Car, train, ship or aeroplane - which form of transport is most harmful to the atmosphere? What do farming techniques such as agrochemicals do? What is 'acid rain' and what are effects of it? This book takes a look at the impact that our modern world is having on our surrounding environment, from our use of fossil fuels and our increase in global food production and building work, to the rise in our transport production. Discover what steps scientists and engineers, and even ordinary people, are taking to develop sustainable solutions to these problems, from replastering festivals to buildings bound together using horse hair!
Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide are all gases in Earth's atmosphere. But what happens when there is too much or two little of a certain gas? Readers will learn how every day activities such as driving, heating buildings, and using aerosols release harmful gases into the air and how it affects the air we breathe. Meets Next Generation Science Standards.
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.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books
#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.
For lay readers and specialists alike, this concise, scientific analysis refutes the pessimistic global warming scenarios depicted in the media. In addition to covering better-known topics, the book also provides an in-depth examination of less frequently discussed issues including historical climate data inaccuracies, the limitations of computer climate modeling, solar variability, and factors that could mitigate any human impacts on world climate. Potential upsides related to global warming and the financial consequences of many of the proposed solutions are identified.
Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964) is noted for identifying, in 1938, the link between the artifcial production of carbon dioxide and global warming. Today this is called the “Callendar Efect. ” He was one of Britain’s leading steam and combustion engineers, a specialist in infrared physics, author of the standard reference book on the properties of steam at high tempe- tures and pressures, and designer of the burners of the notable World War II airfeld fog dispersal system, FIDO. He was keenly interested in weather and climate, taking measurement so accurate that they were used to correct the ofcial temperature records of central England and collecting a series of worldwide weather data that showed an unprecedented warming trend in the frst four decades of the twentieth century. He formulated a coherent theory of infrared absorption and emission by trace gases, established the nineteenth-century background concentration of carbon dioxide, and - gued that its atmospheric concentration was rising due to human activities, which was causing the climate to warm. Callendar’s contributions to climatology led the way in the mid-twentie- century transition from the traditional practice of gathering descriptive c- mate statistics to the new and exciting feld of climate dynamics. In the frst half of the twentieth century, the carbon dioxide theory of climate change xiv Introduction had fallen out of favor with climatists.
_______________ 'When the history of the climate crisis is written, Hansen will be seen as the scientist with the most powerful and consistent voice calling for intelligent action to preserve our planet's environment' - Al Gore 'Few people know more about climate change than James Hansen ... This unnerving and fluently written book is the definitive one to read' - BBC Wildlife 'Anyone concerned about the world our children and grandchildren must inherit owes it to themselves to read this book' - Irish Times _______________ An urgent and provocative call to action from the world's leading climate scientist Dr James Hansen, the world's leading scientist on climate issues, speaks out with the full truth about global warming: the planet is hurtling to a climatic point of no return. Hansen - whose climate predictions have come to pass again and again, beginning in the 1980s when he first warned US Congress about global warming - is the single most credible voice on the subject worldwide. He paints a devastating but all-too-realistic picture of what will happen if we continue to follow the course we're on. But he is also a hard-headed optimist, and shows that there is still time to take the urgent, strong action needed to save humanity. _______________ 'James Hansen gives us the opportunity to watch a scientist who is sick of silence and compromise; a scientist at the breaking point - the point at which he is willing to sacrifice his credibility to make a stand to avert disaster' - LA Times
