Climate Change Science

A veritable tsunami of studies and assessment reports outlines a stark picture of humanity's detrimental impacts on our planet's life and environmental health. Climate change is at the heart of many of these impacts. We cannot continue to live in the same way; we're facing relentless population growth, paired with ever-expanding energy and resource consumption. Every day we dither exacerbates the issues we have to repair. What are our options, though?

In Human Nature, each chapter uses a different emotion to illustrate the science behind our changing climate. We feel the wonder of being able to use climate models to predict the future. We feel anger at those who have knowingly destroyed the planet for profit. We feel love for our beautiful Earth, the only good planet. With Marvel as our guide, we get to feel it all—and we can begin to turn our strong feelings into strong action.

Ecological footprint accounting, first introduced in the 1990s and continuously developed, continues to be the only metric that compares overall human demand on nature with what our planet can renew—its biocapacity—and distills this into one number: how many Earths we use.

COVID-19, monkeypox, bird flu, SARS, HIV, AIDS, Ebola; we are living in the Age of Pandemics – one that we have created. As the climate crisis reaches a fever pitch and ecological destruction continues unabated, we are just beginning to reckon with the effects of environmental collapse on our global health. Fevered Planet exposes how the way we farm, what we eat, the places we travel to and the scientific experiments we conduct create the perfect conditions for deadly new diseases to emerge and spread faster and further than ever.

Alle Maldive le spiagge spariscono, a Miami si ricostruiscono le strade sollevate di un metro, la Louisiana sprofonda a vista d’occhio, in Franciacorta il vino diventa ogni anno più difficile da produrre, e mentre a Venezia l’acqua salata consuma un patrimonio artistico inestimabile, altre città si svuotano di automobili e si riempiono di animali. Negli ultimi dieci anni la crisi climatica è passata da essere un problema delle generazioni future a un’urgenza di quelle presenti.

Following the death of her mother in a horrifying wildfire, seventeen-year-old Kora wants to ensure that not one more child loses a parent to a traumatic climate event. As the most severe possible projected climate change outcomes actually happen in real-time, rapid action is needed. But is it too late? What can a female, bi-racial, teenager with untapped superpowers do? How about saving the planet? Empowered by her supernatural abilities, Kora embraces her destiny as EcoQueen, the superhero of a new generation, whom the world so desperately needs.

Seit Jahrzehnten wissen wir um die Erderwärmung und ihre Gefährlichkeit. Dennoch nehmen die globalen Treibhausgasemissionen weiter zu. Offenbar gelingt es uns nicht, den Klimawandel zu stoppen. Wie lässt sich dieses Versagen erklären? Warum reagieren Gesellschaften so zögerlich auf diese Bedrohung? In seinem neuen Buch gibt Jens Beckert eine Antwort.

Das fossile System bröckelt. Ein Klima ohne Krise ist in Reichweite. Was es jetzt braucht: dass wir endlich unsere Abhängigkeit von CO2 verlernen – und zwar in allen Bereichen unseres Lebens. Denn das Treibhausgas steckt nicht nur in Gasheizungen und den Tanks unserer Autos. Es hat sich fest in unseren Vorstellungen von einem guten Leben eingenistet und bestimmt unseren Alltag: was wir morgens anziehen, warum wir arbeiten und wie wir abends essen.

Zu lange haben wir Menschen eine dem Wesen unserer Existenz widersprechende Zivilisation und Infrastruktur aufgebaut, warnt der weltweit führende Ökonom und Vordenker Jeremy Rifkin. Denn jetzt rebelliert die Hydrosphäre unseres Planeten und ist dabei, unsere Spezies und unsere Mitgeschöpfe im Zuge des Klimawandels in ein Massensterben zu stürzen, während sie nach einem neuen Gleichgewicht sucht. Rifkin fordert uns auf, unseren Platz im Universum ganz neu zu definieren.

What if the harbinger of our greener future was a small power plant set in the middle of nowhere in West Texas? Longtime alternative energy executive Andy Bowman’s book makes exactly this case, outlining what he suggests is a more sustainable future for American capitalism. The West Texas Power Plant that Saved the World takes the Barilla solar plant in Pecos County as a test case for the state of renewable energy in the twenty-first century United States.

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new myth, a new narrative that restores the connections between humanity and the Earth. We are being confronted by a daily barrage of geographical stories on climate change, geopolitics, population growth, migration, dwindling resources, polluted oceans and natural hazards. These are planetary concerns affecting all people and all places.

El relat captivador de la vida a Buda, la primera illa d’Europa que desapareixerà engolida pel mar a conseqüència del canvi climàtic. Tan a prop i alhora tan lluny del nostre imaginari i de les nostres preocupacions. Fins que un dia, més aviat del que ens pensem, desapareixerà per sempre. Així és l’illa de Buda, una extensió de terra a la desembocadura de l’Ebre, a la punta del delta, que serà la primera illa d’Europa engolida pel mar. L’escriptor Gabi Martínez s’hi ha instal·lat durant tot un any per conèixer la realitat al delta de l’Ebre.

A guardarli da lontano possono sembrare creature spaventose, con le loro zampette formicolanti, orride antenne e piccole ali ronzanti, che passano la loro esistenza guizzando e svolazzando tra la polvere e il buio. Eppure se solo si prova ad avvicinarsi, ecco che appaiono iridescenze arcobaleno, corpi color smeraldo e ali blu violaceo maculate di crema. Ecco che i loro movimenti si fanno ordinati e organizzati come quelli di un esercito, le loro strategie rivelano un acume geniale, la loro forza si mostra sorprendente.

Der Welt geht das Wasser aus: Können wir uns retten? Zwei Drittel der Erde sind mit Wasser bedeckt – allerdings nur drei Prozent davon sind Süßwasser. In vielen Regionen der Welt schrumpfen die Bestände rasant. Auch in Deutschland werden wir Wassernot erleben. In diesem Hörbuch begleiten Annika Joeres und Susanne Götze fiktive Protagonisten in eine nahe Zukunft und zeigen damit beispielhaft, wie wir leben können, wenn wir uns rechtzeitig auf die Folgen des Wassermangels einstellen – oder wie wir leiden werden, wenn wir nicht handeln.

Mal angenommen es war nicht früher alles besser – sondern wird es erst in der Zukunft: Wie würde die ideale Welt 2040 in Bezug auf fossile Brennstoffe, Mobilität und Ernährung aussehen? Und wäre sie auch praktisch umsetzbar? Jan Hegenberg zeigt in seinem Buch faktenbasiert, aber trotzdem mit einer ordentlichen Prise Humor, wie wir die Energiewende angehen können und wie Städte ohne Autos aussehen und funktionieren würden. Dabei seziert er genussvoll und unterhaltsam die Fehlinformationen, denen wir zu dem Thema Klimawende aufgesessen sind, und zeigt, wie gut wir 2040 klimaneutral leben können.

As climate change continues to intensify, the outlook for life on Earth often seems bleak. Yet hope for the future can be found in the “rescue effect,” which is nature’s innate ability to help organisms persist during hard times. Like a thermostat starting the air conditioning when a room gets too warm, the rescue effect automatically kicks in when organisms are stressed or declining. In The Rescue Effect, Michael Mehta Webster reveals the science behind nature’s inherent resilience, through compelling stories of species that are adapting to the changing world.

In 2013 Michael J. Yochim was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). While fighting the disease, he wrote Requiem for America's Best Idea. The book establishes a unique parallel between Yochim's personal struggle with a terminal illness and the impact climate change is having on the national parks—the treasured wilderness that he loved and to which he dedicated his life. A poignant and thought-provoking work, Requiem for America's Best Idea investigates the interactions between people and nature and the world that can inspire and destroy them.

Never have so many undertaken such a widespread, hurried attempt to remake the world. Predictably, our hubris has led to unintended—and sometimes disastrous—consequences. Over the Seawall tells us the stories behind these unintended consequences and the fixes that can do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to the reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the artificial ribbon of water supporting both farms and urban centers in parched Arizona, Stephen Robert Miller traces the histories of engineering marvels that were once deemed too smart and too big to fail.

As wildfires char the American West, extreme weather transforms landscapes, glaciers retreat, and climate zones shift, we are undeniably experiencing the effects of the climate crisis in more and more destructive ways. Climate change is impacting every inhabited region of the world, but there is much we can still do. Unsettling explores human impacts on the environment through science, popular culture, personal narrative, and landscape. Science writer Elizabeth Weinberg explores how climate change is a direct result of white supremacy, colonialism, sexism, and heteronormativity.

Germany should have been a global leader in combating climate change—its voters consider it a major issue and back the world’s most powerful Green Party. Yet, Germany’s climate policies have been disappointing. What happened?