Living with the Climate Crisis

Living with the Climate Crisis

Author: Patrick Crewdson

Publisher: Bridget Williams Books

Published: 2020-09-12

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 1988587506

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‘It is there, in the background. Always. Increasingly urgent. Its ominous hum is the soundtrack to every other story we tell.’ The devastating summer of Australian bushfires underlined a terrifying sense of a world pushed to the brink. Then came Covid-19, and with it another dramatic lurch away from business as usual. Some observers are worried that the all-consuming effort to control the pandemic will distract us from the long-term challenge of limiting catastrophic climate change. At the same time, many people are hoping for a ‘green Covid-19 recovery’: a cleaner, fairer and safer world. This BWB Text brings together mātauranga Māori and Pasifika perspectives, voices from academia, activism, journalism and economics to bear witness to these troubled times.


Living in Denial

Living in Denial

Author: Kari Marie Norgaard

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-03-11

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0262294982

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An analysis of why people with knowledge about climate change often fail to translate that knowledge into action. Global warming is the most significant environmental issue of our time, yet public response in Western nations has been meager. Why have so few taken any action? In Living in Denial, sociologist Kari Norgaard searches for answers to this question, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data from her study of "Bygdaby," the fictional name of an actual rural community in western Norway, during the unusually warm winter of 2000-2001. In 2000-2001 the first snowfall came to Bygdaby two months later than usual; ice fishing was impossible; and the ski industry had to invest substantially in artificial snow-making. Stories in local and national newspapers linked the warm winter explicitly to global warming. Yet residents did not write letters to the editor, pressure politicians, or cut down on use of fossil fuels. Norgaard attributes this lack of response to the phenomenon of socially organized denial, by which information about climate science is known in the abstract but disconnected from political, social, and private life, and sees this as emblematic of how citizens of industrialized countries are responding to global warming. Norgaard finds that for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of Bygdaby, global warming was both common knowledge and unimaginable. Norgaard traces this denial through multiple levels, from emotions to cultural norms to political economy. Her report from Bygdaby, supplemented by comparisons throughout the book to the United States, tells a larger story behind our paralysis in the face of today's alarming predictions from climate scientists.


Living with Climate Change

Living with Climate Change

Author: Jane A. Bullock

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-08-02

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1040084206

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The climate has changed and communities across America are living with the consequences: rapid sea level rise, multi-state wildfires, heat waves, and enduring drought. Living with Climate Change: How Communities Are Surviving and Thriving in a Changing Climate details the steps cities are taking now to protect lives and businesses, to reduce their vulnerability, and to adapt and make themselves more resilient. The authors included in this book have been directly involved in the successful design and implementation of community-based adaptation and resilience programs.


Learning to Live with Climate Change

Learning to Live with Climate Change

Author: Blanche Verlie

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-16

Total Pages: 85

ISBN-13: 1000438430

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This imaginative and empowering book explores the ways that our emotions entangle us with climate change and offers strategies for engaging with climate anxiety that can contribute to social transformation. Climate educator Blanche Verlie draws on feminist, more-than-human and affect theories to argue that people in high-carbon societies need to learn to ‘live-with’ climate change: to appreciate that human lives are interconnected with the climate, and to cultivate the emotional capacities needed to respond to the climate crisis. Learning to Live with Climate Change explores the cultural, interpersonal and sociological dimensions of ecological distress. The book engages with Australia’s 2019/2020 ‘Black Summer’ of bushfires and smoke, undergraduate students’ experiences of climate change, and contemporary activist movements such as the youth strikes for climate. Verlie outlines how we can collectively attune to, live with, and respond to the unsettling realities of climate collapse while counteracting domineering ideals of ‘climate control.’ This impressive and timely work is both deeply philosophical and immediately practical. Its accessible style and real-world relevance ensure it will be valued by those researching, studying and working in diverse fields such as sustainability education, climate communication, human geography, cultural studies, environmental sociology and eco-psychology, as well as the broader public. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367441265, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.


Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle

Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle

Author: Lloyd Alter

Publisher: New Society Publishers

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 1771423536

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Stop thinking about efficiency and start thinking about sufficiency Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle reveals the carbon cost of everything we do, identifying where we can make big reductions, while not sweating the small stuff. 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% to 2.5 tonnes per person per year by 2030. But where to start? Drawing on Lloyd Alter's journey to track his daily carbon emissions and live the 1.5 degree lifestyle, coverage includes: What it looks like to live a rich and truly green life From take-out food, to bikes and cars, to your internet usage – finding the big wins, ignoring the trivial, and spotting marketing ploys The invisible embodied carbon baked into everything we own and why electric cars aren't the answer How to start thinking about sufficiency rather than efficiency The roles of individuals versus governments and corporations. 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.


Christianity, Climate Change, and Sustainable Living

Christianity, Climate Change, and Sustainable Living

Author: Nick Spencer

Publisher: Brazos Press

Published: 2009-12-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781587433061

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What should Christians do to protect the Earth and its people? Amounts and patterns of consumption and production in the West have reached a level that cannot be maintained. Lifestyles based on our present way of creating and using energy are no longer environmentally sustainable--and are threatening the health and well-being of both planet and people. Our activities and the policies that shape them need to change. In light of those realities, Spencer, White, and Vroblesky offer serious Christian engagement with the emerging issue of Sustainable Consumption and Production. They analyze the scientific, sociological, economic, and theological thinking that makes a Christian response to these trends imperative and distinctive. And they offer practical conclusions that explore and explain what can be done at the personal, community, national, and international levels to ensure that next generations will have the resources necessary for life. Firmly rooted in the good news of the Christian faith, this is, above all, a constructive and hopeful book that offers a realistic vision of what the future could and should look like. This book is endorsed by A Rocha: Christians in Conservation, The Jubliee Centre, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, and The Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies.


Life in the Hothouse

Life in the Hothouse

Author: Melanie Lenart

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0816570000

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In this insightful, compelling, and highly readable work, Melanie Lenart, an award-winning journalist and science writer who holds a PhD in Natural Resources and Global Change, examines global warming with the trained eye of a professional scientist. And she presents the science in a clear, straightforward manner. Why does the planet’s warming produce stronger hurricanes, rising seas, and larger floods? Simple, says Lenart. The Earth is just doing what comes naturally. Just as humans produce sweat to cool off on a hot day, the planet produces hurricanes, floods, wetlands, and forests to cool itself off. Life in the Hothouse incorporates Lenart’s extensive knowledge of climate science—including the latest research in climate change—and the most current scientific theories, including Gaia theory, which holds that the Earth has some degree of climate control “built in.” As Lenart points out, scientists have been documenting stronger hurricanes and larger floods for many years. There is a good reason for this, she notes. Hurricanes help cool the ocean surface and clear the air of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. From the perspective of Gaia theory, these responses are helping to slow the ongoing global warming and Lenart expounds upon this in a clear and understandable fashion. There is hope, Lenart writes. If we help sustain Earth's natural defense systems, including wetlands and forests, perhaps Mother Earth will no longer need to rely as much on the cooling effects of what we call "natural disasters"—many of which carry a human fingerprint. At a minimum, she argues, these systems can help us survive the heat.


Investing in the Era of Climate Change

Investing in the Era of Climate Change

Author: Bruce Usher

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-09-28

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 023155382X

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A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital. Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy. Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity. Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change.


How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

Author: Bill Gates

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0735280452

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this urgent, singularly 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 an irreversible climate catastrophe. Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help and guidance of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science and finance, he has focused on exactly what must be done in order to stop the planet's slide toward certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only gathers together all the information we need to fully grasp how important it is that we work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases but also details exactly what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal. He gives us a clear-eyed description of the challenges we face. 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 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 by following the guidelines he sets out here, it is a goal firmly within our reach.


What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming

What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming

Author: Per Espen Stoknes

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1603585834

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"Today, about 98 percent of scientists affirm that climate change is human made, and about 2 percent still question it. Despite that overwhelming majority, though, about half the population of rich countries, like ours, choose to believe the 2 percent. And, paradoxically, this large camp of deniers grows even larger as more and more alarming proof of climate change has cropped up over the last decades. This disconnect has both climate scientists and activists scratching their heads, growing anxious, and responding, usually, by repeating more facts to 'win' the argument. But, the more climate facts pile up, the greater the resistance to them grows, and the harder it becomes to enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare communities for the inevitable change ahead. Is humanity up to the task? It is a catch-22 that starts, says psychologist and climate expert Per Espen Stoknes, from an inadequate understanding of the way most humans think, act, and live in the world around them. With dozens of examples, he shows how to retell the story of climate change and apply communication strategies more fit for the task."--Publisher's description.