Making Climate Change History PDF Download

Author: Joshua P. Howe
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295741406
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
This collection pulls together key documents from the scientific and political history of climate change, including congressional testimony, scientific papers, newspaper editorials, court cases, and international declarations. Far more than just a compendium of source materials, the book uses these documents as a way to think about history, while at the same time using history as a way to approach the politics of climate change from a new perspective. Making Climate Change History provides the necessary background to give readers the opportunity to pose critical questions and create plausible answers to help them understand climate change in its historical context; it also illustrates the relevance of history to building effective strategies for dealing with the climatic challenges of the future.

Author: Richard J. Lazarus
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674238125
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A renowned Supreme Court advocate tells the inside story of Massachusetts v. EPA, the landmark case that made it possible for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses--from the Bush administration's fierce opposition, to the internecine conflicts among the petitioners, to the razor-thin 5-4 victory.

Author: Bill Gates
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385546149
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • In this urgent, authoritative book, Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible—plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. Drawing on his understanding of innovation and what it takes to get new ideas into the market, he describes the areas in which technology is already helping to reduce emissions, where and how the current technology can be made to function more effectively, where breakthrough technologies are needed, and who is working on these essential innovations. Finally, he lays out a concrete, practical plan for achieving the goal of zero emissions—suggesting not only policies that governments should adopt, but what we as individuals can do to keep our government, our employers, and ourselves accountable in this crucial enterprise. As Bill Gates makes clear, achieving zero emissions will not be simple or easy to do, but if we follow the plan he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.

Author: Benjamin Lieberman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350170364
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Climate Change and Human History provides a concise introduction to the relationship between human beings and climate change throughout history. Starting hundreds of thousands of years ago and going up to the present day, this book illustrates how natural climate variability affected early human societies and how human activity is now leading to drastic changes to our climate. Taking a chronological approach the authors explain how climate change created opportunities and challenges for human societies in each major time period, covering themes such as phases of climate and history, climate shocks, the rise and fall of civilizations, industrialization, accelerating climate change and our future outlook. This 2nd edition includes a new chapter on the explosion of social movements, protest groups and key individuals since 2017 and the implications this has had on the history of climate change, an improved introduction to the Anthropocene and extra content on the basic dynamics of the climate system alongside updated historiography. With more case studies, images and individuals throughout the text, the second edition also includes a glossary of terms and further reading to aid students in understanding this interdisciplinary subject. An ideal companion for all students of environmental history, Climate Change and Human History clearly demonstrates the critical role of climate in shaping human history and of the experience of humans in both adapting to and shaping climate change.

Author: Joshua P. Howe
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295805099
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
In 1958, Charles David Keeling began measuring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. His project kicked off a half century of research that has expanded our knowledge of climate change. Despite more than fifty years of research, however, our global society has yet to find real solutions to the problem of global warming. Why? In Behind the Curve, Joshua Howe attempts to answer this question. He explores the history of global warming from its roots as a scientific curiosity to its place at the center of international environmental politics. The book follows the story of rising CO2—illustrated by the now famous Keeling Curve—through a number of historical contexts, highlighting the relationships among scientists, environmentalists, and politicians as those relationships changed over time. The nature of the problem itself, Howe explains, has privileged scientists as the primary spokespeople for the global climate. But while the “science first” forms of advocacy they developed to fight global warming produced more and better science, the primacy of science in global warming politics has failed to produce meaningful results. In fact, an often exclusive focus on science has left advocates for change vulnerable to political opposition and has limited much of the discussion to debates about the science itself. As a result, while we know much more about global warming than we did fifty years ago, CO2 continues to rise. In 1958, Keeling first measured CO2 at around 315 parts per million; by 2013, global CO2 had soared to 400 ppm. The problem is not getting better - it's getting worse. Behind the Curve offers a critical and levelheaded look at how we got here.

Author: Anya Zilberstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190206594
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
"A Temperate Empire explores the ways that colonists studied and tried to remake local climates in New England and Nova Scotia according to their plans for settlement and economic growth."--

Author: The Royal Society
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309302021
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
Climate Change: Evidence and Causes is a jointly produced publication of The US National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society. Written by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists and reviewed by climate scientists and others, the publication is intended as a brief, readable reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and other individuals seeking authoritative information on the some of the questions that continue to be asked. Climate Change makes clear what is well-established and where understanding is still developing. It echoes and builds upon the long history of climate-related work from both national academies, as well as on the newest climate-change assessment from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It touches on current areas of active debate and ongoing research, such as the link between ocean heat content and the rate of warming.

Author: Anthony J. McMichael
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190262958
Category : Climate and civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
When we think of "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to the climate's vicissitudes. Anthony J. McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal person to tell this story. Climate Change and the Health of Nations shows how the natural environment has vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. McMichael takes us on a tour of human history through the lens of major transformations in climate. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved in response to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too adapted in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. Agricultural civilization was a Faustian bargain, however: the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable. Indeed, for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the "Goldilocks phenomenon." Global warming is disrupting this balance, just as other climate-related upheavals have tested human societies throughout history. As McMichael shows, the break-up of the Roman Empire, the bubonic Plague of Justinian, and the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilization all have roots in climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the daunting future of climate change is already here? Because the story of mankind�s previous survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also an urgent call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.

Author: James Rodger Fleming
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199885095
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems.

Author: Alex Standish
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781788561983
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
There's no Planet B. Climate change is happening, and no one is more ready to tackle this issue than kids. In recent times, discussion of climate change and its effects has begun to cause fear and anxiety in many young people. This new book--produced with assistance from the Royal Geographical Society of the UK--gives an evidence-based, informative, and calm overview of what's happened in Earth's past. This book also examines what's happening now, what could happen in the future, and what kids, adults, and governments worldwide can do to help protect our planet. Plenty of science mixed with practical tips will help everyone make sense of climate change.