The Climate Change Encyclopedia responds to the outstanding risk, survival, and ethical issue of our time, requiring action and providing opportunity. Primary-source expert authors write in a unique case-study structure that enables the Encyclopedia to be approachable, informational, and motivational for the public. The key focus areas are Climate Change and Finance, Economics, and Policy, with many other related climate categories included. The over 100 case studies provide realistic and interesting views of climate change, based on authors' published papers, reports, and books, plus climate-related activities of organizations, and selected topics. This inspiring work can enhance optimism and courage to act urgently and persistently on climate change, with foresight for a livable future.For more information on the list of contributors, please refer to https://www.worldscientific.com/page/encyclopedia-of-climate-change.Related Link(s)
V. 1. Climate encyclopedia overview ; Climate and finance ; Climate action ; Climate mitigation ; Climate and business ; Climate and youth; Climate and health ; Climate and faith ; Climate and the arts ; Climate education ; Climate consensus ; Climate conferences -- v. 2. Climate and economics ; Climate and justice ; Climate and morality ; Climate and food ; Climate and technology ; Climate science ; Climate adaptation ; Climate law -- v. 3. Climate and policy ; Climate impacts ; Climate risk management ; Climate and renewable energy ; Climate and electricity ; Climate and transportation.
This is a collection of approximately 750 articles exploring major topics related to global warming and climate change ranging geographically from the North Pole to the South Pole and thematically from social effects to scientific cause. It also covers industrial and economic factors, the role of societies and much more.
This book provides a holistic consideration of climate change that goes beyond pure science, fleshing out the discussion by considering cultural, historical, and policy-driven aspects of this important issue. Climate change is a controversial topic that promises to reframe rudimentary ideas about our world and how we will live in it. The articles in Climate Change: An Encyclopedia of Science and History are designed to inform readers' decision making through the insight of scholars from around the world, each of whom brings a unique approach to this topic. The work goes beyond pure science to consider other important factors, weighing the cultural, historical, and policy-driven contributors to this issue. In addition, the book explores the ideas that have converged and evolved in order to clarify our current predicament. By considering climate change in this holistic fashion, this reference collection will prepare readers to consider the issue from every angle. Each article in the work is suitable for general readers, particularly students in high school and college, and is intended to inform and educate anyone about climate change, providing valuable information regarding the stages of mitigation and adaptation that are occurring all around us.
In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The consensus itself was at least a century in the making. The story of how scientists reached their conclusion--by way of unexpected twists and turns and in the face of formidable intellectual, financial, and political obstacles--is told for the first time in The Discovery of Global Warming. Spencer R. Weart lucidly explains the emerging science, introduces us to the major players, and shows us how the Earth's irreducibly complicated climate system was mirrored by the global scientific community that studied it. Unlike familiar tales of Science Triumphant, this book portrays scientists working on bits and pieces of a topic so complex that they could never achieve full certainty--yet so important to human survival that provisional answers were essential. Weart unsparingly depicts the conflicts and mistakes, and how they sometimes led to fruitful results. His book reminds us that scientists do not work in isolation, but interact in crucial ways with the political system and with the general public. The book not only reveals the history of global warming, but also analyzes the nature of modern scientific work as it confronts the most difficult questions about the Earth's future. Table of Contents: Preface 1. How Could Climate Change? 2. Discovering a Possibility 3. A Delicate System 4. A Visible Threat 5. Public Warnings 6. The Erratic Beast 7. Breaking into Politics 8. The Discovery Confirmed Reflections Milestones Notes Further Reading Index Reviews of this book: A soberly written synthesis of science and politics. --Gilbert Taylor, Booklist Reviews of this book: Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory [of global warming], Spencer R. Weart, director of the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics, dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists' views and the public reception their work received. --Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Book Review Reviews of this book: It took a century for scientists to agree that gases produced by human activity were causing the world to warm up. Now, in an engaging book that reads like a detective story, physicist Weart reports the history of global warming theory, including the internal conflicts plaguing the research community and the role government has had in promoting climate studies. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: It is almost two centuries since the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier discovered that the Earth was far warmer than it had any right to be, given its distance from the Sun...Spencer Weart's book about how Fourier's initially inconsequential discovery finally triggered urgent debate about the future habitability of the Earth is lucid, painstaking and commendably brief, packing everything into 200 pages. --Fred Pearce, The Independent Reviews of this book: [The Discovery of Global Warming] is a well-written, well-researched and well-balanced account of the issues involved...This is not a sermon for the faithful, or verses from Revelation for the evangelicals, but a serious summary for those who like reasoned argument. Read it--and be converted. --John Emsley, Times Literary Supplement Reviews of this book: This is a terrific book...Perhaps the finest compliment I could give this book is to report that I intend to use it instead of my own book...for my climate class. The Discovery of Global Warming is more up-to-date, better balanced historically, beautifully written and, not least important, short and to the point. I think the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] needs to enlist a few good historians like Weart for its next assessment. --Stephen H. Schneider, Nature Reviews of this book: This short, well-written book by a science historian at the American Institute of Physics adds a serious voice to the overheated debate about global warming and would serve as a great starting point for anyone who wants to better understand the issue. --Maureen Christie, American Scientist Reviews of this book: I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Spencer Weart's account provides much valuable and interesting material about how the discipline developed--not just from the perspective of climate science but also within the context of the field's relation to other scientific disciplines, the media, political trends, and even 20th-century history (particularly the Cold War). In addition, Weart has done a valuable service by recording for posterity background information on some of the key discoveries and historical figures who contributed to our present understanding of the global warming problem. --Thomas J. Crowley, Science Reviews of this book: Weart has done us all a service by bringing the discovery of global warming into a short, compendious and persuasive book for a general readership. He is especially strong on the early days and the scientific background. --Crispin Tickell, Times Higher Education Supplement A Capricious Beast Ever since the days when he had trudged around fossil lake basins in Nevada for his doctoral thesis, Wally Broecker had been interested in sudden climate shifts. The reported sudden jumps of CO2 in Greenland ice cores stimulated him to put this interest into conjunction with his oceanographic interests. The result was a surprising and important calculation. The key was what Broecker later described as a "great conveyor belt'"of seawater carrying heat northward. . . . The energy carried to the neighborhood of Iceland was "staggering," Broecker realized, nearly a third as much as the Sun sheds upon the entire North Atlantic. If something were to shut down the conveyor, climate would change across much of the Northern Hemisphere' There was reason to believe a shutdown could happen swiftly. In many regions the consequences for climate would be spectacular. Broecker was foremost in taking this disagreeable news to the public. In 1987 he wrote that we had been treating the greenhouse effect as a 'cocktail hour curiosity,' but now 'we must view it as a threat to human beings and wildlife.' The climate system was a capricious beast, he said, and we were poking it with a sharp stick. I found the book enjoyable, thoughtful, and an excellent introduction to the history of what may be one of the most important subjects of the next one hundred years. --Clark Miller, University of Wisconsin The Discovery of Global Warming raises important scientific issues and topics and includes essential detail. Readers should be able to follow the discussion and emerge at the end with a good understanding of how scientists have developed a consensus on global warming, what it is, and what issues now face human society. --Thomas R. Dunlap, Texas A&M University
The earth’s cryosphere, which includes snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, ice shelves, sea ice, river and lake ice, and permafrost, contains about 75% of the earth’s fresh water. It exists at almost all latitudes, from the tropics to the poles, and plays a vital role in controlling the global climate system. It also provides direct visible evidence of the effect of climate change, and, therefore, requires proper understanding of its complex dynamics. This encyclopedia mainly focuses on the various aspects of snow, ice and glaciers, but also covers other cryospheric branches, and provides up-to-date information and basic concepts on relevant topics. It includes alphabetically arranged and professionally written, comprehensive and authoritative academic articles by well-known international experts in individual fields. The encyclopedia contains a broad spectrum of topics, ranging from the atmospheric processes responsible for snow formation; transformation of snow to ice and changes in their properties; classification of ice and glaciers and their worldwide distribution; glaciation and ice ages; glacier dynamics; glacier surface and subsurface characteristics; geomorphic processes and landscape formation; hydrology and sedimentary systems; permafrost degradation; hazards caused by cryospheric changes; and trends of glacier retreat on the global scale along with the impact of climate change. This book can serve as a source of reference at the undergraduate and graduate level and help to better understand snow, ice and glaciers. It will also be an indispensable tool containing specialized literature for geologists, geographers, climatologists, hydrologists, and water resources engineers; as well as for those who are engaged in the practice of agricultural and civil engineering, earth sciences, environmental sciences and engineering, ecosystem management, and other relevant subjects.
"Volume 1: This volume is the culmination of many discussions among the editors over the years, especially at the Sustainability, Ethics and Entrepreneurship (SEE) Conference, related to the growth and institutionalization of environmental and social entrepreneurship. Research on these two forms of entrepreneurial action has tried to keep pace with what is occurring in the field. While the research is diverse, attracting scholars across many disciplines and from all parts of the world, it is still in the formative stages. This volume seeks to take stock of the literature and report the state of the art in environmental and social entrepreneurship. In particular, it seeks to explore new theoretical directions that blend traditional notions of economic efficiency and social welfare and new ways of measuring and empirically testing these phenomena. The chapters in this volume demonstrate the diverse philosophical, methodological, and theoretical techniques to studying these forms of entrepreneurship. We expect this volume will contribute to this burgeoning research and that researchers will engage in theory development for the foreseeable future, as new business models are developed, tested, abandoned, and evolved. Volume 2: This volume spotlights cutting-edge research, innovative methodologies, and provocative thinking by organizational scholars and leaders committed to advancing the global sustainability agenda. Each chapter focuses on advancing one or more United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The chapter sequence follows a general logic of SDG numerical order and breadth. Overall, this compendium provides critical insights, practical strategies and tools, and timely inspiration to motivate individual and collective engagement with and achievement of the SDGs. With a decade remaining to achieve the 2030 Agenda, this volume supports sustainable development globally, through: identification of key challenges; theoretical, empirical, and practical exploration of potential solutions; and sharing of actionable findings. Each chapter makes an impactful contribution by spotlighting opportunities for advancing best-in-class efforts toward the achievement of the SDGs. Chapters represent diverse scholarly perspectives and include a representative range of focal SDGs, organizational contexts, applications, and initiatives from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, and spanning national borders. Volume 3: Historically religious institutions have been at the forefront of social change, yet religion and spirituality are rarely discussed in contemporary entrepreneurship research. We challenge this oversight and argue that by ignoring the fundamental principles that define an overwhelming majority of people all over the world, our scholarship risks being partial, incomplete and thus misleading. This volume presents a selection of entrepreneurship perspectives - studies, essays and analyses - that integrate religion and spirituality with social change. We have deliberately sought chapters that are edgy and novel, to give different nuances on this integration of religion and spirituality with entrepreneurship for social change"--
This three-volume A-to-Z compendium consists of over 300 entries written by a team of leading international scholars and researchers working in the field. Authoritative and up-to-date, the encyclopedia covers the processes that produce our weather, important scientific concepts, the history of ideas underlying the atmospheric sciences, biographical accounts of those who have made significant contributions to climatology and meteorology and particular weather events, from extreme tropical cyclones and tornadoes to local winds.
The explosion of scientific information is exacerbating the information gap between richer/poorer, educated/less-educated publics. The proliferation of media technology and the popularity of the Internet help some keep up with these developments but also make it more likely others fall further behind. This is taking place in a globalizing economy and society that further complicates the division between information haves and have-nots and compounds the challenge of communicating about emerging science and technology to increasingly diverse audiences. Journalism about science and technology must fill this gap, yet journalists and journalism students themselves struggle to keep abreast of contemporary scientific developments. Scientist - aided by public relations and public information professionals - must get their stories out, not only to other scientists but also to broader public audiences. Funding agencies increasingly expect their grantees to engage in outreach and education, and such activity can be seen as both a survival strategy and an ethical imperative for taxpayer-supported, university-based research. Science communication, often in new forms, must expand to meet all these needs. Providing a comprehensive introduction to students, professionals and scholars in this area is a unique challenge because practitioners in these fields must grasp both the principles of science and the principles of science communication while understanding the social contexts of each. For this reason, science journalism and science communication are often addressed only in advanced undergraduate or graduate specialty courses rather than covered exhaustively in lower-division courses. Even so, those entering the field rarely will have a comprehensive background in both science and communication studies. This circumstance underscores the importance of compiling useful reference materials. The Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Communication presents resources and strategies for science communicators, including theoretical material and background on recent controversies and key institutional actors and sources. Science communicators need to understand more than how to interpret scientific facts and conclusions; they need to understand basic elements of the politics, sociology, and philosophy of science, as well as relevant media and communication theory, principles of risk communication, new trends, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of science communication programmes, to mention just a few of the major challenges. This work will help to develop and enhance such understanding as it addresses these challenges and more. Topics covered include: advocacy, policy, and research organizations environmental and health communication philosophy of science media theory and science communication informal science education science journalism as a profession risk communication theory public understanding of science pseudo-science in the news special problems in reporting science and technology science communication ethics.
"This set of books represents a detailed compendium of authoritative, research-based entries that define the contemporary state of knowledge on technology"--Provided by publisher.
