Posts tagged with "Climate change"

Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present
Philipp Blom

Book Climate change

Citing 17th-century culture shifts, an author implicates climate in human destiny

30 January, 2019

We tend to talk about climate change in terms of its tangible effects—for example, about how too much CO2 in the atmosphere is fueling wildfires and accelerating sea rise. And although we note how it is beginning to cause migrations of people around the globe, we have yet to truly grapple with how it is… Read More
Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
Mary Robinson

Book Climate change, Science policy

In dispatches from the front lines of global warming, a former president pushes for humane climate policies

27 August, 2018

One of the cruelest ironies of today’s world is that many of the nations least responsible for causing climate change find themselves most affected. Widely fluctuating weather patterns and rising seas caused by melting glaciers are already displacing millions of people, endangering food security, increasing epidemics, and destabilizing political systems in these areas, most of… Read More
Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island
Earl Swift

Book Climate change, Science policy

Convinced erosion, not climate change, threatens their island, a community grapples with an uncertain future

13 August, 2018

Tangier Island, located in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, is one of the mainstays of the region’s blue crab fishery. No location on the small island is more than 5 feet above sea level, and two-thirds of its land mass has been lost since 1850. Much of its upland is being converted to tidal marsh… Read More
Brave New Arctic: The Untold Story of the Melting North
Mark C. Serreze

Book Climate change, Polar Studies

A researcher collects accounts of scientists’ first inklings that the Arctic was in trouble

19 March, 2018

We often think of the Arctic as a cold landscape of sea ice, permafrost, glaciers, and snow. But it’s also a canary in a coal mine: It’s warming faster than the rest of Earth because of positive feedback cycles built into its interlinked climate-ice-ocean systems. This rapid change has global implications, some of which we… Read More
Beyond Politics: The Private Governance Response to Climate Change
Michael P. Vandenbergh and Jonathan M. Gilligan

Book Climate change

Faced with government inaction, private firms emerge as major players in climate change mitigation

18 December, 2017

For decades, most scholars and policy-makers have assumed that serious solutions to the problem of global climate change will require highly effective government. According to this perspective, only government can represent the broadest public interest. Only government can mandate deep cuts in emissions and work with other governments around the world to achieve international coordination… Read More
Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
Chris D. Thomas

Book Adaptation, Biodiversity, Climate change

A provocative treatise argues that, for many species, the era of extinction may be all right

29 August, 2017

Way back at the turn of the millennium, political scientist and climate provocateur Bjorn Lomborg pointed out with some satisfaction that the island of Puerto Rico, despite very extensive deforestation and land conversion, was home to more bird species than ever before (1). Some 10 years later, a pair of high-profile studies offered a surprising… Read More
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power
Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, directors

Film Climate change, Documentary Film

Al Gore’s climate activism takes center stage once again

24 July, 2017

An Inconvenient Sequel, directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, offers a snapshot of the superstorms, global summits, and political shake-ups that have occurred in the decade since the premiere of the groundbreaking climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Widely credited with having helped to bring global warming to the fore in public policy discussions… Read More
Rising Tides: Climate Refugees in the Twenty-First Century
John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins

Book Climate change, Migration

Extrapolating beyond current scientific predictions, an urgent treatise anticipates millions of climate migrants

5 July, 2017

Under a changing climate, the likelihood of extreme weather events will increase, affecting people’s lives all around the globe. Some areas will likely become unlivable or insufficient to support livelihoods, meaning many may choose to or be forced to leave their homes and move elsewhere. In Rising Tides, John Wennersten and Denise Robbins focus on… Read More
Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
Paul Hawken, Ed.

Book Climate change, Global Warming Mitigation

An ambitious plan to leverage existing solutions to global warming is short on analytic rigor

23 May, 2017

In Drawdown, entrepreneur Paul Hawken and colleagues introduce an ambitious project to build a social movement around a science-based plan to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The new volume is a handsome collection of short essays identifying what Hawken and his collaborators believe to be the 80 most effective actions that… Read More
Film Climate change, Geopolitics

The Age of Consequences

1 May, 2017

Admirals, generals, and veterans are an unlikely bunch to interview for a documentary about global warming. However, in director Jared Scott’s brilliant new work, the focus isn’t on how human activity contributes to climate change but rather how climate change contributes to human activity, rendering these individuals—who have witnessed, analyzed, or offered strategic advice on… Read More