How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Author: Bill Gates
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0385546149

#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.

Global Crisis

Global Crisis
Author: Geoffrey Parker
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 944
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300189192

The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globe during the mid-17th century. Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity. The effects of what historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 to the late 1680s. He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into the narrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis. Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation
Author: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2012-05-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107025060

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
Author: U.S. Global Change Research Program
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2009-08-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521144078

Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers.

A Climate of Injustice

A Climate of Injustice
Author: J. Timmons Roberts
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2006-11-22
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0262264412

The global debate over who should take action to address climate change is extremely precarious, as diametrically opposed perceptions of climate justice threaten the prospects for any long-term agreement. Poor nations fear limits on their efforts to grow economically and meet the needs of their own people, while powerful industrial nations, including the United States, refuse to curtail their own excesses unless developing countries make similar sacrifices. Meanwhile, although industrialized countries are responsible for 60 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, developing countries suffer the "worst and first" effects of climate-related disasters, including droughts, floods, and storms, because of their geographical locations. In A Climate of Injustice, J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley Parks analyze the role that inequality between rich and poor nations plays in the negotiation of global climate agreements. Roberts and Parks argue that global inequality dampens cooperative efforts by reinforcing the "structuralist" worldviews and causal beliefs of many poor nations, eroding conditions of generalized trust, and promoting particularistic notions of "fair" solutions. They develop new measures of climate-related inequality, analyzing fatality and homelessness rates from hydrometeorological disasters, patterns of "emissions inequality," and participation in international environmental regimes. Until we recognize that reaching a North-South global climate pact requires addressing larger issues of inequality and striking a global bargain on environment and development, Roberts and Parks argue, the current policy gridlock will remain unresolved.

Drought, Flood, Fire

Drought, Flood, Fire
Author: Chris C. Funk
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2021-05-27
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1108839878

The latest science and compelling stories describing the impacts of droughts, floods, and fires in the context of climate change.

Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith

Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith
Author: Philip Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021
Genre: History
ISBN: 0197506216

"[The author] draws out the complex relationship between religion and climate change. He shows that the religious movements and ideas that emerge from climate shocks often last for many decades, and become a familiar part of the religious landscape, even though their origins in particular moments of crisis may be increasingly consigned to remote memory" -- From jacket flap.

Climate Change and Natural Disasters

Climate Change and Natural Disasters
Author: Vinod Thomas
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2017-01-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1412864526

The start of the new millennium will be remembered for deadly climate-related disasters—the great floods in Thailand in 2011, Super Storm Sandy in the United States in 2012, and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, to name a few. In 2014, 17.5 million people were displaced by climate-related disasters, ten times more than the 1.7 million displaced by geophysical hazards. What is causing the increase in natural disasters and what effect does it have on the economy? Climate Change and Natural Disasters sends three messages: human-made factors exert a growing influence on climate-related disasters; because of the link to anthropogenic factors, there is a pressing need for climate mitigation; and prevention, including climate adaptation, ought not to be viewed as a cost to economic growth but as an investment. Ultimately, attention to climate-related disasters, arguably the most tangible manifestation of global warming, may help mobilize broader climate action. It can also be instrumental in transitioning to a path of low-carbon, green growth, improving disaster resilience, improving natural resource use, and caring for the urban environment. Vinod Thomas proposes that economic growth will become sustainable only if governments, political actors, and local communities combine natural disaster prevention and controlling climate change into national growth strategies. When considering all types of capital, particularly human capital, climate action can drive economic growth, rather than hinder it.

What If We Stopped Pretending?

What If We Stopped Pretending?
Author: Jonathan Franzen
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0008434050

The climate change is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.

Climate Hazards, Disasters, and Gender Ramifications

Climate Hazards, Disasters, and Gender Ramifications
Author: Catarina Kinnvall
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0429756275

This book focuses on the challenges of living with climate disasters, in addition to the existing gender inequalities that prevail and define social, economic and political conditions. Social inequalities have consequences for the everyday lives of women and girls where power relations, institutional and socio-cultural practices make them disadvantaged in terms of disaster preparedness and experience. Chapters in this book unravel how gender and masculinity intersect with age, ethnicity, sexuality and class in specific contexts around the globe. It looks at the various kinds of difficulties for particular groups before, during and after disastrous events such as typhoons, flooding, landslides and earthquakes. It explores how issues of gender hierarchies, patriarchal structures and masculinity are closely related to gender segregation, institutional codes of behaviour and to a denial of environmental crisis. This book stresses the need for a gender-responsive framework that can provide a more holistic understanding of disasters and climate change. A critical feminist perspective uncovers the gendered politics of disaster and climate change. This book will be useful for practitioners and researchers working within the areas of Climate Change response, Gender Studies, Disaster Studies and International Relations.