Climate Politics

The world must reach negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Yet no single plan has addressed the full scope of the problem - until now. In The 100% Solution, Solomon Goldstein-Rose - a leading millennial climate activist and a former Massachusetts state representative - makes clear what needs to happen to hit the 2050 target: the manufacturing booms we must spur, the moonshot projects we must fund, the amount of CO2 we'll have to sequester from the atmosphere, and much more.

With the new edition of Unsettled, Steven Koonin draws on decades of experience—including as a top science advisor to the Obama administration—to clear away the fog and explain what science really says (and doesn’t say). With a new introduction, this edition now features reflections on an additional three years of eye-opening data, alternatives to unrealistic “net zero” solutions, global energy inequalities, and the energy crisis arising from the war in Ukraine.

Spanning millennia and continents, here is a stunningly revealing history of how the distribution of water has shaped human civilization. Giulio Boc­caletti - honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Univer­sity of Oxford - shrewdly combines environmental and social history, beginning with the earliest civ­ilizations of sedentary farmers on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates Rivers.

In a collection of original essays, the venerated television journalist, Dan Rather, celebrates our shared values and what matters most in our great country, and shows us what patriotism looks like. Writing about the institutions that sustain us, such as public libraries, public schools, and national parks; the values that have transformed us, such as the struggle for civil rights; and the drive toward science and innovation that has made the US great, Rather brings his experience on the frontlines of the world's biggest stories, and offers listeners a way forward.

A former endangered species biologist looks at the ongoing sixth mass extinction through the prism of human behavior, personal experience, ecology, evolutionary biology, and contemporary conservation efforts. He provides new insights into factors triggering the current mass extinction event and examines conventional wisdom regarding human intelligence. The author suggests—as humanity edges ever closer to disappearing forever—a clear-eyed, real-world rationale for resignation but also acceptance.

Bright Green Lies exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of leading environmental groups and their most prominent cheerleaders. The best-known environmentalists are not in the business of speaking truth, or even holding up rational solutions to blunt the impending ecocide, but instead indulge in a mendacious and self-serving delusion that provides comfort at the expense of reality. They fail to state the obvious: We cannot continue to wallow in hedonistic consumption and industrial expansion and survive as a species.

Cet ouvrage se positionne comme un guide essentiel pour comprendre les défis du XXIe siècle, offrant une analyse critique et complète de la crise climatique et de ses profondes implications politiques, économiques et sociales. Avec une approche multidisciplinaire, le livre explore les intersections entre le changement climatique, la géopolitique, l'économie mondiale et la justice intergénérationnelle, s'imposant comme une référence cruciale dans le débat actuel.

This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.

Taking listeners from the melting Alaskan permafrost to storm-torn New Orleans, acclaimed journalist Elizabeth Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science, draws frightening parallels to lost civilizations, and presents the moving tales of people who are watching their worlds disappear.

Human history mirrors the history of climate change. Human origins, for example, can be traced to five million years ago when the climate of East Africa became progressively hotter and drier. This caused the lush tropical jungles to disappear and be replaced by arid plains and savannahs. Our pre-human ancestors learned to exploit those new ecosystems by gathering the seed-bearing grasses, nuts, and tubers that thrived in these semi-arid conditions. Also, by foraging in the heat of the day, proto-humans could minimize unwelcome contact with nocturnal predators.

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.

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.

Man-made climate change may have began in the last 200 years, but humankind has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty: once-mighty civilizations felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: history. The study of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the past 10 years, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years and see just how civilizations and nature interacted.

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.

One of the essential books of our time, Reclaiming the Sacred draws on the work of thousands of psychologists and economists, cosmologists and activists, saints and poets to ground us in our inherent joy, purpose, and belonging—both for our own sakes and the sake of the world. It starts with an overview of the science of happiness, highlighting the things that most nourish human well-being—and some that don’t, most notably money and possessions.

Everything you've been told about being green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100-mpg car is a dangerous fantasy. We are consumers, and we like to consume greenly and efficiently. But David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross-purposes to our true goal: living sustainably while caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem - we have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption.

We've been "saving the planet" for decades...and environmental crises just get worse. All this hybrid driving and LEED building and carbon trading seems to accomplish little to nothing - and low-income communities continue to suffer the worst consequences. Why aren't we cleaning up the toxic messes and rolling back climate change? And why do so many Americans hate environmentalists? Jenny Price says Enough already! with this short, fun, fierce manifesto for an environmentalism that is hugely more effective, a whole lot fairer, and infinitely less righteous.

In Revolutionary Power, Shalanda Baker arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. She argues that people of color, poor people, and indigenous people must engage in the creation of the new energy system in order to upend the unequal power dynamics of the current system.

This essay summarizes the fundamental physics of climate change, and provides commentary on some of the political controversy surrounding it.

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.