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Climate Travels: How Ecotourism Changes Mindsets and Motivates Action
by Michael M. Gunter Jr.Many accounts of climate change depict disasters striking faraway places: melting ice caps, fearsome hurricanes, all-consuming fires. How can seeing the consequences of human impacts up close help us grasp how global warming affects us and our neighbors? This book is a travelogue that spotlights what a changing climate looks like on the local level—for wherever local happens to be.Michael M. Gunter, Jr. takes readers around the United States to bear witness to the many faces of the climate crisis. He argues that conscientious travel broadens understanding of climate change and makes its dangers concrete and immediate. Vivid vignettes explore the consequences for people and communities: sea level rise in Virginia, floods sweeping inland in Tennessee, Maine lobsters migrating away from American territorial waters, and imperiled ecosystems in national parks, from Alaskan permafrost to the Florida Keys. But Gunter finds inspiring initiatives to mitigate and adapt to these threats, including wind turbines in a tiny Texas town, green building construction in Kansas, and walkable urbanism in Portland, Oregon. These projects are already making a difference—and they underscore the importance of local action.Drawing on interviews with government officials, industry leaders, and alternative energy activists, Climate Travels emphasizes direct personal experience and the centrality of environmental justice. Showing how travel can help bring the reality of climate change home, it offers readers a hopeful message about how to take action on the local level themselves.
Climate Urbanism: Towards a Critical Research Agenda
by Vanesa Castán Broto Enora Robin Aidan WhileThis book argues that the relationship between cities and climate change is entering a new and more urgent phase. Thirteen contributions from a range of leading scholars explore the need to rethink and reorient urban life in response to climatic change. Split into four parts it begins by asking ‘What is climate urbanism?’ and exploring key features from different locations and epistemological traditions. The second section examines the transformative potential of climate urbanism to challenge social and environmental injustices within and between cities. In the third part authors interrogate current knowledge paradigms underpinning climate and urban science and how they shape contemporary urban trajectories. The final section focuses on the future, envisaging climate urbanism as a new communal project, and focuses on the role of citizens and non-state actors in driving transformative action. Consolidating debates on climate urbanism, the book highlights the opportunities and tensions of urban environmental policy, providing a framework for researchers and practitioners to respond to the urban challenges of a radically climate-changed world.
Climate Variability Impacts on Land Use and Livelihoods in Drylands
by Victor R. Squires Mahesh K. GaurThis edited volume is devoted to the examination of the implications of the inevitable changes wrought by global change on the welfare and livelihoods of tens of millions of people who live in dryland regions. Global change is more than just climate change and the ramifications of changing trade patterns (geopolitical and economic aspects), the shift to the market economy, demographic factors (population growth, urbanization and re-settlement), receive attention here. Land use change specialists, policy makers and natural resource management agencies will find the book very useful.Chapters focus on examples that are drawn from a number of sources including previously unpublished studies on the impact of climate change, markets and economics on pastoralist and dryland farming households. The key focus is to provide readers with insights into the real world implications of change (including an analysis of the drivers of change) on these vulnerable groups within dryland societies. The role of humans as agents of these changes is canvassed. A regional analysis of the world's drylands is also performed including those in Australia, Argentina, India, North America, China, North Africa, Central Asia and Southern Africa.
Climate Variability and Change in Africa: Perspectives, Experiences and Sustainability (Sustainable Development Goals Series)
by Jonathan I. Matondo Berhanu F. Alemaw Wennegouda Jean Pierre SandwidiThis book presents a comprehensive overview of climate variability and change in Africa, and includes impact assessments and case studies from integration frameworks, with a particular focus on climate, agriculture and water resources. Richly illustrated, the book highlights case studies from western, eastern and southern African region, and explores related development policies. Climate change adaptation research, prediction, and reanalysis are also addressed
Climate Variability of Southern High Latitude Regions: Sea, Ice, and Atmosphere Interactions
by Neloy KhareThis is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of climate change–related investigations carried out by Indian researchers through initiatives in southern high latitude regions. It explains climate variability over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica; air, sea, ice, and atmosphere interactions; and the impact of climate variability on sea ice and the polar atmosphere. The data were gathered at two Indian research bases, Maitri and Bharti, which are ideal sites to study and understand climatic evolution in Antarctic in the past and recent changes. This book helps to understand climatological perspectives and to evaluate some of the most pressing issues in the south polar region. FEATURES Highlights the achievements of India in the contemporary field of Antarctic climatology Presents four decades of research by Indian scientists in Antarctica, which is now shared for the first time with the global community Includes case studies on climatological and environmental conditions of natural archives to shed light on climate scenarios in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic regions Covers various aspects of climate variability and induced air-sea-ice-atmosphere interactions This book is edited by one of the top scientists and researchers of India in the field of paleoclimatology, and the contributors are experts in the Antarctic region.
Climate Wars
by Mark ButlerAs the consequences of climate change become perilously close to the point of no-return, time-wasting wars over what to do distract us from taking real action.Mark Butler, the opposition minister for climate change and energy, makes a forceful case for using less and cleaner energy as part of global action to save the planet. Doing so will also make Australia attractive for the massive global market of investors and create new jobs in clean energy.Climate Wars argues that only Labor, the party with a proven track record for national reform, has the plan and the will to ensure bold action before it is too late.
Climate and Clean Energy Policy: State Institutions and Economic Implications (Routledge Research in Environmental Policy and Politics)
by Benjamin H. DeitchmanState climate and clean energy policy will play a critical role in the future of the political dialogue and economic development. Policymakers from around the world already recognize the leadership of American states in this domain. Rooted in public policy theory, and employing a mixed-methods approach that includes advanced economic analysis and qualitative research, Benjamin H. Deitchman explores the policy tools that address the politics and economics of clean energy development and deployment across all 50 states. Deitchman includes in his analysis international case studies of this policy context in Canada, Germany, and Australia to reveal different state-level policy tools, the politics behind the tools, and the economic implications of alternative approaches. The rigorous analysis of the politics of state level institutions and economic implications of subnational climate and clean energy actions offers researchers, students, and policymakers with practical information to advance their understanding of these options in the policy process.
Climate and Conservation: Landscape and Seascape Science, Planning, and Action
by Charles C. Chester Molly S. Cross Jodi A. HiltyClimate and Conservation presents case studies from around the world of projects focused on climate change adaptation-regional-scale endeavors where scientists, managers, and practitioners are working to protect biodiversity by protecting landscapes and seascapes in response to threats posed by climate change. The book begins with an introductory section that frames the issues and takes a systematic look at planning for climate change adaptation. The nineteen chapters that follow examine particular case studies in every part of the world, including landscapes and seascapes from equatorial, temperate, montane, polar, and marine and freshwater regions. Climate and Conservation offers readers tangible, place-based examples of projects designed to protect large landscapes as a means of conserving biodiversity in the face of the looming threat of global climate change.
Climate and Culture: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on a Warming World
by Giuseppe Feola Hilary Geoghegan Alex ArnallHow does culture interact with the way societies understand, live with, and act in relation to climate change? While the importance of the exchanges between culture, society and climate in the context of global environmental change is increasingly recognised, the empirical evidence is fragmented and too often constrained by disciplinary boundaries. Written by an international team of experts, this book provides cutting-edge and critical perspectives on how culture both facilitates and inhibits our ability to address and make sense of climate change and the challenges it poses to societies globally. Through a set of case studies spanning the social sciences and humanities, it explores the role of culture in relation to climate and its changes at different temporal and spatial levels; illustrates how approaching climate change through the cultural dimension enriches the range and depth of societal engagements; and establishes connections between theory and practice, which can stimulate action-oriented initiatives.
Climate and Energy Governance for the UK Low Carbon Transition: The Climate Change Act 2008
by Thomas L MuinzerThe UK Climate Change Act was the first case of a country implementing blanket legally binding long-term emissions reduction targets in order to combat climate change. This book provides the first accessible and in-depth analysis of the UK’s complex Climate Change Act framework, presenting the discussion in a clear and interdisciplinary manner designed to open the workings of the challenging framework to a broad audience. It discusses the political ‘story’ surrounding the framework, and its treatment in scholarly environmental literature; analyses the technical content of the Act; explores the framework’s international significance, and its internal ‘subnational’ dimensions and impact, engaging the UK’s devolved jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This first, much-needed interdisciplinary treatment of the framework is both introductory and analytical in nature and will be of interest to scholars, practitioners and general readers of environmental studies, policy and governance.
Climate and Energy Politics in Poland: Debating Carbon Dioxide and Shale Gas (Routledge Focus on Environment and Sustainability)
by Aleksandra LisClimate and Energy Politics in Poland: Debating Carbon Dioxide and Shale Gas presents a new, object-oriented perspective on the challenge faced by Poland, the largest post-socialist EU member state from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), to produce knowledge about its energy system in the context of climate change. Drawing on data from five different research projects and two hundred interviews, Lis reflects on how EU accession forced Poland to mobilize their resources and produce expertise on carbon dioxide and shale gas, in order to actively participate in the debates around EU climate change ambitions and goals. A significant lack of capacity and expert institutions made it difficult for Poland to quickly assess the impacts of EU legislation or to propose new solutions for itself, and it is precisely this struggle for knowledge production that will be examined during the course of the book. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy and resource politics, climate change, EU environmental policy and CEE studies more broadly.
Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism
by E. Calvin Beisner and David R. LegatesThe attempted cures for climate change are generally worse than the disease—especially for the poor. In this groundbreaking volume, experts in all the fields related to climate change explain for laymen what we know about climate change and evaluate from a Christian perspective the proposed responses.Demands to transform the global energy infrastructure to depend heavily on wind, solar, and other renewables are harmful to people in America and the world–especially to the poor. Meanwhile, continued large-scale use of traditional energy sources like nuclear, hydro, and fossil fuels would reduce poverty while doing less harm to the environment.Climate and Energy: The Case For Realism combines outstanding climate science, physics, economics, environmental science, political science, ethics, and theology to present a well-reasoned understanding of human-induced climate change and how to respond to it.
Climate and Environmental Change in China: 1951-2012 (Springer Environmental Science and Engineering)
by Dahe Qin Yongjian Ding Mu MuThrough numerous color figures and tables, this book presents the most up-to-date knowledge on climate and environmental change in China. It documents the evidence and attribution of climate and environmental changes in the past few decades and discusses the impacts of climate change on environments, economy, and society. The book further provides projections of climate change and its impacts in the future. Finally, it offers the climate change mitigation and adaption technologies with strategic options which will be of interest for policy makers, researchers and the general public as well.
Climate and Human Migration
by Robert A. MclemanStudies warn that global warming and sea level rise will create hundreds of millions of environmental refugees. While climate change will undoubtedly affect future migration patterns and behavior, the potential outcomes are more complex than the environmental refugee scenario suggests. This book provides a comprehensive review of how physical and human processes interact to shape migration, using simple diagrams and models to guide the researcher, policy maker and advanced student through the climate-migration process. The book applies standard concepts and theories used in climate and migration scholarship to explain how events such as Hurricane Katrina, the Dust Bowl, African droughts, and floods in Bangladesh and China have triggered migrations that haven't always fit the environmental refugee storyline. Lessons from past migrations are used to predict how future migration patterns will unfold in the face of sea level rise, food insecurity, political instability, and to review options for policy makers.
Climate change and sustainable development: Ethical perspectives on land use and food production
by Thomas Potthast Simon MeischClimate change is a major framing condition for sustainable development of agriculture and food. Global food production is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time it is among the sectors worst affected by climate change. This book brings together a multidisciplinary group of authors exploring the ethical dimensions of climate change and food. Conceptual clarifications provide a necessary basis for putting sustainable development into practice. Adaptation and mitigation demand altering both agricultural and consumption practices. Intensive vs. extensive production is reassessed with regard to animal welfare, efficiency and environmental implications. Property rights pay an ever-increasing role, as do shifting land-use practices, agro-energy, biotechnology, food policy to green consumerism. And, last but not least, tools are suggested for teaching agricultural and food ethics. Notwithstanding the plurality of ethical analyses and their outcome, it becomes apparent that governance of agri-food is faced by new needs and new approaches of bringing in the value dimension much more explicitly. This book is intended to serve as a stimulating collection that will contribute to debate and reflection on the sustainable future of agriculture and food production in the face of global change.
Climate in Asia and the Pacific: Security, Society and Sustainability (Advances in Global Change Research #56)
by Michael Manton Linda Anne StevensonCommissioned by the Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), this book offers a detailed survey of the current status of climate change and climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region, a thorough and thoughtful assessment of climate and security and clear recommendations on the best paths of climate research in the future.
Climate in Crisis: Who's Causing It, Who's Fighting It, and How We Can Reverse It Before It's Too Late
by Dick Russell Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The science is overwhelming; the facts are in. The planet is heating up at an alarming rate and the results are everywhere to be seen. Yet, as time runs out, climate progress is blocked by the men who are profiting from the burning of the planet: Energy moguls like the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Powerful politicians like Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe, who receive massive contributions from the oil and coal industries. Most of these men are too intelligent to truly believe that climate change is not a growing crisis. And yet they have put their profits and careers ahead of the health and welfare of the world&’s population—and even their own children and grandchildren. How do they explain themselves to their offspring, to the next generations that must deal with the environmental havoc that these men have wreaked? With a new introduction from the authors, Climate in Crisis takes a very personal look at this global crisis, literally bringing it home.
Climate of Capitulation: An Insider's Account of State Power in a Coal Nation
by Vivian E. ThomsonHow power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level, and how to redress the ingrained favoritism toward coal and electric utilities. The United States has pledged to the world community a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 26–28 percent below 2005 levels in 2025. Because much of this reduction must come from electric utilities, especially coal-fired power plants, coal states will make or break the U.S. commitment to emissions reduction. In Climate of Capitulation, Vivian Thomson offers an insider's account of how power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level. Thomson, a former member of Virginia's State Air Pollution Control Board, identifies a “climate of capitulation” in state government—a deeply rooted favoritism toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policies.Thomson narrates three cases involving coal and air pollution from her time on the Air Board. She illuminates the overt and covert power struggles surrounding air pollution limits for a coal-fired power plant just across the Potomac from Washington, for a controversial new coal-fired electrical generation plant in coal country, and for coal dust pollution from truck traffic in a country hollow. Thomson links Virginia's climate of capitulation with campaign donations that make legislators politically indebted to coal and electric utility interests, a traditionalistic political culture tending to inertia, and a part-time legislature that depended on outside groups for information and bill drafting. Extending her analysis to fifteen other coal-dependent states, Thomson offers policy reforms aimed at mitigating the ingrained biases toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policy making.
Climate of Denial: Darwin, Climate Change, and the Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century
by Allen MacDuffieMany people today experience the climate crisis with a divided state of mind: aware of the extreme effects, but living everyday life as if the crisis is not actually happening. This book argues that this structure of feeling has roots that can be traced back to the nineteenth century, when Western culture encountered the profound shock of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin's theory made it increasingly difficult for secular humanists to flatly deny that humans are animals, fully enmeshed in natural systems and processes. But like those of us confronting climate change today, many writers and scientists struggled to integrate its depersonalizing vision into their understanding of the place of humans in the natural order. The result was that the radical environmental implications of The Origin of Species were evaded as soon as they were articulated, abetted by a culture of denial structured by the illusions of capital and empire. In light of the climate emergency, Climate of Denial recontextualizes nineteenth-century texts to offer rich insight into the defensive strategies used—then and now—to avoid confronting the unsettling realities of our situation on this planet.
Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet
by Michael Bloomberg Carl PopeNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former head of the Sierra Club Carl Pope comes a manifesto on how the benefits of taking action on climate change are concrete, immediate, and immense. They explore climate change solutions that will make the world healthier and more prosperous, aiming to begin a new type of conversation on the issue that will spur bolder action by cities, businesses, and citizens—and even, someday, by Washington."Climate of Hope is an inspiring must read." —Former Vice President Al Gore, Chairman of The Climate Reality Project“Climate change threatens to reshape the future of our world's population centers. Bloomberg and Pope have been leaders on fortifying our cities against this threat, and their book proves that victory is possible—and imperative.” —Leonardo DiCaprio"If Trump is looking for a blueprint, he could not do better than to read a smart new book, Climate of Hope." —Thomas Friedman in The New York Times~The 2016 election left many people who are concerned about the environment fearful that progress on climate change would come screeching to a halt. But not Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope. Bloomberg, an entrepreneur and former mayor of New York City, and Pope, a lifelong environmental leader, approach climate change from different perspectives, yet they arrive at similar conclusions. Without agreeing on every point, they share a belief that cities, businesses, and citizens can lead—and win—the battle against climate change, no matter which way the political winds in Washington may shift. In Climate of Hope, Bloomberg and Pope offer an optimistic look at the challenge of climate change, the solutions they believe hold the greatest promise, and the practical steps that are necessary to achieve them. Writing from their own experiences, and sharing their own stories from government, business, and advocacy, Bloomberg and Pope provide a road map for tackling the most complicated challenge the world has ever faced. Along the way, they turn the usual way of thinking about climate change on its head: from top down to bottom up, from partisan to pragmatic, from costs to benefits, from tomorrow to today, and from fear to hope.
Climate of the Middle: Understanding Climate Change as a Common Challenge (SpringerBriefs in Climate Studies)
by Arjen SiegmannThis Open Access book presents a multidisciplinary perspective to increase our understanding of climate policies that are rooted in the natural moral inclinations of people, families and firms. Which policies prevent a widening gap between higher and lower educated people? Which policy instruments are there, and how could they be used? What is the role of free entrepreneurship?In this book, academics from different fields have brought together their knowledge and expertise to reflect on the following three questions: How are the polarised positions on climate change of different groups related to their moral outlook, world view, tradition, cultural norms and values? What is a good distribution of responsibilities between firms, households and the government relating to climate change? What are possible avenues where the climate policies are a natural extension of moral inclinations of families and firms, such as the stewardship for the natural environment and the climate? This book will be of interest to policy and decision-makers, students of social and behavioural sciences, and those interested climate change policies and how this effects our lives
Climate of the Romanian Carpathians: Variability and Trends (Springer Atmospheric Sciences)
by Dana Magdalena Micu Alexandru Dumitrescu Sorin Cheval Marius-Victor BirsanThis book is a comprehensive climatic monograph, which addresses one of the most complex mountain environments in Europe, the Carpathians Chain, focusing on the branches that lie over Romania. The volume aggregates high quality input data, state-of-the-art techniques, regional analysis and overview perspectives, while addressing the spatial and temporal patterns of the main climatic elements. The study covers the period 1961-2010, for the present climate, while the perspective is extended up to 2050. The main climatic elements (e. g. air temperature, precipitation, wind) are analyzed, but some specific variables like snow depth and snow cover are also examined, both in terms of average behaviour and extreme characteristics. This is the first synthesis addressing the climate of this mountain region, and it provides useful information for scientists, mountain stakeholders, decision-makers and general public.
Climate of the Southeast United States: Variability, Change, Impacts, and Vulnerability (NCA Regional Input Reports)
by Kirstin Dow Julie Anderson Keith T. Ingram Lynne CarterPrepared for the 2013 National Climate Assessment and a landmark study in terms of its breadth and depth of coverage, Climate of the Southeast United States is the result of a collaboration among three Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Centers: the Southeast Climate Consortium; the Carolinas Regional Sciences and Assessments; and the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program; with contributions from numerous local, state, federal, and nongovernmental agencies to develop a comprehensive, state of the art look at the effects of climate change in the region. The book summarizes the scientific literature with respect to climate impacts on the Southeast United States, including 11 southern states to the east of the Mississippi River, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands; reviews the historic climate, current climate, and the projected future climate of the region; and describes interactions with important sectors of the Southeast and cross-sectoral issues, namely climate change mitigation, adaptation, and education and outreach. Rich in science and case studies, it examines the latest climate change impacts, scenarios, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity and offers decision makers and stakeholders a substantial basis from which to make informed choices that will affect the well-being of the region's inhabitants in the decades to come.
Climate without Nature: A Critical Anthropology Of The Anthropocene
by Andrew M. Bauer Mona BhanThis book offers a critical reading of the Anthropocene that draws on archaeological, ecological, geological, and ethnographic evidence to argue that the concept reproduces the modernist binary between society and nature, and forecloses a more inclusive politics around climate change. The authors challenge the divisions between humans as biological and geophysical agents that constitute the ontological foundations of the period. Building on contemporary critiques of capitalism, they examine different conceptions of human–environment relationships derived from anthropology to engage with the pressing problem of global warming.
Climate, Chaos and Collective Behaviour: A Rising Fickleness (Frontiers of Globalization)
by Jaap van GinnekenThis book introduces principles of Chaos theory (and Complex Adaptive Systems) to social science, in a lively and elegant way. It applies it to the twin disciplines of mass psychology (under social psychology, mostly in Europe) and collective behavior sociology (mostly in North America) that deal with emergent psychosocial phenomena that lie outside conventional approaches. Each of the eleven chapters begins with a topical ‘case study’ section, on an issue related to climate change and collective behaviour, such as the ‘school strike’ by Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, the Hollywood movie The Day After Tomorrow, and more. This book aims to show that there are fundamental reasons why many phenomena cannot be easily ‘measured, predicted and controlled’, and thus we need to familiarize ourselves with alternative ways of thinking about them.