Climate Change Science

In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, biologist Thor Hanson tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters cause the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans move north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes.

Michael Shellenberger lleva luchando por un planeta más verde durante décadas. Ayudó a salvar las últimas secuoyas del mundo. Participó en el precedente del actual nuevo pacto verde. Y lideró una exitosa iniciativa de científicos y activistas del clima para mantener en funcionamiento las plantas nucleares y evitar así un pico de emisiones.

Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight - from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year’s honey crop and building a social movement that’s still cresting.

For nearly a decade, Palley has been on the frontline of fire. He has witnessed homeowners on the worst day of their lives. He’s seen puddles of aluminum where cars were once parked. He’s watched as 150-foot walls of flame cascaded down mountainsides and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And he’s captured, time and again, the tireless commitment of firefighters as they work to save lives and homes, in terrain where fire always seems to have the upper hand.

When Sleepers, Wake! was released in Australia, it immediately became influential around the world. Now its author, the polymath and former politician Barry Jones, turns his attention to what has happened since - especially to politics, health, and our climate in the digital age - and to the challenges faced by increasingly fragile democracies and public institutions.

Deepwater Horizon, das Abschmelzen des Polareises oder Fracking - der Mensch betreibt Raubbau an seiner Lebensgrundlage: der Erde. Die bekannte Umweltaktivistin Naomi Klein hat mit "Green New Deal" ihr bislang wichtigstes Buch geschrieben: Angesichts der unverminderten Zerstörung unserer Umwelt und laxen Gesetzen zeigt sie, warum die Vision einer grünen Zukunft nicht nur nötig, sondern absolut unumgänglich ist. Wir leben bereits mitten in der Klima-Katastrophe.

If climate catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy seem to be on the rise, it’s for a reason. The likelihood of these extreme weather events are increasingly being tied to man-made global warming, mostly through overproduction of carbon dioxide. It’s no longer an abstract idea; it’s being felt locally, on every level. Climate Change and Extreme Weather gives you the tools to better understand what’s behind climate change, what might be in store during the coming decades, and how we can begin to reverse the detrimental effects mankind has had on the atmosphere.

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.

The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.

From the author of the enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, here is a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis. Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse.

If 20 percent of the population implemented half the solutions in this book, it would solve the biggest global problems. All without writing to politicians, joining protests, signing petitions, or being angry at the people that are causing the problems. Good solutions are often different from conventional environmental wisdom. The average American adult has a carbon footprint of 30 tons per year. Replacing a petroleum car with an electric car will cut 2 tons. But if you live in a cold climate and you switch from electric heat to a rocket mass heater, you will cut 27 tons!

The Unnatural World chronicles a disparate band of unlikely heroes: an effervescent mad scientist who would fertilize the seas, a pigeon obsessive bent on bringing back the extinct, a low-level government functionary in China doing his best to clean up his city, and more. These scientists, billionaires, and ordinary people are all working toward saving the best home humanity is ever likely to have.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic beauty that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise, the Caribbean and its people would come to pay the price of relentless Western exploitation and abuse. In Dark Laboratory, Goffe embarks on a historical journey to chart the forces that have shaped these islands: the legacy of slavery, indentured labor, and the forced toil of Chinese and enslaved Black people excavating the islands’ bounty. Along with sugarcane, guano, at the time, was more valuable than gold.

The Carbon Footprint of Everything breaks items down by the amount of carbon they produce, creating a calorie guide for the carbon-conscious. With engaging writing, leading carbon expert Mike Berners-Lee shares new carbon calculations based on recent research. He considers the impact of the pandemic on the carbon battle—especially the embattled global supply chain—and adds items we didn't consider a decade ago, like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With solid research, expert sources, and Berners-Lee's trademark sense of humor, this should be on everyone's bookshelf.

With vivid, observant reporting, veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce transports listeners to the remote cloud forests of Ecuador, the remains of a forest civilization in Nigeria, a mystifying mountain peak in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the boreal forests of western Canada and the United States, where devastating wildfires are linked to suppressing the natural fire cycles of forests and the maintenance practices of Indigenous peoples. Throughout the book, Pearce interviews the people who traditionally live in forests.

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.

I know you care about children. Whether you've got your own kids or you look after other people's, you have a deep love for these little humans. You want them to grow up in a world where people are basically kind to each other and kind to the planet. But when you look at the world now—a mental health crisis, a global pandemic, climate change, war—you worry about the possible future your child is facing and how they will cope.

The second volume of William T. Vollmann's epic book about the factors and human actions that have led to global warming begins in the coal fields of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. Over the course of four years, Vollmann finds hollowed out towns with coal-polluted streams and acidified drinking water; makes covert visits to mountaintop removal mines; and offers documented accounts of unpaid fines for federal health and safety violations and of miners who died because their bosses cut corners to make more money.

Indigenous peoples have faced the end of the world before. Now, humankind is on a collective march toward the abyss. Global pandemics, extreme weather, and massive wildfires define this era many now call the Anthropocene. From Brazil comes Ailton Krenak, renowned Indigenous activist and leader, who demonstrates that our current environmental crisis is rooted in society’s flawed concept of “humanity” - that human beings are superior to other forms of nature and are justified in exploiting it as we please.

A remedy to climate anxiety by one of the most important voices on humanity’s relationship with the Earth, Hope Dies Last fills a crucial gap in the global conversation: Having reached a point of no return in our climate confrontation, how do we feel, behave, act, plan, and dream as we approach a future decidedly different from what we had expected?