Markets and the Environment


Nathaniel O. Keohane - 2007
    It offers a clear overview of the fundamentals of environmental economics that will enable students and professionals to quickly grasp important concepts and to apply those concepts to real-world environmental problems. In addition, the book integrates normative, policy, and institutional issues at a principles level. Chapters examine: the benefits and costs of environmental protection, markets and market failure, natural resources as capital assets, and sustainability and economic development. Markets and the Environment is the second volume in the Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies Series, edited by James Gustave Speth. The series presents concise guides to essential subjects in the environmental curriculum, incorporating a problem-based approach to teaching and learning.

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."

The Good Bee: A Celebration of Bees – And How to Save Them


Alison Benjamin - 2019
    These fascinating, enigmatic creatures are a key lynchpin in the working of our planet. Without them the landscape, as well as every aisle in our supermarkets would look radically different. And we're not just talking about honey bees. There are more than 20,000 species of bee worldwide and only a handful make honey. Some live in colonies and others are solitary. We can all help protect them - and they desperately need protecting - but you can't save what you don't love. And you can't love what you don't know. The Good Bee is a celebration of this most vital and mysterious of nature's wizards. Here you'll discover the complexities of bee behaviour - as well as the bits that still baffle us - the part they play in the natural world, their relationship with us throughout history, how they are coming under threat and what we can all do about it.Beautifully produced, with hand-made illustrations throughout, it is a story for our times and a book to treasure.

The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the obsession with 'climate change' turning out to be the most costly scientific blunder in history?


Christopher Booker - 2009
    It shows how the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is run by a small group of 'global warming' zealots, who have repeatedly rigged evidence to support their theory. But the politicians, pushed by the media, have so fallen for its propaganda that, short of dramatic change, our Western world now faces an unprecedented disaster.

Renewable Energy: A Primer for the Twenty-First Century


Bruce Usher - 2019
    Now renewables are overtaking fossil fuels, with wind and solar energy becoming cheaper and more competitive every year. Growth in renewable energy will further accelerate as electric vehicles become less expensive than traditional automobiles. Understanding the implications of the energy transition will prepare us for the many changes ahead.This book is a primer for readers of all levels on the coming energy transition and its global consequences. Bruce Usher provides a concise yet comprehensive explanation for the extraordinary growth in wind and solar energy; the trajectory of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables; and the implications for industries, countries, and the climate. Written in a straightforward style with easy-to-understand visual aids, the book illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of renewable energy based on business fundamentals and analysis of the economic forces that have given renewables a tailwind. Usher dissects the winners and losers, illustrating how governments and businesses with a far-sighted approach will reap long-term benefits while others will trail behind. Alongside the business and finance case for renewable energy, he provides a timely illustration of the threat of catastrophic climate change and the perils of delay. A short and powerful guide to our energy present and future, this book makes it clear that, from both economic and environmental perspectives, there is no time to lose.

Half Gone


Jeremy Leggett - 2005
    Exposing the true status of the world's dwindling energy supplies, Jeremy Leggett reveals the scale of the disaster looming over our planet, and the action each and every one of us must take - right now - to stand a chance of averting it.

Superpower: Australia's Low-Carbon Opportunity


Ross Garnaut - 2019
    We also have the necessary scientific skills. Australia could be the natural home for an increasing proportion of global industry. But how do we make this happen?In this crisp, compelling book, Australia’s leading thinker about climate and energy policy offers a road map for progress, covering energy, transport, agriculture, the international scene and more. Rich in ideas and practical optimism, Superpower is a crucial, timely contribution to this country’s future.

Losing Earth: A Recent History


Nathaniel Rich - 2018
    Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.The New York Times Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich's groundbreaking chronicle of that decade, which became an instant journalistic phenomenon--the subject of news coverage, editorials, and conversations all over the world. In its emphasis on the lives of the people who grappled with the great existential threat of our age, it made vivid the moral dimensions of our shared plight.Now expanded into book form, Losing Earth tells the human story of climate change in even richer, more intimate terms. It reveals, in previously unreported detail, the birth of climate denialism and the genesis of the fossil fuel industry's coordinated effort to thwart climate policy through misinformation propaganda and political influence. The book carries the story into the present day, wrestling with the long shadow of our past failures and asking crucial questions about how we make sense of our past, our future, and ourselves.Like John Hersey's Hiroshima and Jonathan Schell's The Fate of the Earth, Losing Earth is the rarest of achievements: a riveting work of dramatic history that articulates a moral framework for understanding how we got here, and how we must go forward.

Hydrofracked? One Man's Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling


Abrahm Lustgarten - 2011
    The hard part was proving it. Meeks’ struggle to get the energy companies to take responsibility, meticulously documented through three years of investigative reporting by ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten, coincide with a national uproar over the oil and gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing – a technology that promises to open large new energy supplies, perhaps at the expense of the nation’s water.

The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong


Judith Rodin - 2014
    Our interconnected world is susceptible to sudden and dramatic shocks and stresses: a cyber-attack, a new strain of virus, a structural failure, a violent storm, a civil disturbance, an economic blow. Through an astonishing range of stories, Judith Rodin shows how people, organizations, businesses, communities, and cities have developed resilience in the face of otherwise catastrophic challenges:• Medellin, Colombia, was once the drug and murder capital of South America. Now it’s host to international conferences and an emerging vacation destination.• Tulsa, Oklahoma, cracked the code of rapid urban development in a floodplain.• Airbnb, Toyota, Ikea, Coca-Cola, and other companies have realized the value of reducing vulnerabilities and potential threats to customers, employees, and their bottom line.• In the Mau Forest of Kenya, bottom-up solutions are critical for dealing with climate change, environmental degradation, and displacement of locals.• Following Superstorm Sandy, the Rockaway Surf Club in New York played a vital role in distributing emergency supplies.As we grow more adept at managing disruption and more skilled at resilience-building, Rodin reveals how we are able to create and take advantage of new economic and social opportunities that offer us the capacity to recover after catastrophes and grow strong in times of relative calm.

Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution


Carol Ann Bassett - 2009
    For millions, the Galápagos Islands represent nature at its most unspoiled, an inviolate place famed for its rare flora and fauna. But soon today’s 30,000 human residents could surpass 50,000. Add invasive species, floods of tourists, and unresolved conflicts between Ecuadorian laws and local concerns, and it’s easy to see why the Galápagos were recently added to UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger list. Each chapter in this provocative, perceptive book focuses on a specific person or group with a stake in the Galápagos’ natural resources—from tour companies whose activities are often illegal and not always green, to creationist guides who lead tours with no mention of evolution, from fishermen up in arms over lobster quotas, to modern-day pirates who poach endangered marine species. Bassett presents a perspective as readable as it is sensible. Told with wit, passion, and grace, the Galápagos story serves as a miniature model of Earth itself, a perfect example of how an environment can be destroyed-- and what is being done to preserve these islands before it's too late.

Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ""Energy Independence""


Robert Bryce - 2008
    Along the way, Bryce eviscerates the ethanol scam. Whether the issue is cost, water consumption, or food prices, corn ethanol is one of the longest-running robberies ever perpetrated on American taxpayers.Consumers concerned about peak oil and the future of global energy supplies need to understand that energy security depends on embracing free markets and the realities of interdependence. Gusher of Lies is illuminating, vital reading.

A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow


Joshua S. Goldstein - 2019
    Several countries have already replaced fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources, and done so rapidly, in one to two decades. By following their methods, we could decarbonize the global economy by midcentury, replacing fossil fuels even while world energy use continues to rise. But so far we have lacked the courage to really try.In this clear-sighted and compelling book, Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist explain how clean energy quickly replaced fossil fuels in such places as Sweden, France, South Korea, and Ontario. Their people enjoyed prosperity and growing energy use in harmony with the natural environment. They didn't do this through personal sacrifice, nor through 100 percent renewables, but by using them in combination with an energy source the Swedes call käkraft, hundreds of times safer and cleaner than coal.Clearly written and beautifully illustrated, yet footnoted with extensive technical references, Goldstein and Qvist's book will provide a new touchstone in discussions of climate change. It could spark a shift in world energy policy that, in the words of Steven Pinker's foreword, literally saves the world.

Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence


Kate Crawford - 2020
    It draws our attention away from the bright shiny objects of the new colonialism through elucidating the social, material and political dimensions of Artificial Intelligence.”—Geoffrey C. Bowker, University of California, Irvine What happens when artificial intelligence saturates political life and depletes the planet? How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? In this book Kate Crawford reveals how this planetary network is fueling a shift toward undemocratic governance and increased racial, gender, and economic inequality. Drawing on more than a decade of research, award‑winning science, and technology, Crawford reveals how AI is a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the exploited workers behind “automated” services, to the data AI collects from us.    Rather than taking a narrow focus on code and algorithms, Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power. This is an urgent account of what is at stake as technology companies use artificial intelligence to reshape the world.

Investing To Save The Planet: How Your Money Can Make a Difference


Alice Ross - 2020
    Together, we can and must act now' Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States 'Everyone's savings account and pension can meaningfully contribute. Ross tells us how in this clear, easy to understand yet transformative book' Christiana Figueres, Founding Partner, Global Optimism and Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 'I can't imagine a more important book at the moment. A detailed, action-oriented guide on how to make our money matter and save us and the planet we live on' Richard Curtis, Writer, Director, Co-Founder of Red Nose Day and UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate Investing responsibly is one of the most powerful ways that you can fight climate change. No longer a niche sector for rebel fund managers, conscious investing has the potential to raise huge sums of money to the companies and organisations on the front line fighting the climate crisis and make investors positive returns in the process. In this essential introduction to green investing, Alice Ross shows you how you can turn your savings and pensions, however big or small, into a force for change. You will learn: - Which sectors are leading the charge by developing cutting-edge solutions; from smart farming to renewable energy- How to cut through 'alphabet soup' jargon and identify 'greenwashing' - The ways you can maximise your economic power and hold those you're investing in to account 'Changing the way that we invest is one of the most powerful levers we have for solving climate change. This hugely interesting and immensely practical book not only explains why changing how we invest is so critically important but also provides a set of powerful tools for actually doing it' Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University and author of Reimagining Capitalism 'Explains the power you have, through your investment choices, to accelerate the path toward a sustainable clean energy future. Read this book and be empowered to create a better future for the planet' Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor, Penn State University, author of The New Climate War