Environmental Change

China is setting an example for the US - and the world - to follow. We should all take note. China has been able to manage the difficult task of reducing pollution without slowing down economic growth. What can the US take away from China’s unique experience? Although the world often pits the US against China, when it comes to saving the planet, any progress by any country in reducing emissions is good for everyone. China has presided over the fastest industrialization and the fastest cleanup in history - it is worth taking a closer look to see how we can do better.

Wie eine Mutter und ihre Tochter von Pellworm die Politik bezwungen haben. Die Nordseeinseln Pellworm ist die Heimat von Sophie und Silke Backsen. Hier werden die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels besonders spürbar: Die Insel liegt heute bereits einen Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel, jede weitere Erhöhung desselben wäre katastrophal.

Climate catastrophe-inspired narratives like “Electrify Everything!” have a grip on people’s minds. The simplicity of the solution to the most complex endeavor ever faced by humans—the journey to a net zero future—is seductive, but it is fundamentally flawed. In Path to Zero: 12 Climate Conversations That Changed the World, author Tucker Perkins takes listeners on a series of future-casting journeys from the Year 2050 back to the present day to show us how a better way—a wide path to net zero carbon emissions—was, and can be, achieved in an accelerated time frame.

Das Ziel der Pariser Klimakonferenz von 2015, die Erderwärmung auf 1,5 Grad Celsius zu beschränken, gilt für die Wissenschaft als gescheitert. Laut Weltklimarat steuert unser Planet bis zum Ende des Jahrhunderts auf eine Erwärmung von mindestens 2,8 Grad Celsius zu. Das brächte unser gesamtes Ökosystem zum Kippen und die Menschheit an den Rand der Überlebensfähigkeit: Stürme, schmelzende Polkappen, Dürren und Flutkatastrophen werden Städte und Länder bedrohen und damit den Lebensraum von Menschen und Tieren auf sämtlichen Kontinenten. Wie können wir diesen Kipppunkten entgegenwirken?

Politicians, pseudo-experts, and other partisans have led us to believe that there are only two approaches to climate change: doomerism or denial. Benji Backer, Founder and Executive Chairman of the American Conservation Coalition, argues that both are dead ends. In The Conservative Environmentalist, he delivers an entirely new strategy to take care of the planet while putting the economic interest of the American people first.

In 1996, the first independent national report on the state of Australia’s environment found that we faced serious problems. With increasing urgency, five subsequent reports declared those problems were all getting worse, each calling for immediate action to protect our future. In Australia on the Brink, Ian Lowe argues that the essential first steps in addressing these threats are stabilizing the global climate and protecting our local biota. We must also change the emphasis of resource extraction from a damaging reliance on trade to improving our capacity to meet our own needs.

Beyond Carbon Neutral: How We Fix the Climate Crisis Now details, step-by-step, what we need to do right now to avert disaster, showing that there is still hope for solving climate change. This award-winning book hopes to instill the passion and clarity for overcoming such a major problem. Author Dr. Samuel M. Goodman provides a tool to help you gain the understanding needed to advocate for a future free of this looming catastrophe in this thought-provoking work. Beyond Carbon Neutral speaks to everyone concerned about climate change.

Professor of environmental engineering Daniel Cohan argues that escaping the gravest perils of climate change will first require American diplomacy, technological innovation, and policy to catalyze decarbonization globally. Combining his own expertise along with insights from more than a hundred interviews with diplomats, scholars, and clean-technology pioneers, Cohan identifies flaws in previous efforts to combat climate change.

Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth's myriad ecosystems, including: government subsidies; regulatory-driven mitigation; voluntary conservation; water funds; market-based transactions; and bilateral and multilateral payments.

“Relax”, writes author Mary DeMocker, “this isn’t another light bulb list. It’s not another overwhelming pile of parental "to dos" designed to shrink your family’s carbon footprint through eco-superheroism.” Instead, DeMocker lays out a lively, empowering, and doable blueprint for engaging families in the urgent endeavor of climate revolution.

Conventional wisdom has North America entering a new era of energy abundance thanks to shale gas. But has industry been honest? Cold, Hungry and in the Dark argues that declining productivity combined with increasing demand will trigger a crisis that will cause prices to skyrocket, damage the economy, and have a profound impact on the lives of nearly every North American.

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.

Miami, Florida, is likely to be entirely underwater by the end of this century. Residents are already starting to see the effects of sea level rise today. From sunny day flooding caused by higher tides to a sewer system on the brink of total collapse, the city undeniably lives in a climate changed world. In Disposable City, Miami resident Mario Alejandro Ariza shows us not only what climate change looks like on the ground today, but also what Miami will look like 100 years from now, and how that future has been shaped by the city's racist past and present.

Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff’s edge is now within view.

This gripping, deeply thoughtful book considers the future of civilization in the light of what we know about climate change and related threats. David Orr, an award-winning, internationally recognized leader in the field of sustainability and environmental education, pulls no punches: Even with the Paris Agreement of 2015, Earth systems will not reach a new equilibrium for centuries.

The World We Need provides a vivid introduction to America's largely unsung grassroots environmental groups - often led by activists of color and the poor - valiantly fighting back in America's so-called sacrifice zones against industries poisoning our skies and waterways and heating our planet. Through original reporting, profiles, and interviews, we learn how these activist groups, almost always working on shoestring budgets, are devising creative new tactics.

Wir leben gesünder und länger als jede Generation vor uns. Und doch sind wir verletzlicher als gedacht: Ein Virus hält uns in Atem und ungebremst schlittern wir in die Klimakrise. Langsam dämmert uns: Gesundheit ist mehr als Pillen und Apparate. Wir Menschen brauchen, um gesund zu sein, als Allererstes etwas zu essen, zu trinken, zu atmen. Und erträgliche Außentemperaturen. Gesunde Menschen gibt es nur auf einer gesunden Erde. Eckart von Hirschhausen zeigt, was die globalen Krisen unserer Zeit für die Gesundheit von jedem Einzelnen bedeuten.

Carola Rackete traf die mutige Entscheidung, sich über das Verbot des italienischen Innenministeriums hinwegzusetzen und mit der "Sea Watch 3" den Hafen von Lampedusa anzusteuern. An Bord: 53 aus dem Mittelmeer gerettete Geflüchtete. Hier erzählt sie, warum sie sich so bedingungslos für Menschlichkeit, globale Gerechtigkeit und Naturschutz einsetzt. Denn dass Menschen aus ihrer Heimat fliehen, hängt unmittelbar mit der Klimakrise und der zunehmenden globalen Ungerechtigkeit zusammen.

Perpetually covered in ice and snow, the mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches southward toward the South Pole where it merges with the largest and coldest mass of ice anywhere on the planet. Yet far from being an otherworldly "Pole Apart", the region has the most contested political history of any part of the Antarctic Continent. In Frozen Empires, Adrian Howkins argues that there has been a fundamental continuity in the ways in which imperial powers have used the environment to support their political claims in the Antarctic Peninsula region.

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.