Confronting Climate Gridlock PDF Download

Author: Daniel S. Cohan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030025167X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
An atmospheric scientist explains why global climate change mitigation and energy decarbonization demand American diplomacy, technology, and policy "Daniel Cohan makes a compelling case that the problem of climate change is solvable. Fixing the gridlock on global action requires fixing the gridlock here in the United States of America. Cohan shows how that can be done."--David Victor, University of California, San Diego 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. He highlights opportunities for more successful strategies, including international "climate clubs" and accelerated development of clean energy technologies. Grounded in history and emerging scholarship, this book offers a forward-looking vision of solutions to confronting climate gridlock and a clear-eyed recognition of the challenges to enacting them.

Author: Constance Lever-Tracy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136819851
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
In this highly accessible introduction to the predicted global impacts of climate change, Constance Lever-Tracy provides an authoritative guide to one of the most controversial issues facing the future of our planet. Discussing how the social and natural sciences must work together more effectively in confronting climate change, Lever-Tracy provides a sober, critical assessment of the politics of global warming and climate change.

Author: David W. Orr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199736839
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
"The real fault line in American politics is not between liberals and conservatives.... It is, rather, in how we orient ourselves to the generations to come who will bear the consequences, for better and for worse, of our actions." So writes David Orr in Down to the Wire, a sober and eloquent assessment of climate destabilization and an urgent call to action. Orr describes how political negligence, an economy based on the insatiable consumption of trivial goods, and a disdain for the well-being of future generations have brought us to the tipping point that biologist Edward O. Wilson calls "the bottleneck." Due to our refusal to live within natural limits, we now face a long emergency of rising temperatures, rising sea-levels, and a host of other related problems that will increasingly undermine human civilization. Climate destabilization to which we are already committed will change everything, and to those betting on quick technological fixes or minor adjustments to the way we live now, Down to the Wire is a major wake-up call. But this is not a doomsday book. Orr offers a wide range of pragmatic, far-reaching proposals--some of which have already been adopted by the Obama administration--for how we might reconnect public policy with rigorous science, bring our economy into alignment with ecological realities, and begin to regard ourselves as planetary trustees for future generations. He offers inspiring real-life examples of people already responding to the major threat to our future. An exacting analysis of where we are in terms of climate change, how we got here, and what we must now do, Down to the Wire is essential reading for those wanting to join in the Great Work of our generation.

Author: Rabah Arezki
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547358
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
Reducing carbon emissions is the most complex political and economic problem humanity has ever confronted. Coping with the Climate Crisis brings together leading experts from academia and policy circles to explore issues related to the implementation of the COP21 Paris Agreement and the challenges of accelerating the transition toward sustainable development. The book synthesizes the key insights that emerge from the latest research in climate-change economics in an accessible and useful guide for policy makers and researchers. Contributors consider a wide range of issues, including the economic implications and realities of shifting away from fossil fuels, the role of financial markets in incentivizing development and construction of sustainable infrastructure, the challenges of evaluating the well-being of future generations, the risk associated with uncertainty surrounding the pace of climate change, and how to make climate agreements enforceable. They demonstrate the need for a carbon tax, considering the issues of efficiently pricing carbon as well as the role of supply-side policies on fossil fuels. Through a range of perspectives from academic economists and practitioners in the public and private sectors who work either at the country level or under the auspices of multilateral organizations, Coping with the Climate Crisis outlines what it will take to achieve a viable, global climate-stabilization path.

Author: Patrick A. Ray
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804788
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design describes an approach to facing two fundamental and unavoidable issues brought about by climate change uncertainty in water resources planning and project design. The first is a risk assessment problem. The second relates to risk management. This book provides background on the risks relevant in water systems planning, the different approaches to scenario definition in water system planning, and an introduction to the decision-scaling methodology upon which the decision tree is based. The decision tree is described as a scientifically defensible, repeatable, direct and clear method for demonstrating the robustness of a project to climate change. While applicable to all water resources projects, it allocates effort to projects in a way that is consistent with their potential sensitivity to climate risk. The process was designed to be hierarchical, with different stages or phases of analysis triggered based on the findings of the previous phase. An application example is provided followed by a descriptions of some of the tools available for decision making under uncertainty and methods available for climate risk management. The tool was designed for the World Bank but can be applicable in other scenarios where similar challenges arise.

Author: Benedetta Brevini
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319578766
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
This volume examines the role of communication in contributing to and contesting the current climate crisis. There is now widespread agreement that even if increases in carbon emissions are kept to the current international target the climate crisis will continue to intensify. This book brings together, for the first time, state-of-the-art research with activists’ interventions to place debate around climate crisis within the wider conversation about the changing relations between communications and contemporary capitalism. Contributors include; Naomi Klein, Michael Mann, Alan Rusbridger, Vincent Mosco, Jodi Dean, and leading figures in Greenpeace and 350.org.

Author: Rae Andre
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781487538026
Category : Climatic changes
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
"This guide details five key practices for effective sustainability leadership. Lead for the Planet develops climate solutions that prioritize the wellbeing of people and ecosystems globally. This is the first book to apply a broad range of social sciences, from anthropology to psychology to economics, to help decision makers explore how humanity can best address the climate crisis. Leaders get things done through people. Just as they have applied natural science to understand climate change, now they should apply social science to improve how society makes decisions about the climate crisis. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Lead for the Planet also explores some of the harsher realities of the climate challenge--issues like resource limitations and stakeholder power. Refined over a decade in university courses on leadership for planetary sustainability, this book starts conversations and asks crucial questions: Who exactly is going to get this thing done? Will Team Humanity save the planet? Taking human nature into account, what is the best way forward? "--

Author: Susan Clayton
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128131314
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
Psychology and Climate Change: Human Perceptions, Impacts, and Responses organizes and summarizes recent psychological research that relates to the issue of climate change. The book covers topics such as how people perceive and respond to climate change, how people understand and communicate about the issue, how it impacts individuals and communities, particularly vulnerable communities, and how individuals and communities can best prepare for and mitigate negative climate change impacts. It addresses the topic at multiple scales, from individuals to close social networks and communities. Further, it considers the role of social diversity in shaping vulnerability and reactions to climate change. Psychology and Climate Change describes the implications of psychological processes such as perceptions and motivations (e.g., risk perception, motivated cognition, denial), emotional responses, group identities, mental health and well-being, sense of place, and behavior (mitigation and adaptation). The book strives to engage diverse stakeholders, from multiple disciplines in addition to psychology, and at every level of decision making - individual, community, national, and international, to understand the ways in which human capabilities and tendencies can and should shape policy and action to address the urgent and very real issue of climate change. - Examines the role of knowledge, norms, experience, and social context in climate change awareness and action - Considers the role of identity threat, identity-based motivation, and belonging - Presents a conceptual framework for classifying individual and household behavior - Develops a model to explain environmentally sustainable behavior - Draws on what we know about participation in collective action - Describes ways to improve the effectiveness of climate change communication efforts - Discusses the difference between acute climate change events and slowly-emerging changes on our mental health - Addresses psychological stress and injury related to global climate change from an intersectional justice perspective - Promotes individual and community resilience

Author: Irving M. Mintzer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521421096
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Confronting Climate Change is a guide to the risks, dilemmas, and opportunities of the emerging political era, in which the impacts of a global warming could affect all regional, public and even individual decisions. Written by a renowned group of scientists, political analysts and economists, all with direct experience in climate change related deliberations, Confronting Climate Change is a survey of the best available answers to three vital questions: What do we know so far about the foreseeable dangers of climate change? How reliable is our knowledge? What are the most rewarding ways to respond? The book begins by exploring the key linkages and feedbacks that connect the risks of rapid climate change to other important environmental, economic and political problems of our time. Recognizing persistent uncertainties in the scientific understanding of climate change, the book draws attention to those areas of research which may reveal surprises which could change the sense of political urgency surrounding the climate problem - as did the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. It explores the geological record of climate change over the Earth's history, seeking a better understanding of how the climate has changed rapidly in countries while minimizing the long-term environmental damages which otherwise will result from continuing the current patterns of energy supply and use. The book is written to cross discipline boundaries, so that policy makers, economists, scientists, risk assessors, environmentalists and development advocates may understand each other's concerns. It shows how the international debate on managing the risks of rapid climate change may be re-shaped for the benfit of people in every nation on the planet.

Author: Margaret Klein Salamon
Publisher: New Society Publishers
ISBN: 9780865719415
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Facing the Climate Emergency addresses the fears of everyone who is alarmed about the climate crisis and yet feels powerless to stop it. Drawing on psychology, it shows readers how to use their feelings of fear, grief, and powerlessness to transform themselves into climate warriors and motivate collective change.