Environmental Change

For billions of years, microbes have produced and consumed greenhouse gases that regulate global temperature and in turn other aspects of our climate. The balance of these gases maintains Earth's habitability. Methane, a greenhouse gas produced only by microbes, may have kept Earth out of a deep freeze billions of years ago. Likewise, variations in carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas released by microbes and other organisms, help to explain the comings and goings of ice ages over the last million years. Now we face a human-made climate crisis with drastic consequences.

The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, and now we face a critical decision. Whether to be optimistic or fatalistic, whether to profess skepticism or to take action. Yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done. We urgently need facts, not opinions. Insights, not statistics. And a shift from thinking about climate change as a “me” problem to a “we” problem. The Carbon Almanac is a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration that focuses on what we know, what has come before, and what might happen next.

Every day we hear terrifying stories of prolonged droughts, heat waves, torrential floods, deepfreezes & hurricanes on the news. Every new year these weather phenomena become more extreme & unpredictable, it appears that mother nature grows angrier every new coming day. What more evidence do people need to fully believe that the climate is not just changing but has already changed for the worse. Hurricanes, tornadoes & typhoons are showing up in places they have never been before, & happening more frequently, they unleash the full wrath of mother nature onto the inhabitants of the coasts ...

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.

Bestselling author and renowned economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin delivers the political narrative, technical framework, and economic plan for the debate now taking center stage across America. The concurrence of a stranded fossil fuel assets bubble and a green political vision opens up the possibility of a massive global paradigm shift into a post-carbon ecological era, hopefully in time to prevent a temperature rise that will tip us over the edge into runaway climate change.

In a time awash with headlines about melting ice, raging wildfires, and species on the brink, it’s no wonder that many people feel overwhelmed. Rising Above: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Climate Anxiety and Finding Hope in a Changing World helps you navigate the emotional challenges of environmental crises with greater clarity, resilience, and purpose. Rather than offering simplistic fixes or empty platitudes, this guide embraces complexity, showing that facing difficult truths can deepen both your understanding and your moral courage. This book begins by reframing eco-anxiety as a ...

In the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that the effects of accelerating climate change will be catastrophic, from rising seas to more violent storms to desertification. Yet why do nation-states find it so difficult to implement transnational policies that can reduce carbon output and slow global warming? In Oceans Rise, Empires Fall, Gerard Toal identifies geopolitics as the culprit.

Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.

In The Big Fix, energy policy advisor Hal Harvey and longtime New York Times reporter Justin Gillis offer a new, hopeful way to engage with one of the greatest problems of our age. Writing in a lively, accessible style, the pair illuminate how the really big decisions that affect our climate get made—whether by the most obscure public utilities commissions or in the lofty halls of state capitols—and reveal how each of us can influence these decisions to deliver change.

A Call to Action for a Planet in Crisis In an era where wildfires rage with unprecedented intensity, landscapes are stripped of life, and ecosystems teeter on the brink of collapse, Preventing Wildfires, Healing Landscapes, and Restoring Ecosystems: Reviving Earth's Balance offers a transformative vision for our planet's future. This is not just a book; it is a rallying cry for individuals, communities, and leaders to embrace their collective power to heal the Earth and secure a thriving future for generations to come. Harnessing Nature's Wisdom Drawing upon the latest scientific insights, ...

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change.

Time is running out in our fight against climate change! As carbon emissions rise and temperatures soar, the world is inching closer to irreversible damage. Discover the power of nuclear energy to save our planet and secure a sustainable future. In ATOMIC GREEN, Mary Fran Reed, PhD—an expert in nuclear science and emergency response—delivers a transformative exploration of how nuclear energy can combat the devastating effects of global warming. Drawing on decades of experience, Dr. Reed dismantles widespread myths about nuclear power and presents its undeniable potential to reduce ...

Burning fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global warming: this is what top American oil executives were told by scientists in 1959. But they ignored that warning. Instead, they developed one of the biggest, most polluting oil sources in the world—the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. As investigative journalist Geoff Dembicki reveals in this explosive book, the decades-long conspiracy to keep the oil sands flowing into the US would turn out to be one of the biggest reasons for the world's failure to stop the climate crisis.

As a journalist on the climate security beat, Peter Schwartzstein has been chased by kidnappers, badly beaten, detained by police, and told, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer welcome in certain countries. Yet these personal brushes with violence are simply a hint of the conflict simmering in our warming world. Schwartzstein has visited ravaged Iraqi towns where ISIS used drought as a recruiting tool and weapon of terror. And he has heard the fear in the voices of women from around the world who say their husbands' tempers flare when the temperature ticks up.

Sixteen-year-old climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez and his group the Earth Guardians believe that choices made now will have a lasting impact on the world of tomorrow, and they want to ensure a positive, just, and sustainable future. Beginning with their empowering story, We Rise explores many aspects of effective activism and provides step-by-step information on how to start and join solution-oriented movements.

The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried about climate change - still linked, for many people, with polar bears and coral reefs. Yet, of all the major institutions in American society, none take climate change as seriously as the US military. Drawing on previously obscure reports and government documents, renowned security expert Michael Klare shows that the US military sees the climate threat as imperiling the country on several fronts at once.

The future of the environment ...plays out on a remote stage.As Jake Maguire, a young FBI special agent, sets out to investigate the murder of a celebrity environmentalist in far-off Mongolia, he finds himself in a race against time. With mining interests and a desperate killer hot on his tail, Jake must use all of his skills and training to unravel the mystery and prevent a lovely and intrepid investigative journalist from walking into danger. With nonstop action and edge-of-your-seat suspense, Murder in Mongolia is a thrilling tale of crime and international intrigue that will keep you ...

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, shares what he has learnt in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address climate problems. He explains how the world can work to build the tools it needs to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions - investing in research, inventing new technologies and deploying them quickly at a large scale. Gates is optimistic that the world can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

This damning account of the forces that have hijacked progress on climate change shares a bold vision of what it will take, politically and economically, to face the existential threat of global warming head-on.

Six days after giving birth, a polar bear named Aurora got up and walked away from her den at the Columbus Zoo, leaving her tiny squealing cub to fend for herself. Hours later, Aurora still hadn’t returned. The cub was furless and blind, and with her temperature dropping dangerously, the zookeepers entrusted with her care felt they had no choice: They would have to raise one of the most dangerous predators in the world by hand. Over the next few weeks, a group of veterinarians and zookeepers worked around the clock to save the cub, whom they called Nora.