Social Change

Lyme disease is spreading rapidly around the globe as ticks move into places they could not survive before. The first epidemic to emerge in the era of climate change, the disease infects half a million people in the US and Europe each year, and untold multitudes in Canada, China, Russia, and Australia. Mary Beth Pfeiffer shows how we have contributed to this growing menace and how modern medicine has underestimated its danger.

After decades of missed opportunities, the door to a sustainable future has closed, and the future we face now is one in which today's industrial civilization unravels in the face of uncontrolled climate change and resource depletion. What is the world going to look like when all these changes have run their course? Author John Michael Greer seeks to answer this question, and with some degree of accuracy, since civilizations tend to collapse in remarkably similar ways.

American public opinion tends to be sticky. Although the news cycle might temporarily affect the public's mood on contentious issues like abortion, the death penalty, or gun control, public opinion toward these issues has remained remarkably constant over decades. There are notable exceptions, however, particularly with regard to divisive issues that highlight identity politics. Why have people's minds changed so dramatically on this issue, and why so quickly? Listen, We Need to Talk tests a new theory about how to change people's attitudes on controversial topics.

This clearly written and engrossing book presents a global narrative of the origins of the modern world from 1400 to the present. Unlike most studies, which assume that the "rise of the West" is the story of the coming of the modern world, this history, drawing upon new scholarship on Asia, Africa, and the New World, constructs a story in which those parts of the world play major roles.

In their runaway best seller Game Change, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann captured the full drama of Barack Obama’s improbable, dazzling victory over the Clintons, John McCain, and Sarah Palin. With the same masterly reporting, unparalleled access, and narrative skill, Double Down picks up the story in the Oval Office, where the president is beset by crises both inherited and unforeseen - facing defiance from his political foes, disenchantment from the voters, disdain from the nation’s powerful money machers, and dysfunction within the West Wing.

On November 8, 2018, the people of Paradise, California, awoke to a mottled gray sky and gusty winds. Soon the Camp Fire was upon them, gobbling an acre a second. Less than two hours after the fire ignited, the town was engulfed in flames, the residents trapped in their homes and cars. By the next morning, eighty-five people were dead. As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lizzie Johnson was there as the town of Paradise burned.

In this revelatory, unnerving, and ultimately hopeful book, Bremmer details how domestic and international conflicts leave us unprepared for a trio of looming crises—global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the AI revolution. Today, Americans cannot reach consensus on any significant political issue, and US and Chinese leaders behave as if they’re locked in a new Cold War. We are squandering opportunities to meet the challenges that will soon confront us all.

Human society is full of would-be "change agents", a restless mix of campaigners, lobbyists, and officials, both individuals and organizations, set on transforming the world. They want to improve public services, reform laws and regulations, guarantee human rights, get a fairer deal for those on the sharp end, achieve greater recognition for any number of issues, or simply be treated with respect. Striking then, why so many universities lack programs for social activists, to which students can turn for advice and inspiration.

The different ways that social change happens, from unleashing to nudging to social cascades. How does social change happen? When do social movements take off? Sexual harassment was once something that women had to endure; now a movement has risen up against it. White nationalist sentiments, on the other hand, were largely kept out of mainstream discourse; now there is no shortage of media outlets for them. In this book, with the help of behavioral economics, psychology and other fields, Cass Sunstein casts a bright new light on how change happens.

Getting heard is a tricky business: It’s what you say and how you show up, filtered through your audience’s assumptions and biases—and maybe even your own. For women, people of color, immigrants, and queer folks, there’s often a dissonance between how you speak and how we collectively think powerful people should speak: like the wealthy white men who’ve historically been in charge. But, fortunately, the sound of power is changing.

Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs' 14 years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and as special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, The Age of Sustainable Development is a landmark publication and a clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

Why is it so hard to change problem behavior - in our kids, our colleagues, and even ourselves? Conventional methods often backfire, creating a downward spiral of resentment and frustration, and a missed opportunity for growth. What if the thinking behind these old methods is wrong? What if people don’t misbehave because they want to, but because they lack the skills to do better? Or as renowned psychologist J. Stuart Ablon asks, what if changing problem behavior is a matter of skill, not will?

In today’s political climate, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Isolated, doom scrolling, lacking a sense of purpose or community...it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the dire state of American democracy and do nothing, because why try when the odds are never in our favor?

Providing a post-COP26 perspective on the climate emergency, Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide acknowledges that it is now practically impossible to keep this side of the 1.5°C dangerous climate change guardrail. The upshot is that we can no longer dodge the arrival of a disastrous, all-pervasive climate breakdown that will come. Bill McGuire explains the science behind the climate crisis, painting a blunt but authentic picture of the sort of world our children will grow old in, and our grandchildren grow up in, a world that we catch only glimpses of today.

Every single one of us has a calling. For most it’s the thing you have to force yourself not to do. When you try to ignore it, you can’t stop thinking about. It is the thing that both terrifies you and brings you the most joy. Already living yours? Great! How do you make the most of it? The Calling will provide listeners with a road map, via 3 fundamental shifts, on how to stay true, get paid and do good.

In today’s society, games are fulfilling real human needs in ways that reality is not. Hundreds of millions of people globally - 174 million in the United States alone - regularly inhabit game worlds because they provide the rewards, stimulating challenges and epic victories that are so often lacking in the real world. Jane McGonigal argues that we need to figure out how to make the real world—our homes, our businesses and our communities—engage us in the way that games do.

Introducing "Social Media Influencer: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Profitable Social Media Influencer Career" - your indispensable blueprint designed to navigate the intricacies of the social media landscape effectively. This guide is enriched with strategies endorsed by industry experts, beneficial for both novices and veterans in the influencer domain, aiming to guide you through the competitive social media environment.

Drought-hit regions bleeding those who for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades.

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.

What hidden skill links successful people in all walks of life? What helps them make smart decisions? The answer is surprisingly simple: They know how to ask the right questions at the right time. Questions help us break down barriers, discover secrets, solve puzzles, and imagine new ways of doing things. But few of us know how to question in a methodical way. Emmy-award-winning journalist and media expert Frank Sesno aims to change that with Ask More.