Climate Engineering

Every spring, billions of birds sweep north, driven by ancient instincts to return to their breeding grounds. This vast parade often goes unnoticed, except in a few places where these small travelers concentrate in large numbers. One such place is along Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio. There, the peak of spring migration is so spectacular that it attracts bird watchers from around the globe, culminating in one of the world’s biggest birding festivals. Now climate change threatens to disrupt patterns of migration and the delicate balance between birds, seasons, and habitats.

Discover wisdom and guidance to face the climate emergency from the most influential environmental and spiritual leaders of our time, including the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg, Joanna Macy, Vandana Shiva, Paul Hawken, Katharine Hayhoe, and Matthieu Ricard. A Future We Can Love inspires each of us to rise to the occasion to ensure a brighter future for generations to come.

If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating, pooping, and dying along the way—are its heart and arteries, pumping nitrogen and phosphorus from deep-sea gorges up to mountain peaks, from the Arctic to the Caribbean. Without this conveyor belt of crucial, life-sustaining nutrients, the world would look very different.

The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, and now we face a critical decision. Whether to be optimistic or fatalistic, whether to profess skepticism or to take action. Yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done. We urgently need facts, not opinions. Insights, not statistics. And a shift from thinking about climate change as a “me” problem to a “we” problem. The Carbon Almanac is a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration that focuses on what we know, what has come before, and what might happen next.

Climate change has been a perplexing problem for years. Casey's research into the Sun's activity, which began almost a decade ago, resulted in discovery of a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next 30 years or more. This new cold climate will dramatically impact the world's citizens.

In Healing Grounds, Liz Carlisle tells the stories of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian American farmers who are reviving their ancestors' methods of growing food—techniques long suppressed by the industrial food system. These farmers are restoring native prairies, nurturing beneficial fungi, and enriching soil health. While feeding their communities and revitalizing cultural ties to land, they are steadily stitching ecosystems back together and repairing the natural carbon cycle.

Madagascar is a place of change. A biodiversity hotspot and the fourth largest island on the planet, it has been home to a spectacular parade of animals, from giant flightless birds and giant tortoises on the ground, to agile lemurs leaping through the treetops. Some species live on, many have vanished in the distant or recent past. Over vast stretches of time, Madagascar’s forests have expanded and contracted in response to shifting climates and the hand of people is clear in changes during the last 1,000 years or so.

Himalaya is one of the world's most extraordinary geophysical, historical, environmental and social regions. Historian John Keay introduces us to the myriad mysteries of this vast, confounding and utterly fascinating corner of the planet, and makes the case that it is one of our most essential—and endangered—wonders. For centuries, Himalaya has captivated an illustrious succession of admirers, from explorers, surveyors and sportsmen, to botanists and zoologists, ethnologists and geologists, missionaries and mountaineers.

With global warming projected to rocket past the 1.5°C limit, lifelong activist Andrew Boyd is thrown into a crisis of hope, off on a quest to learn how to live with the "impossible news" of our climate doom.

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.

The weather is the foundation of our daily lives. It’s a staple of small talk, the app on our smartphones, and often the first thing we check each morning. Yet behind these quotidian interactions is one of the most expansive machines human beings have ever constructed - a triumph of science, technology, and global cooperation. But what is this "weather machine" and who created it?

In Firmament, atmospheric scientist and science communicator Simon Clark offers a rare and accessible tour of the ins and outs of the atmosphere and how we know what we know about it. From the workings of its different layers to why carbon dioxide is special, from pioneers like Pascal to the unsung heroes working in the field to help us understand climate change, Firmament introduces us to an oft-overlooked area of science and not only lays the ground work for us to better understand the debates surrounding the climate today.

A collection of The New Yorker’s groundbreaking reporting from the front lines of climate change - including writing from Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Kolbert, Ian Frazier, Kathryn Schulz, and more.

Rejecting the old Left/Right ideologies, Rand develops a more pragmatic view capable of delivering practical solutions to this critical problem. A renewed capitalism harnessed to the task is the only way we might replace fossil fuels fast enough to mitigate severe climate risk. If we leave our dogma at the door, Rand argues, we might just build an economy that survives the century.

The science is overwhelming; the facts are in. The planet is heating up at an alarming rate and the results are everywhere to be seen. Yet, as time runs out, climate progress is blocked by the men who are profiting from the burning of the planet: energy moguls like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Powerful politicians like Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe, who receive massive contributions from the oil and coal industries. Most of these men are too intelligent to truly believe that climate change is not a growing crisis.

In this highly original work of lyrical reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides listeners through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand accounts from those facing this choice with profiles of wildlife biologists and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins.

Just as World War II called an earlier generation to greatness, so the climate crisis is calling today's rising youth to action: to create a better future. In Unstoppable, Bill Nye crystallizes and expands the message for which he is best known and beloved. That message is that with a combination of optimism and scientific curiosity, all obstacles become opportunities, and the possibilities of our world become limitless.

Yes, the world faces substantial environmental challenges - climate change, pollution, and extinction. But the surprisingly good news is that we have solutions to these problems. In the past 50 years, a remarkable number of environmental problems have been solved while substantial progress is ongoing on others. The Optimistic Environmentalist chronicles these remarkable success stories. Endangered species - from bald eagles to gray whales - pulled back from the precipice of extinction.

Robin Attfield introduces environmental ethics, exploring the values involved in issues, such as pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Considering the different groups involved in environmental ethics and the attitudes of the world's religions to environmental stewardship, he calls for action from us all to manage our environment ethically.

While scientists double down on the shocking figures, we still find ourselves unable to discuss climate change meaningfully among friends and neighbours - or even to grapple with it ourselves. The key to progress on climate change is in the psychology of human attitudes and our ability to change. Whether you're already alarmed and engaged with the issue, concerned but disengaged, a passive sceptic or an active denier, understanding our emotional reactions to climate change, is critical to coping on an individual level and convincing each other to act.