Climate Engineering

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.

The coal-mining town of Fushun in China’s Northeast is home to a monstrous open pit. First excavated in the early twentieth century, this pit grew like a widening maw over the ensuing decades, as various Chinese and Japanese states endeavored to unearth Fushun’s purportedly “inexhaustible” carbon resources. Today, the depleted mine that remains is a wondrous and terrifying monument to fantasies of a fossil-fueled future and the technologies mobilized in attempts to turn those developmentalist dreams into reality.

Women are disproportionately impacted by climate change. In some cases, women make up almost 90 percent of casualties during dangerous climate events, and the majority of those displaced in the aftermath are women. Despite this disparity, women are underrepresented at every level of decision-making about the future of our planet. In Intertwined, writer and wildlife biologist Rebecca Kormos elevates the voices of women working to prevent the climate crisis, weaving together their stories to make a powerful case for why women are essential to changing our current trajectory.

When it comes to climate-change-inspired threats, it is rising sea levels we hear most about. But if the oceans are, as Herman Melville put it, “the tide-beating heart of the Earth”, rivers are its circulatory system. In the United States, there is no river more storied, symbolic, and vital than the Mississippi, and none, to use Mark Twain’s word, more lawless. The struggle to control it has been going on nearly as long as there has been human civilization on its banks, and the attendant drama and dangers have been memorialized by many writers.

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.

Five Times Faster is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganize our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.

A world-leading sport ecologist, Madeleine interviews athletes, coaches, politicians and thought-leaders to learn more about the inevitable consequences for this trillion-dollar industry. From the front lines of climate change, Warming Up takes listeners through a play-by-play of how global warming is already impacting sport, and how the sports world can fight back.

The international scientific consensus is that we have less than a decade to drastically slash our collective carbon emissions to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees and avert catastrophe. This means that many of us have to cut our individual carbon footprints by over 80 percent to 2.5 tons per person per year by 2030. But where to start? Grounded in meticulous research and yet accessible to all, Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle is a journey toward a life of quality over quantity and sufficiency over efficiency as we race to save our only home from catastrophic heating.

In this provocative manifesto, Assaad Razzouk shows that for too long our ideas about what's best for the environment have been unfocused and distracted, trying to go in too many directions and concentrating on individual behavior. While some of these things can be useful, they are dwarfed by one big thing that simply has to happen very soon if we're to avoid major environmental breakdown: curtailing the activities of the fossil fuel industry.

In 2015, world leaders came together in Paris and signed an agreement to save the planet. Ten years later, we have made little progress on the ground, and the climate crisis is worse than ever. We've mostly figured out what we need to do, but not how to get it done—and time is running out. In this groundbreaking new book, World Resources Institute President and CEO Ani Dasgupta explores how to orchestrate change at speed and scale.

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.

Heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes and flooding caused by climate change are already impacting people and nature. Adaptation until now has been incremental with governments and institutions tinkering around the edges of current systems. This will not be enough. Sink or Swim explores the hard choices that lie ahead concerning how people earn a living, the way governments manage relationships between countries, and how communities accommodate the movement of people. Should people be encouraged to move away from the coast?

Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Gharaib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new...

Most of us recognize that climate change is real yet we do nothing to stop it. What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall’s search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize-winning psychologists and Texas Tea Party activists; the world’s leading climate scientists and those who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals. What he discovers is that our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, gaining authority as they are shared.

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.

Filled with catchall research, American Hemp examines what this new domestic crop can be used for, what makes it a superior product, and what made it illegal in the first place; the book also delves into the many health and medical benefits of the plant. Hobbs weighs in on how hemp can improve existing industries, from farming to energy to 3D printing, plus how it can make a serious impact on climate change by removing toxins from the soil and by decreasing our dependence on plastics and fossil fuels.

Réchauffement climatique, extinction de centaines de milliers d'espèces, pollutions globales, guerres de l'eau et d'autres ressources, migrations massives... tous ces dangers convergent et se démultiplient en un péril unique que certains ont commencé à envisager : celui d'un effondrement global de la civilisation, voire de la biosphère elle-même, engagée dans une tragique "sixième extinction". Première grande synthèse sur cette question d'urgence, quarante spécialistes de toutes disciplines nous livrent ici le fruit de leurs travaux.

Rethinking Readiness offers an expert introduction to human-made threats and vulnerabilities, with a focus on opportunities to reimagine how we approach disaster preparedness. Jeff Schlegelmilch identifies and explores the most critical threats facing the world today, detailing the dangers of pandemics, climate change, infrastructure collapse, cyberattacks, and nuclear conflict. Drawing on the latest research from leading experts, he provides an accessible overview of the causes and potential effects of these looming megadisasters.

Over his long career as witness to an extreme 20th century, National Book Award-winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual Robert Jay Lifton has grappled with the profound effects of nuclear war, terrorism, and genocide. Now he shifts to climate change, which, Lifton writes, "presents us with what may be the most demanding and unique psychological task ever required of humankind" - what he describes as the task of mobilizing our imaginative resources toward climate sanity.

Energy is vital for a good standard of living, and much of the world's population does not have enough. Affordable and adequate sources of power that do not cause climate change or pollution are crucial; and renewables provide the answer. Wind and solar farms can now provide the cheapest electricity in many parts of the world. Moreover, they could provide all of the world's energy needs.