danger is also a moment of great opportunity—an opportunity to change everything. Full of empowering stories of young leaders all over the world, this information-packed book from award-winning journalist and one of the foremost voices for climate justice, Naomi Klein, offers young readers a comprehensive look at the state of the climate today and how we got here, while also providing the tools they need to join this fight to protect and reshape the planet they will inherit.
Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now
John Doerr - 2021
You better fix it.” Since then, Doerr has searched for solutions to this existential problem—as an investor, an advocate, and a philanthropist. Fifteen years later, despite breakthroughs in batteries, electric vehicles, plant-based proteins, and solar and wind power, global warming continues to get worse. Its impact is all around us: droughts, floods, wildfires, the melting of the polar ice caps. Our world is squarely in a climate crisis and on the brink of a climate disaster. Yet despite our state of emergency, climate change has yet to be tackled with the urgency and ambition it demands. More than ever, we need a clear course of action. What if the goal-setting techniques that powered the rise of today's most innovative organizations were brought to bear on humanity's greatest challenge? Fueled by a powerful tool called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), SPEED & SCALE offers an unprecedented global plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late. Used by Google, Bono’s ONE foundation, and thousands of startups the world over, OKRs have scaled ideas into achievements that changed the world. With clear-eyed realism and an engineer’s precision, Doerr identifies the measurable OKRs we need to reduce emissions across the board and to arrive by 2050 at net zero—the point where we are no longer adding to the heat-trapping carbon in the atmosphere. By turns pragmatic and inspiring, SPEED & SCALE intersperses Doerr’s wide-ranging analysis with firsthand accounts from Jeff Bezos, Christiana Figueres, Al Gore, Mary Barra, Bill Gates, and other intrepid policy leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, and activists. A launchpad for those who are ready to act now, this book is geared to leaders in every walk of life. With a definitive action plan, the latest science, and a rising climate movement on our side, we can still reach net zero before it is too late. But as Doerr reminds us, there is no more time to waste.
Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid: The Fraught and Fascinating Biology of Climate Change
Thor Hanson - 2021
It is also a reminder of how unpredictable climate change is as it interacts with the messy lattice of life.
Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet
Johan Rockström - 2021
Beyond these boundaries lurk tipping points. To stop short of these tipping points, the 2020s must see the fastest economic transition in history.This book demonstrates how societies are reaching positive tipping points that make this transition possible: Activism groups such as Extinction Rebellion, or the schoolchildren inspired by Greta Thunberg demand political action; countries are committing to eliminating greenhouse gas emissions; and one tipping point has even already passed - the price of clean energy has dropped below that of fossil fuels.Inside the pages of this scientifically-led publication, world-leading climate-change experts explain the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced.- Expert-authored text in an accessible style for both adults, and children ages 14+- A breakdown of the 9 planetary boundaries for relative stability on Earth, ranging from biodiversity to the ozone layer- An exploration of climate "tipping points" - good and bad- Stunning infographics and images visualising the problems and solutions to climate change- Contains detailed and unique images of Earth produced by Globaïa, the world's leading visualisers of human impact
Hot Talk, Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate
Anthony R. Lupo - 2021
Beyond Climate Grief: A journey of love, snow, fire and an enchanted beer can
Jonica Newby - 2021
And if she was struggling, she wondered, how was everyone else coping? What should parents tell their anxious kids? How might we all live our best lives under the weight of this fearsome knowledge? Then reality outstripped imagination as her family was swept up in the apocalyptic 2020 fires.Featuring illuminating conversations with singer–songwriter Missy Higgins, comedians Charlie Pickering and Craig Reucassel and business leader Mike Cannon-Brookes, practical advice from psychological and scientific experts, incredible accounts from everyday heroes, plus inspiring stories from the climate strike kids, Beyond Climate Grief provides guidance and emotional sustenance to help shore up courage for the uncertainties ahead.It reminds us of the love, beauty and wonder in the world, even amidst disaster. And how we all have a touch of epic hero in us.
Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America
Katie Worth - 2021
More than one-third of young adults believe that climate change is not man-made, and science instructors are being contradicted by history teachers who tell children not to worry about it.Who has tried to influence what children learn, and how successful have they been? Worth connects the dots on oil corporations, state legislatures, school boards, libertarian thinktanks, conservative lobbyists, and textbook publishers, all of whom have learned from the fight over evolution and tobacco, and are now sowing uncertainty, confusion, and distrust about climate science, with the result that four in five Americans today don’t think there is a scientific consensus on global warming. In the words of a top climate educator, “We are the only country in the world that has had a multi-decade, multi-billion dollar deny-delay-confuse campaign.” Miseducation is the alarming story of how climate denialism was implanted in millions of school children.
We're All Climate Hypocrites Now: How Embracing Our Limitations Can Unlock the Power of a Movement
Sami Grover - 2021
-- Bill McKibben, author, The End of NatureTaking a tongue-in-cheek approach, self-confessed eco-hypocrite Sami Grover says we should do what we can in our own lives to minimize our climate impacts and we need to target those actions so they create systemic change. We're All Climate Hypocrites Now helps you decide what are the most important climate actions to take for your own personal situation.Our culture tells us that personal responsibility is central to tackling the climate emergency, yet the choices we make are often governed by the systems in which we live. Whether it's activists facing criticism for eating meat or climate scientists catching flack for flying, accusations of hypocrisy are rampant. And they come from both inside and outside the movement.Sami Grover skewers those pointing fingers, celebrates those who are trying, and offers practical pathways to start making a difference. We're All Climate Hypocrites Now covers:How environmentalism lost its groove Why big polluters want to talk about your carbon footprint The psychology of shaming How businesses can find their activist voice The true power of individuals to spark widespread change. By understanding where our greatest leverage lies, we can prioritize our actions, maximize our impact, and join forces with the millions of other imperfect individuals who are ready to do their part and actually change the system.
Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future
Danielle Celermajer - 2021
It is way down in the bush. The light is soft, the air and the earth are cool, and the smell is of leaves and the river. I cannot presume to know what he is doing when he lies here, but it seems that he is taking himself back to an ecology not wrought by the terror of the fires, not fuelled by our violence on the earth. He is letting another earth heal him. Philosopher Danielle Celermajer’s story of Jimmy the pig caught the world’s attention during the Black Summer of 2019-20.Gathered here is that story and others written in the shadow of the bushfires that ravaged Australia. In the midst of the death and grief of animals, humans, trees and ecologies Celermajer asks us to look around – really look around – to become present to all beings who are living and dying through the loss of our shared home.At once a howl in the forest and an elegy for a country’s soul, these meditations are lyrical, tender and profound.
Full Circle: A Search for the World That Comes Next
Scott Ludlam - 2021
Scott Ludlam draws on his experience as a senator and activist to capture our world on a precipice and explore what comes next.One way or another, we are headed for radical change. We are now in the Anthropocene – humans are changing the earth’s climate irreversibly, and political, human and natural systems are on the cusp of collapse. Ludlam shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here: systems based on the exploitation of the earth’s resources, and 99 per cent of the world’s population labouring for the wealth of 1 per cent.In Full Circle, Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane, regenerative and more in tune with nature. He travels the globe to see what happens when ordinary people stand up to corporations and tyrants. He takes the reader on a journey through time to discover the underlying patterns of life. And he finds that we are at a unique moment when billions of tiny actions by individuals and small groups are coalescing into one great movement that could transform history.Bringing together a wealth of new ideas, Full Circle outlines a new ecological politics.
A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species
Rob Dunn - 2021
In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.As ambitious as Edward Wilson’s Sociobiology and as timely as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself.
Between Sea and Sky
Nicola Penfold - 2021
Following her mum’s death several years earlier, Pearl refuses to set foot on land, believing her illness was caused by the poisons in the ground. Meanwhile, Clover dreams of school, friends and a normal life.Then Nat comes to spend the summer at the sea farm while his scientist mum conducts some experiments. Leaving behind the mainland, with its strict rules and regulations, he brings with him a secret. But when the sisters promise to keep his secret safe, little do they realize that they may be risking everything…
Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough
Holly Jean Buck - 2021
But what will it mean if those targets are achieved? One possibility is that fossil fuel companies will continue to produce billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 while relying on a symbiotic industry to scrub the air clean. Focusing on emissions draws our attention away from the real problem: the point of production. The fossil fuel industry must come to an end but will not depart willingly; governments must intervene. By embracing a politics of rural-urban coalitions and platform governance, climate advocates can build the political power needed to nationalize the fossil fuel industry and use its resources to draw carbon out of the atmosphere.
World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Planetary Renewal
Joanna Macy - 2021
Why You Should Give A Fuck About Farming
Gabrielle Chan - 2021
If you eat or wear clothes, the decisions you make influence farming.There is no farmers and others. If you eat or wear clothes, the decisions you make influence farming.‘Eaters will be the ultimate arbiter of where and how food is grown and how the land is cared for … We all have a stake in the future of food and farming. I am going to show you why.’Farming sits at the intersection of the world’s biggest challenges around climate change, soil, water, energy, natural disasters and zoonotic diseases. Yet Australia has no national food policy. No national agriculture strategy. Our water policy is close to the Hunger Games. People with means can shop at farmers’ markets and order brunch, by the provenance of their eggs, bacon, butter, tomatoes and greens. But do they really understand the trade-offs required to grow it?In this book Gabrielle Chan examines the past, present and future of farming with her characteristically forensic eye. She lays out how our nation, its leaders, farmers and eaters can usher in new ways for us to work and live on our unique and precious land. We must forge a new social contract if we are to grow healthy food on a thriving landscape, while mitigating climate and biodiversity loss.This important book will change your thinking about food, farming and how you eat.
A Season Unknown
Keith Cohen - 2021
As Malach grows, so too does his knowledge of the workings and mysteries of the natural world. His mother, Judith, fearful for him and struggling to understand the gift her son possesses, is determined to protect him at all costs. While grappling with the uncertainty of where Malach’s future will lead, Judith must confront her own painful and secretive past.Approaching adulthood, joined by his brilliant and fiery girlfriend, Ginny, Malach brings a profound awareness of the world facing a precariously changing climate and existential perils. Together they begin to deliver a message of transformation, sacrifice, and even revolution in how we live our lives. Their story of love, and triumph over loss, is at the heart of this urgent coming-of-age story where time is no longer a luxury.
The Last Tree on Easter Island
Jared Diamond - 2021
As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.
Defending Beef: The Ecological and Nutritional Case for Meat
Nicolette Hahn Niman - 2021
Humans of Climate Change: A Cultural Journey to Explore Climate-Change Impacts, Solutions, and Hope
Kaden Hogan - 2021
So what are we fighting for? Let’s embark on a journey to find the answers.Since pre-industrial times, the Earth’s average temperature has increased by 2.1°F (1.2°C). Over the last 100 years, the global sea level has risen by about 8 in (20 cm).Do you find it hard to translate climate change figures like these to the real world? You’re not alone. The statistics and the science are always in the news, but unless your life and livelihood is affected, it’s difficult to truly appreciate the significant impact behind the numbers.Much of climate change communication focuses on high-level science and policies. This can make the topic abstract, distant, and impersonal. Researchers at Yale University found that personal stories can be much more effective in delivering climate change messages and encouraging advocacy behavior.That’s what this book is about: the personal stories of people around the world. The humans of climate change.From the desolate icefields of the Arctic to the lush green rice paddies of the Mekong Delta, this book will take you on a voyage of discovery. You’ll find out:The reasons why the Amazon rainforest is now a net contributor to global warming and the single best way to protect it.The relationship between climate change and conflict in Afghanistan and how empowering women to have a voice has a direct positive effect.Which part of Asia may become too hot to live in the near future and the simple but effective measures to deal with deadly heat waves.The link between a changing landscape due to rising temperature and mental health issues of young Inuit in northern Canada.How the rise of mere inches in sea level can affect the livelihood of 17 million inhabitants of the Mekong Delta, Vietnam.I set out to explore and understand the impact of climate change, but ended up realizing what we are truly protecting. And it’s not the Planet.So, grab your copy, and let’s start the journey.50% of the profit from the book in the first 6 months will be donated to a climate-change-related charity!
Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IPCC - 2021
Our Biggest Experiment: An Epic History of the Climate Crisis
Alice Bell - 2021
In 1856, American scientist and women's rights activist Eunice Newton Foote first warned the world that an atmosphere heavy with carbon dioxide could send temperatures here on Earth soaring. No one paid much attention. Our Biggest Experiment tells Foote's story, along with stories of the many scientists who helped build our modern understanding of climate change. It also tells the story of our energy system, from whale oil to kerosene and beyond, the first steamships, wind turbines, electric cars, oil tankers, and fridges. The story flows from the Enlightenment into World War II and later, tracing the development of big science and our advancing realization that global warming was a significant global problem. With precision and wit, Bell chronicles the growth of the environmental movement, climate skepticism, and political systems such as the UN climate talks.As citizens of the twenty-first century, it can feel like history has dealt us a bad hand with the climate crisis. In many ways, this is true. Our ancestors have left us an almighty mess. But they left us tools for survival too, and Our Biggest Experiment tells both sides of the story.
Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward
John Englander - 2021
Are you, your property, investments, and family ready for these unprecedented changes? Read Moving to Higher Ground and...Learn how Sea Level Rise (SLR) is unstoppable for many centuries due to excess heat already stored in our oceans - and how soon our shorelines will go underwater...Understand how disastrous SLR will profoundly affect more than 10,000 coastal communities as soon as 2050, both in the U.S and around the world..What will happen where you live? How much will the water rise? And when?Find out why extreme weather events, forest fires, and flooding share the same causes as catastrophic SLR, but weather disruptions are temporary and SLR permanent. Devastatingly so.Discover what industries and properties will feel the greatest, and earliest, impacts. Learn what all planners and coastal property owners need to know now to urgently begin to move and adapt.Examine the unique problems faced by the military, Infrastructure planners, architects, flood managers, policy planners, banks, insurance companies, and real estate businesses. And some unique solutions.Find out how and why government policy makers have been completely ineffective delivering any successful strategy for climate change and sea level rise.Answer the questions, WHAT SHOULD WE DO NOW?, And what does THE PATH FORWARD look like?In time of great financial and environmental peril, WHO WILL LEAD US? Prepare to be surprised at the answer.John Englander is a renowned oceanographer and expert on climate change and sea level rise. His best-selling first book, High Tide on Main Street, was published in 2012.
Climate Adaptation: Accounts of Resilience, Self-Sufficiency and Systems Change
The Arkbound FoundationRita Afonso - 2021
With atmospheric CO2 at unprecedented levels and insufficient action being taken to prevent a rise in temperatures above 2 degrees centigrade, we are not just looking at significant disruption but the possibility of societal collapse. For the first time ever, the magnitude of this challenge is faced head on, with avenues to truly address it presented. Case studies and models from 16 authors around the world show ways that we can build adaptation and resilience, as well as what ‘zero emissions’ really mean. The book also provides a platform for those from a range of diverse backgrounds, whose unique experience and knowledge brings vital new perspectives. From those already feeling the impacts of climate change in the Global South to community leaders fighting to create real alternatives, we get a chance to understand the nuances and possibilities of the task ahead.- Perfectly timed for the Global UN summit on climate change in Glasgow (COP26)- On trend with mounting publicity on this issue- Presents an unflinching look at climate change and a unique stance on climate adaptation- Features 16 authors with diverse backgrounds
Questions Raised by Quolls: Fatherhood and Conservation in an Uncertain World
Harry Saddler - 2021
We were cleaning up after dinner in the gathering dark, the pots and pans scraped empty but with traces of our meal still lingering, when we heard the noise of them: yapping calls, one to the other, or just to themselves in their excitement.’When Harry Saddler first encountered a quoll while camping with his father, he was struck by the beauty of the rare creature who had emerged fromthe bush, sniffing for dinner. As Harry frantically snapped a photo, the fast-moving mammal disappeared back into the undergrowth.Many years later that blurry photo remains a memory, as fleeting as the animal it captured. After two centuries of habitat destruction, quolls are now on the brink of extinction and Harry, contemplating fatherhood, aches for the absence of all the species lost to children born today.Questions Raised by Quolls is an eloquent examination of extinction and conservation set against the backdrop of global climate change. From his own family lineage, Harry reveals how humanity’s ever-accelerating modern way of life runs parallel with the destruction of the natural world. Evocative and challenging, this eulogy to lost species will force you to question your place in the vast interconnected web of life.
Food Is Climate: A Response to Al Gore, Bill Gates, Paul Hawken, and the Conventional Narrative on Climate Change
Glen Merzer - 2021
Dead in the Water
Richard Beasley - 2021
We want to see our fish spawning as they once were, our animals coming back down to drink. Fresh quality water out of the Coorong, not this super saline stuff that we're living in today's environment. It's slowly dying. You can smell the impact of what's happening . . .' Grant Rigney, Ngarrindjeri Nation, from his sworn evidence at the Royal Commission into the Murray-Darling Basin.Richard Beasley is fed up. He's fed up with vested interests killing off Australia's most precious water resource. He's fed up with the cowardice and negligence that have allowed Big Agriculture and irrigators to destroy a river system that can sustain both the environment and the communities that depend on it. He's fed up that a noble plan to save Murray-Darling Basin based on the 'best scientific knowledge' has instead been corroded by lies, the denial of climate change, pseudoscience and political expediency.He pulls no punches. He's provocative, he's outrageous, he points the finger without shame. And he will leave you very, very angry. Dead in the Water would be political satire of the highest order . . . if it weren't so tragically true.
Holding Back the River: The Struggle Against Nature on America's Waterways
Tyler J. Kelley - 2021
The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we’ve arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature. Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling the heartland, getting to know the men and women whose lives and livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. On the Illinois-Kentucky border, we encounter Luther Helland, master of the most important—and most decrepit—lock and dam in America. This old dam at the end of the Ohio River was scheduled to be replaced in 1998, but twenty years and $3 billion later, its replacement still isn’t finished. As the old dam crumbles and commerce grinds to a halt, Helland and his team must risk their lives, using steam-powered equipment and sheer brawn, to raise and lower the dam as often as ten times a year. In Southeast Missouri, we meet Twan Robinson, who lives in the historically Black village of Pinhook. As a super-flood rises on the Mississippi, she learns from her sister that the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to blow up the levee that stands between her home and the river. With barely enough notice to evacuate her elderly mother and pack up a few of her own belongings, Robinson escapes to safety only to begin a nightmarish years-long battle to rebuild her lost community. Atop a floodgate in central Louisiana, we’re beside Major General Richard Kaiser, the man responsible for keeping North America’s greatest river under control. Kaiser stands above the spot where the Mississippi River wants to change course, abandoning Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and following the Atchafalaya River to the sea. The daily flow of water from one river to the other is carefully regulated, but something else is happening that may be out of Kaiser and the Corps’ control. America’s infrastructure is old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what’s wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of imagination. “With meticulous research and insightful analysis” (Publishers Weekly), Holding Back the River brings us into the lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and, through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century’s greatest challenges.
Water World
Ben Rothery - 2021
Life on Earth is shaped by water, and only survives here because of it, but our ocean ecosystems are at the epicentre of global warming. Framed by the need to protect our oceans, Water World is natural-history illustrator Ben Rothery's rich exploration of the creatures from the coastal and offshore waters of the world - from penguins, seagulls, polar bears and seahorses, to plankton, sharks and deep-sea beings. Discover the longest migration and the loudest animal on Earth, and learn how our own actions affect the ocean, its inhabitants and our whole planet. Fun to read together or independently, this large-format, beautifully illustrated book is perfect for nature-lovers of all ages. Also available: Hidden Planet and Sensational Butterflies.
Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare
Sally Weintrobe - 2021
It helps us to recognise the uncaring imagination in politics, in culture - for example in the writings of Ayn Rand - and also in ourselves.Sally Weintrobe argues that achieving the shift to greater care requires us to stop colluding with Exceptionalism, the rigid psychological mindset largely responsible for the climate crisis. People in this mindset believe that they are entitled to have the lion's share and that they can 'rearrange' reality with magical omnipotent thinking whenever reality limits these felt entitlements.While this book's subject is grim, its tone is reflective, ironic, light and at times humorous. It is free of jargon, and full of examples from history, culture, literature, poetry, everyday life and the author's experience as a psychoanalyst, and a professional life that has been dedicated to helping people to face difficult truths.
Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age
Rodney Clapp - 2021
It consists of a panoply of cultural, political, and economic practices that set marketized competition at the center of social life. The model human is the entrepreneur of the self. Though regnant, neoliberalism likes to hide. It likes people to assume that it is a natural, deep structure--just the way things are. But in neoliberalism's train have come extreme inequality, economic precariousness, and a harmful distortion of both the individual and society. Many people are waking up to the destructive effects of this order. Anthropologists, economic historians, philosophers, theologians, and political scientists have compiled considerable literature exposing neoliberalism's pretensions and shortcomings. Drawing on this work, Naming Neoliberalism aims to expose the order to a wider range of readers--pastors, thoughtful laypersons, and students. Its theological base for this intervention is apocalyptic--not in the sense of impending doom and gloom, but in the sense of centering on Christ's life, death, and resurrection as itself the creation of a new and truer, more hopeful, and more humane order that sees the principalities and powers (like neoliberalism) unmasked and disarmed at the cross. The book carefully lays out what neoliberalism is, where it has come from, its religious or theological pretensions, and how it can be confronted through and in the church.
Required Reading: Climate Justice, Adaptation and Investing in Indigenous Power
NDN Collective - 2021
Required Reading is a roadmap that hones in on why Indigenous peoples must lead through the heart of the climate crisis.As the recent IPCC report highlights, we are on the brink of ecological collapse, yet we know that Indigenous communities continue to hold key insights into how to mitigate environmental destruction. Required Reading: Climate Justice, Adaptation and Investing in Indigenous Power is both a road map and a call to action that illuminates the linkages between centering Indigenous leadership and repairing our fractured world.
Drought Rescue (Song Bird)
Karen Tyrrell - 2021
Rosie, aka Song Bird superhero, must save the outback from the drought.Animals are dying, water’s disappearing, dinosaurs are stampeding, and now Aunt Matty’s kidnapped.Is Destructo behind the devastation?Song Bird follows a secret map to unlock a mystery.Can Song Bird rescue the outback before it’s too late?
Rescuing the Light: Quotes from the Oral Teachings of Martín Prechtel
Martin Prechtel - 2021
Race for Tomorrow: Survival, Innovation and Profit on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis
Simon Mundy - 2021
In this extraordinary journey through twenty-six countries, Simon Mundy meets the people on the front lines of the climate crisis, showing how the struggle to respond is already reshaping the modern world – shattering communities, shaking up global business, and propelling a groundbreaking wave of cutting-edge innovation.HOW is China’s green energy push driving a hazardous mining rush in Congo?WHY is a maverick scientist building a home for engineered mammoths in northeast Siberia?CAN an Israeli fake meat startup make a fortune while helping to save the Amazon?WILL Greenland’s melting sea ice put its people at the centre of a global power struggle?WHO are the entrepreneurs chasing breakthroughs in fusion power, electric cars, and technology to suck carbon from the atmosphere?As the impacts of climate change cascade across the planet and the global economy, who is battling to survive the worst impacts – and who is chasing the most lucrative rewards?Telling unforgettable human stories from six continents, this is an account of disaster, of promise, of frantic adaptation and relentless innovation, of hope, of survival, and of the forces that will define our future.
The Rise of Technosocialism: How Inequality, AI and Climate will Usher in a New World
Brett King - 2021
Richard Petty explore the seismic social changes that will be thrust on the world over the coming decades. The Rise of Technosocialism seeks to answer how our children will live with AI and climate disruption, the impact of COVID-19 in our lives along with which economies will likely emerge victorious in an always-on, smart world.
Losing Eden: Our Fundamental Need for the Natural World and Its Ability to Heal Body and Soul
Lucy Jones - 2021
"Fascinating. The connection between mental health and the natural world turns out to be strong and deep--which is good news in that it offers those feeling soul-sick the possibility that falling in love with the world around them might be remarkably helpful." --Bill McKibbenLucy Jones interweaves her deeply personal story of recovery from addiction and depression with that of discovering the natural world and how it aided and enlivened her progress, giving her a renewed sense of belonging and purpose.Jones writes of the intersection of science, wellness, and the environment, and reveals that in the last decade, scientists have begun to formulate theories of why people feel better after a walk in the woods and an experience with the natural world. She describes the recent data that supports evidence of biological and neurological responses: the lowering of cortisol (released in response to stress), the boost in cortical attention control that helps us to concentrate and subdues mental fatigue, and the increase in activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, slowing the heart and allowing the body to rest."Beautifully written, movingly told and meticulously researched. An elegy to the healing power of nature. A convincing plea for a wilder, richer world." --Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
They Knew: The Us Federal Government's Fifty-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis
James Gustave Speth - 2021
They Knew offers evidence for their claims, presenting a devastating, play-by-play account of the federal government's role in bringing about today's climate crisis. James Speth, tapped by the plaintiffs as an expert on climate, documents how administrations from Carter to Trump--despite having information about climate change and the connection to fossil fuels--continued aggressive support of a fossil fuel based energy system. What did the federal government know and when did it know it? Speth asks, echoing another famous cover up. What did the federal government do and what did it not do? They Knew (an updated version of the Expert Report Speth prepared for the lawsuit) presents the most compelling indictment yet of the government's role in the climate crisis, showing a forty-year failure to take action. Since Juliana v. United States was filed, the federal government has repeatedly delayed the case. Yet even in legal limbo, it has helped inspire a generation of youthful climate activists. An Our Children's Trust Book
Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet--And How We Fight Back
Kate Aronoff - 2021
But a new denialism is taking root in the halls of power, shaped by decades of neoliberal policies and centuries of anti-democratic thinking. Since the 1980s, Democrats and Republicans have each granted enormous concessions to industries hell bent on maintaining business as usual. What’s worse, policymakers have given oil and gas executives a seat at the table designing policies that should euthanize their business model.This approach, journalist Kate Aronoff makes clear, will only drive the planet further into emergency. Drawing on years of reporting, Aronoff lays out an alternative vision, detailing how democratic majorities can curb polluters’ power; create millions of well-paid, union jobs; enact climate reparations; and transform the economy into a more leisurely and sustainable one. Our future will require a radical reimagining of politics—with the world at stake.
The Waste-Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet
Ron Gonen - 2021
But it doesn't have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a "closed-loop" system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO and sustainability expert Ron Gonen argues that circularity is not only crucial for the planet but holds immense business opportunity.As the founder of an investment firm focused on the circular economy, Gonen reveals brilliant innovations emerging worldwide-- "smart" packaging, robotics that optimize recycling, nutrient rich fabrics, technologies that convert food waste into energy for your home, and many more. Drawing on his experience in technology, business, and city government and interviews with leading entrepreneurs and top companies, he introduces a vital and growing movement.The Waste-Free World invites us all to take part in a sustainable and prosperous future where companies foster innovation, investors recognize long term value creation, and consumers can align their values with the products they buy.
Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress
Ranae Lenor Hanson - 2021
What if we tended to an ailing ecosystem just as Hanson learned to care for herself in the throes of a chronic medical condition. This is the possibility explored in a work that is at once a memoir of illness and health, a contemplation of the surrounding natural world in distress, and a reflection on the ways these come together in personal, local, and global opportunities for healing.Beginning with memories from a childhood nurtured among the waters of Minnesota, Watershed follows the streams and tributaries that connect us to our world and to each other, as revealed in the life stories of Hanson’s students, Minnesotans driven from their faraway homelands by climate disruption. The book’s currents carry us to threatened mangrove swamps in Saudi Arabia, to drought-stricken Ethiopia, to rocks bearing ancient messages above crooked rivers in northern Minnesota, to a diabetic crisis in an ICU bed at a St. Paul hospital. With the benefit of gentle insight and a broad worldview, Hanson encourages us at every turn to find our own way, to discover how the health of our bodies and the health of the world they inhabit are inextricably linked and how attending, and tending, to their shared distress can lead to a genuine, grounded wellbeing. When, in the grip of a global pandemic, humans drastically change their behavior to preserve human life, we also see how the earth breathes more freely as a result. In light of that lesson, Watershed helps us to consider our place and our part in the health and healing of the world around us.
How Women Can Save The Planet
Anne Karpf - 2021
Instead, we need gender equality. The highest-profile climate activists today are women and girls, but it’s a very different story at the top table: the future of the planet is being decided by men.Here’s a perverse truth: dominant masculinist assumptions helped produce the climate emergency, and yet it affects women particularly. Across the Pacific, domestic abuse spikes after bushfires and cyclones. In the global south, climate breakdown forces girls to drop out of school. In Northern Europe, many of those killed by heatwaves have been elderly women. And, from New Orleans to Bangladesh, the lives of poor women of colour are being profoundly re-shaped by a crisis they did nothing to create.This vital book shows that we’re not all in it together – but we could be. Drawing on feminist research and innovative climate policies introduced by women, Anne Karpf interviews female activists around the world about how they’re fighting back. Faced with the most urgent catastrophe of our times, Karpf offers a powerful, fresh vision: a Green New Deal for Women.
How to Save Our Planet: The Facts
Mark A. Maslin - 2021
No beating around the bush. This brilliant book contains all the information we need to have in our back pocket in order to move forward' Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary UN Climate Change Convention'A timely and important book, not only laying out the facts...but suggesting real solutions to the challenges facing us' Professor Alice Roberts, Anatomist, Professor of Public Engagement in Science, University of Birmingham_________________________ How can we save our planet and survive the 21st century? How can you argue with deniers? How can we create positive change in the midst of the climate crisis?Professor Mark Maslin has the key facts that we need to protect our future.Global awareness of climate change is growing rapidly. Science has proven that our planet and species are facing a massive environmental crisis. How to Save Our Planet is a call to action, guaranteed to equip everyone with the knowledge needed to make change.Be under no illusion the challenges of the twenty-first century are immense. We need to deal with: climate change, environmental destruction, global poverty and ensure everyone's security.We have the technology.We have the resources.We have the money.We have the scientists, the entrepreneurs and the innovators.We lack the politics and policies to make your vision of a better world happen.So we need a plan to save our planet...How to Save Our Planet is your handbook of how we together can save our precious planet. From the history of our planet and species, to the potential of individuals and our power to create a better future, Maslin inspires optimism in these bleak times.We stand at the precipice. The future of our planet is in our hands.It's time to face the facts and save our planet from, and for, ourselves._________________________'A handbook of clearly established, authoritative facts and figures about the terrible toll we as humans have taken of our planet, plus ways in which we can lessen the impact. For laypeople like me, who can see what is happening but haven't always got the precise statistics to hand, it's hugely valuable' John Simpson CBE, BBC World Affairs Editor, Broadcaster, Author & Columnist'Saving the world is no small thing, but picking up this book's a good start' Paris Lees, Contributing Editor at British Vogue, campaigner
After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort
Eric Dean Wilson - 2021
As he traces the refrigerant’s life span from its invention in the 1920s—when it was hailed as a miracle of scientific progress—to efforts in the 1980s to ban the chemical (and the resulting political backlash), Wilson finds himself on a journey through the American heartland, trailing a man who buys up old tanks of Freon stockpiled in attics and basements to destroy what remains of the chemical before it can do further harm. Wilson is at heart an essayist, looking far and wide to tease out what particular forces in American culture—in capitalism, in systemic racism, in our values—combined to lead us into the Freon crisis and then out. “Meticulously researched and engagingly written” (Amitav Ghosh), this “knockout debut” (New York Journal of Books) offers a rare glimpse of environmental hope, suggesting that maybe the vast and terrifying problem of global warming is not beyond our grasp to face.
Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival
Richard Heinberg - 2021
-- Dahr Jamail, author, The End of IceWeaving together findings from a wide range of disciplines, Power traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources ― most significantly, fossil fuels. It asks whether we have, at this point, overpowered natural and social systems, and if we have, what we can do about it.Has Homo sapiens -- one species among millions -- become powerful enough to threaten a mass extinction and disrupt the Earth's climate? Why have we developed so many ways of oppressing one another? Can we change our relationship with power to avert ecological catastrophe, reduce social inequality, and stave off collapse?These questions -- and their answers -- will determine our fate.
One Small Hop
Madelyn Rosenberg - 2021
Report it to the Environmental Police Force. Too bad everyone knows the agency is a joke. B. Leave it be. They're just a bunch of kids—what if they hurt it by moving it? C. Find another real, live bullfrog on the black market. Convince their parents to let them bike to Canada. Introduce the two frogs. Save all of frogkind.Ahab convinces the rest of the group that C is their only real option. Because if they don't save this frog, who will? Their quest, which will involve fake ice cream, real frog spawn, and some very close calls, teaches Ahab that hope is always the logical choice and that science is always better with friends.With humor and empathy, acclaimed author Madelyn Rosenberg builds an all-too-imaginable future ravaged by climate change, where one kid can still lean on his friends and dream up a better tomorrow.
The Last Winter: The Scientists, Adventurers, Journeymen, and Mavericks Trying to Save the World
Porter Fox - 2021
In the last fifty years, the Northern Hemisphere lost a million square miles of spring snowpack and in the US alone, snow cover has been reduced by 15-30%. On average, winter has shrunk by a month in most northern latitudes.In this deeply researched, beautifully written, and adventure-filled book, journalist Porter Fox travels along the edge of the Northern Hemisphere's snow line to track the scope of this drastic change, and how it will literally change everything—from rapid sea level rise, to fresh water scarcity for two billion people, to massive greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, and a half dozen climate tipping points that could very well spell the end of our world.This original research is animated by four harrowing and illuminating journeys—each grounded by interviews with idiosyncratic, charismatic experts in their respective fields and Fox's own narrative of growing up on a remote island in Northern Maine.Timely, atmospheric, and expertly investigated, The Last Winter will showcase a shocking and unexpected casualty of climate change—that may well set off its own unstoppable warming cycle.
Quiet Desperation, Savage Delight: Sheltering with Thoreau in the Age of Crisis
David Gessner - 2021
Those lessons—of learning our own backyard, re-wilding, loving nature, self-reliance, and civil disobedience—hold a secret that could help save us as we face the greater crisis of climate.
Court of the Grandchildren
Michael Muntisov - 2021
Her job is busy, resettling climate refugees from the coastal cities. Then she gets a call. She has family she never knew about. And they want something from her she doesn’t want to give.Lily is one of the young, reliant on artificial intelligence and facing an uncertain future.David Moreland was a bigwig during the world’s golden age. He is old and almost forgotten… until he is drawn into the realm of the Climate Court. Now a whole generation seeks to condemn him.When Lily meets David, she is forced to confront events from her past that she would prefer to forget. Feeling trapped, she hires a young lawyer. Is it to defend David, or to deny the past?In a world that seems comfortably like the present, hints of sinister differences begin to emerge, and the stakes are raised beyond David’s fate.
Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction
Mark Maslin - 2021
This awareness is continuing to grow, as the science shows us that our planet and our species are facing a massive crisis, which we ourselves have caused. Climate change is one of the few scientific theories that make us examine the whole basis of modern society. It is a challenge thathas politicians arguing, sets nations against each other, queries individual lifestyle choices, and ultimately asks questions about humanity's relationship with the rest of the planet.This Very Short Introduction draws on the very latest science from the 2021 IPCC Report, examining the evidence that climate change is already happening, and discussing its potential catastrophic impacts in the future. Mark Maslin also explores the geopolitics of climate change and the win-winsolutions we can employ to avoid the very worst effects of climate change. Throughout, he demonstrates how we must develop new modes of thinking for the 21st century at individual, corporate, and government levels to collectively tackle the challenge of climate change.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Love the Earth: Understanding Climate Change, Speaking Up for Solutions, and Living an Earth-Friendly Life
Mel Hammond - 2021
Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for cultivating resilience, taking action, and practicing hope in the face of climate change
Elizabeth Bechard - 2021
A Kids Book About Climate Change
Zanagee Artis - 2021
So if you're looking for the best place to better understand the climate crisis, look no further! This book will give kids the facts about climate change, explain what the state of our planet is, how it got there, and give them hope to fight for their future.
The World We Need: Stories and Lessons from America’s Unsung Environmental Movement
Audrea Lim - 2021
But the real battles for our future are taking place far from the headlines and international conferences, in mostly forgotten American communities where the brutal realities of industrial pollution and environmental degradation have long been playing out.The World We Need provides a vivid introduction to America’s largely unsung grassroots environmental groups—often led by activists of color and the poor—valiantly fighting back in America’s so-called sacrifice zones against industries poisoning our skies and waterways and heating our planet. Through original reporting, profiles, artwork, and interviews, we learn how these activist groups, almost always working on shoestring budgets, are devising creative new tactics, building sustainable projects to transform local economies, and organizing people long overlooked by the environmental movement—changing its face along the way.Capturing the riveting stories and hard-won strategies from a broad cross section of pivotal environmental actions—from Standing Rock to Puerto Rico—The World We Need offers a powerful new model for the larger environmental movement, and inspiration for concerned citizens everywhere.
Tomorrow's Economy: A Guide to Creating Healthy Green Growth
Per Espen Stoknes - 2021
No Planet B: The Teen Vogue Guide to the Climate Crisis
Lucy Diavolo - 2021
With accessible, concise explanations of the features and causes of climate change as well as pieces urging an intersectional approach to environmental justice this book is the handbook for the emerging youth climate movement. Using a feminist, indigenous, antiracist, internationalist lens the book paints a picture of a world in climate crisis and presents bold, courageous ideas for how to save it. Featuring introductions from leading climate activists, No Planet B is essential reading for everyone fighting for a Green New Deal and more.
The Fight for Climate After Covid-19
Alice C Hill - 2021
A pandemic, much like climate change, acts as a threat multiplier, increasing vulnerability to harm, economic impoverishment, and the breakdown ofsocial systems. Even more concerning, communities severely impacted by the coronavirus still remain vulnerable to other types of hazards, such as those brought by accelerating climate change. The catastrophic risks of pandemics and climate change carry deep uncertainty as to when they will occur, how they will unfold, and how much damage they will do. The most important question is how we can face these risks to minimize them most.The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 draws on the troubled and uneven COVID-19 experience to illustrate the critical need to ramp up resilience rapidly and effectively on a global scale. After years of working alongside public health and resilience experts crafting policy to build both pandemic andclimate change preparedness, Alice C. Hill exposes parallels between the underutilized measures that governments should have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 -- such as early action, cross-border planning, and bolstering emergency preparation -- and the steps leaders can take now to mitigatethe impacts of climate change. Through practical analyses of current policy and thoughtful guidance for successful climate adaptation, The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 reveals that, just as our society has transformed itself to meet the challenge of coronavirus, so too will we need to adapt ourthinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change.Unapologetic and clear-eyed, The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 helps us understand why the time has come to prepare for the world as it will be, rather than as it once was.
The Sea Is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook
Cynthia Kaufman - 2021
By explaining the entrenched forces that are preventing rapid action, it helps you understand the nature of the political reality we are facing and arms you with the tools you need to overcome them. The book offers background information on the roots of the crisis and the many rapidly expanding solutions that are being implemented all around the world. It explains how to engage in productive messaging that will pull others into the climate justice movement, what you need to know to help build a successful movement, and the policy changes needed to build a world with climate justice. It also explores the personal side, how engaging in the movement can be good for your mental health. It ends with advice on how you can find the place where you can be the most effective and where you can build climate action into your life in ways that are deeply rewarding.
Getting Closer: Rediscovering Nature Through Bird Photography
Paul Sorrell - 2021
With a focus on birds, the book is directed primarily at photographers (of all levels of skill and experience), but also at birders, people interested in the outdoors, and those who would simply like to achieve a deeper connection with the natural world. The introduction makes the case for reconnecting with nature in a way that will draw in a wide range of readers, not just photographers. We have to reconnect, as most of us have lost the spontaneous bond with nature we enjoyed as young children and, in the face of impending ecological disaster, reconnecting with nature is our most urgent task. The author offers a simple, practical path for readers to begin to ‘rewild’ themselves. This is the focus of the second part of the book, where the author explores ways of becoming attentive to the natural world around you, wherever you may live. Through self-contained spreads on topics ranging from ‘the four seasons’ and ‘winds and tides’ to ‘flight shots’ and ‘colour and texture’, he introduces basic, hands-on techniques that, with practice, will enable readers to both deeply connect with their environment and become proficient wildlife photographers. ‘Top tips’ on each spread provide technical information aimed at more serious photographers.
An Excess Of...
Stuart Aken - 2021
Dangerously at odds on many fronts, they must work together to survive, or risk violence and death in this entirely unfamiliar environment, Mutual attraction promises to make allies of two, but can romance overcome the irrational beliefs of one and build a bond through the pragmatism of the other? Will the group be able to overcome prejudices, superstitions, and passionately held opinions to unite in action when they're presented with an opportunity to escape their isolation? Or will ancient beliefs and traditions, fears and uncertainties, surface to place all in sudden peril as they prepare to risk everything in this unexpected chance to return to a world entirely changed during their absence?
How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason
Lee McIntyre - 2021
Vaccines are bad for you. These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed--they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don't believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it's important to do so. Science denial can kill.Drawing on his own experience--including a visit to a Flat Earth convention--as well as academic research, McIntyre outlines the common themes of science denialism, present in misinformation campaigns ranging from tobacco companies' denial in the 1950s that smoking causes lung cancer to today's anti-vaxxers. He describes attempts to use his persuasive powers as a philosopher to convert Flat Earthers; surprising discussions with coal miners; and conversations with a scientist friend about genetically modified organisms in food. McIntyre offers tools and techniques for communicating the truth and values of science, emphasizing that the most important way to reach science deniers is to talk to them calmly and respectfully--to put ourselves out there, and meet them face to face.
Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change
Thane Gustafson - 2021
No major power is more economically dependent on the export of hydrocarbons; at the same time, two-thirds of Russia's territory lies in the arctic north, where melting permafrost is already imposing growing damage. Climate change also brings drought and floods to Russia's south, threatening the country's agricultural exports.Thane Gustafson predicts that, over the next thirty years, climate change will leave a dramatic imprint on Russia. The decline of fossil fuel use is already underway, and restrictions on hydrocarbons will only tighten, cutting fuel prices and slashing Russia's export revenues. Yet Russia has no substitutes for oil and gas revenues. The country is unprepared for the worldwide transition to renewable energy, as Russian leaders continue to invest the national wealth in oil and gas while dismissing the promise of post-carbon technologies. Nor has the state made efforts to offset the direct damage that climate change will do inside the country. Optimists point to new opportunities--higher temperatures could increase agricultural yields, the melting of arctic ice may open year-round shipping lanes in the far north, and Russia could become a global nuclear-energy supplier. But the eventual post-Putin generation of Russian leaders will nonetheless face enormous handicaps, as their country finds itself weaker than at any time in the preceding century.Lucid and thought-provoking, Klimat shows how climate change is poised to alter the global order, potentially toppling even great powers from their perches.