Climate Science

Climate crisis is the single biggest threat to human survival. And it is happening right now. We all understand that time is running out - but do we truly believe it? And, caught between the seemingly unimaginable and the apparently unthinkable, how can we take the first step towards action, to arrest our race to extinction? We can begin with our knife and fork. The link between farming animals and the climate crisis is barely discussed, because giving up our meat-based diets feels like an impossible ask. But we don't have to go cold turkey.

The ice sheets and glaciers that cover one-tenth of Earth's land surface are today in grave peril. High in the Alps, Andes, and Himalaya, once-indomitable glaciers are retreating, even dying. Meanwhile, in Antarctica, thinning glaciers may be unlocking vast quantities of methane stored for millions of years beneath the ice. In Ice Rivers, renowned glaciologist Jemma Wadham offers a searing personal account of glaciers and the rapidly unfolding crisis that they - and we - face.

This timely new book, edited by celebrated scholar Daniel C. Esty, offers fresh thinking and forward-looking solutions from environmental thought leaders across the political spectrum. The book’s 40 essays cover such subjects as ecology, environmental justice, Big Data, public health, and climate change, all with an emphasis on sustainability. This book focuses on moving toward sustainability through actionable, bipartisan approaches based on rigorous analytical research.

Flourishing in the Age of Climate Change explores skills we need to successfully navigate the distinctive environmental, social, and economic challenges of the twenty-first century. Our inability to address increasing resource constraints, social conflict, and ecological decline lead many toward a deep pessimism that saps motivation for change. Drawing on research from environmental science, ethics, psychology, sociology and educational theory, William M. Throop shows why cultivating underdeveloped skills can enable flourishing within our context.

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.

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This audiobook considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth.

In 2015, a group of young people sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights by promoting the climate catastrophe, depriving them of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. They Knew offers evidence for their claims, presenting a devastating account of the federal government's role in bringing about today's climate crisis. James Speth, tapped by the plaintiffs as an expert on climate, documents how administrations from Carter to Trump continued aggressive support of a fossil fuel-based energy system.

In this searing and insightful critique, Adrienne Buller examines the fatal biases that have shaped the response of our governing institutions to climate and environmental breakdown, and asks: are the ‘solutions’ being proposed really solutions? Tracing the intricate connections between financial power, economic injustice and ecological crisis, she exposes the myopic economism and market-centric thinking presently undermining a future where all life can flourish.

In the 1930s, the last wolves disappeared from Yellowstone National Park. Without them, elk herds overran the plains. Bears starved, rabbit families shrunk and birds flew away to new homes. Then plants and trees started to die off, too—even the flow of rivers was affected. Could the park be saved...by the wolves it had lost? After years of planning, in 1995 a team of experts was ready to find out. They carefully relocated 14 wolves from the Canadian Rockies to Yellowstone. This is the story of their homecoming.

Some climates are dry and some are wet. Some are cold and some are warm. But those words can describe weather too. Learn the difference between weather and climate. Find out how landforms and location can influence weather patterns.

Oil and Honey is McKibben's account of two necessary and mutually reinforcing sides of the global climate fight - from the center of the maelstrom and from the growing hive of small-scale local answers. With empathy and passion he makes the case for a renewed commitment on both levels, telling the story of raising one year’s honey crop and building a social movement that’s still cresting.

The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.

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.

Warmth is a new kind of book about climate change: not what it is or how we solve it, but how it feels to imagine a future - and a family - under its weight. In a fiercely personal account written from inside the climate movement, Sherrell lays bare how the crisis is transforming our relationships to time, to hope, and to each other. At once a memoir, a love letter, and an electric work of criticism, Warmth goes to the heart of the defining question of our time: how do we go on in a world that may not?

The world-renowned naturalist and conservationist Jane Goodall has spent more than a half-century warning of our impact on our planet. From her famous encounters with chimpanzees in the forests of Gombe as a young woman to her tireless campaigning for the environment in her late '80s, Jane has become the godmother to a new generation of climate activists. In The Book of Hope, Jane draws on the wisdom of a lifetime dedicated to nature to teach us how to find strength in the face of the climate crisis and explains why she still has hope for the natural world and for humanity.

We live at a time in which scientists race to reanimate extinct beasts, our most essential ecosystems require monumental engineering projects to survive, chicken breasts grow in test tubes, and multinational corporations conspire to poison the blood of every living creature. No rock, leaf, or cubic foot of air on Earth has escaped humanity's clumsy signature. The old distinctions - between natural and artificial, dystopia and utopia, science fiction and science fact - have blurred, losing all meaning. We inhabit an uncanny landscape of our own creation.

The news is full of hotly debated divergent claims about the impacts and risks of climate change. Lawrence Krauss, one of the world's most respected physicists and science populizers, cuts through the confusion by succinctly presenting the underlying science of climate change. The audiobook provides a unique, clear, accurate and easily accessible perspective of climate science and the risks of global inaction.

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.

Never have so many undertaken such a widespread, hurried attempt to remake the world. Predictably, our hubris has led to unintended—and sometimes disastrous—consequences. Over the Seawall tells us the stories behind these unintended consequences and the fixes that can do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to the reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the artificial ribbon of water supporting both farms and urban centers in parched Arizona, Stephen Robert Miller traces the histories of engineering marvels that were once deemed too smart and too big to fail.

Climate science can seem dense, remote, and abstract. But through the lens of this one tree, it becomes immediate and intimate. In Witness Tree, environmental reporter Lynda V. Mapes takes us through her year living with one red oak at the Harvard Forest. We learn about carbon cycles and leaf physiology but also experience the seasons as people have for centuries, watching for each new bud and listening for each new bird and frog call in spring.