Top 11 Climate Change Books


New climate change books are coming out all the time, making selecting one or two to read a potentially overwhelming process. So we turned to the experts for suggestions. Elizabeth Kolbert, Amory Lovins, Alice Waters, Van Jones, and seven other influential scientists, activists, and writers share their favorite books. Check out our special May-June issue for more on climate change.
 
Elizabeth Kolbert
Journalist and author of Field Notes From a Catastrophe
Recommends: The Two-Mile Time Machine, by Richard B. Alley
By now a lot of very good books have been written about climate change. One that I always recommend is Richard B. Alley’s The Two-Mile Time Machine. Alley is a glaciologist at Penn State, and his book explains what’s been learned about the history of the climate from ice cores drilled on Greenland. (At its center, the Greenland ice sheet is two miles thick; hence the title.) Even though it appeared a decade ago, The Two-Mile Time Machine is still entirely relevant. It’s the kind of book that makes you look at the world in a new way.
 
Chris Mooney
Author of three books, including New York Times bestseller The Republican War on Science
Recommends: The Discovery of Global Warming, by Spencer Weart
I think Spencer Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming is my favorite, and the reason is that it teaches you there is a long history to this issue and, in fact, the science of climate is built on a foundation of well over 100 years.
 
Eileen Claussen
President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change
Recommends: Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman
With a wealth of examples, Friedman clearly connects the dots between climate change, energy security, and economic growth. He argues persuasively that seizing the opportunity to transform the way we generate and use energy is a sure fire way for America to “get its groove back” and regain its moral and economic leadership.
 
Richard Cizik
Evangelical leader and environmental advocate
Recommends: The Power of Sustainable Thinking, by Bob Doppelt
In the evangelical community, the need is not just to change “what we think” but “how we think.” Thus, the book that has helped me the most to move otherwise “unmovable” people, is Bob Doppelt’s book The Power of Sustainable Thinking. As Jesus said, “As a man [or woman] thinketh, so he [she] is.”
 
John McPhee
Author of 27 books and the forthcoming essay collection, Silk Parachute
Recommends: Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, by Elizabeth Kolbert
Elizabeth Kolbert has been almost everywhere and has returned with the evidence.
 
Paul Epstein
Associate director of Harvard’s Center for Health and the Global Environment
An insightful, comprehensive examination of the challenges we face—relevant to investors, lawmakers, and the general public.
 
Terry Root
Stanford University biologist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author
Recommends: Science as a Contact Sport, by Stephen H. Schneider 
Science as a Contact Sport goes through the history of the work on climate change. It explains how the disinformation put out by the naysayers was so effective (and wrong, obviously) and how it has gotten in the way of science. The book also does a great job of stating problems and solutions in plain, easy-to-understand English.
 
Van Jones
Environmental justice activist and author of The Green Collar Economy
Recommends: Earth: The Sequel, by Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Fred Krupp understands that America’s greatest resource, the collective genius and wisdom of its people, is still in abundance. That’s why in Earth: The Sequel he paints a hopeful vision of America’s future; one where we unleash our entrepreneurial spirit to solve the climate crisis.
 
Amory Lovins
Cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute
Recommends:Natural Capitalism, by Paul Hawken
The most important climate book I know is the one my colleagues and I are now writing for publication in 2011. Reinventing Fire will map the business-led transition from oil and coal (and ultimately natural gas) to efficiency and renewables—thereby solving the climate and oil problems not at a cost but at a profit. Meanwhile, our 2000 business book for Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism (free at www.natcap.org), contains important elements of that synthesis and a simple primer on climate change.
 
Fred Krupp
President of the
Environmental Defense Fund
The most powerful account available of the overwhelming science behind global warming, written in a poetic and highly engaging style. Flannery describes the odyssey that led him to the conclusion that global warming is the paramount challenge of our time.
 
Alice Waters
Organic food advocate, chef, and author
Recommends: Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, by Anna Lappe
Anna Lappe knows that if we are serious about climate change, then we have to begin to talk about food. She makes yet another compelling argument as to why we have no choice but to reconsider a food system that is responsible for as much as one-third of all greenhouse-gas emissions. Anna provides a hopeful vision and shows that so many answers to these challenges lie in sustainable and organic farming.

Many thanks to each of you for speaking out loudly and clearly

By their behavior many too many experts, thought leaders and opinion makers of all "stripes" have made it painfully clear that The Golden Rule is a churlish platitude only regarded positively by patsies, losers, n'er-do-wells and people trying to do the right thing. Everywhere arrogance, avarice and gold rule the world.

Since the dawn of Century XXI we have witnessed the triumph, however much a Pyrrhic victory, of self-serving ideological idiocy and wanton greed as well as the defeat of the best available science by selfish Masters of the Universe who willfully choose to examine what could be real only when their patently unsustainable interests are served by doing so. And they call their utterly misguided wrongdoing God's work.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://www.sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
http://www.countercurrents.org/salmony030510.htm

Atlas Of Risks Of Climate

Atlas Of Risks Of Climate Change On The Egyptian Coasts And Defensive Policies (2 volumes)
By Prof. Dr./ Khaled Abd El-Kader Ouda
Professor Emeritus of Stratigraphy and Paleontology, Geology Department
Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
This study aims at evaluating qualitatively and quantitatively the importance of the risks to which the Egyptian coasts— a distance of about 3500 km—are exposed, as a result of rising sea level in amounts up to one meter. It also suggests traditional and non-traditional ways of defense, that may help to avoid or reduce these risks, or to adapt to them. The results of this study about climate change and its impact on the Egyptian coasts will be a significant resource to researchers, experts and decision makers working at private institutions and in public administrations, to plan strategies in order to organize plans for the protection of the Nile Delta and other parts of the Egyptian coast as sea level rises.
The study examines the causes and consequences of the global warming as described in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and their Fourth Assessment Report as well as in subsequent scientific reports by various research groups worldwide. It also examines the impact of global warming on the level of seas and oceans and the potential risks for the Middle East and North Africa, as contained in the report of the scientific team of the World Bank, 2007.
The study considers successively 1) the topography and geomorphology of the Nile Delta ; 2) the impacts on the Nile Delta during the last century of the combined effects of a) severe coastal erosion processes, b) sediment deficiency since the construction of the Aswan high Dam, c) sea level rise, d) delta subsidence as well as e) human impacts on the coastline; 3) the present geomorphology of the northern lakes of the Nile Delta after having been suffered from intensive human impacts which have led to drying and reduction in surface area by about 50% -83% of their original size during the last 25 years; 4) the various scenarios of the impact of sea level rise on these coasts. This discussion ends with an illustration of the risks on the Egyptian coasts on topographic maps designated for all coasts beaches and shores using Digital Elevation Data derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission SRTM NASA space.
The impact that sea level rise of up to one meter is expected to have is illustrated graphically on various coasts: the Northwest Delta (West of Rosetta Branch), the North Delta (between the two Nile branches), the Northeast Delta (East of Damietta Branch); the shores of Alexandria, From Abu Qir east to Agami west; the shores of the coastal plain of the northern Western Desert from Alexandria east to Sallum west; the shores of the northern coastal plain of Sinai Peninsula, the western and eastern coasts of the Gulf of Suez, the western coast of the Gulf of Aqaba , the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea from Hurghada north to Halaib south, and the coasts of the Bitter Lakes and Temsah Lake along the Suez Canal.
The topographical maps of all coasts were matched with satellite images to evaluate quantitatively the size of the area that, for each coast, will be affected by sea level rise. The sources of threat were identified for each coastal region, along shores, sandy belts, eastern and western bridges of the western branch of the Nile (Rosetta Branch, North of Fowa), eastern bridge of the eastern branch of the Nile (Damietta Branch, north of Damietta), and western bridge of the Suez Canal (north of Ballah). The low-lying coastal areas, wet and dry, which are threatened of marine invasion either directly from the sea or indirectly through the northern lakes, and the areas where subsurface leakage may occur as a consequence of sea-level rise have been delineated and measured. They are also graphically represented on both topographic maps and corresponding satellite images. Cities, neighborhoods, villages, ranches and agricultural land that are threatened of isolation as a result of marine invasion have been determined with great detail. The environmental problems that plague the Nile Delta because of uncontrolled human activities, and which, associated with climate impacts contribute to make the Nile Delta potentially one of the coastal areas in the world most threatened by the rise in global sea level during this century are also discussed
The study includes 734 colored plates among which detailed topographic, geomorphologic and geographic maps of coasts and beaches of Egypt as they are today, and as they are expected to become with rising sea levels; The sources of threat, the new shore line expected due to sea level rise and the dimensions of the threatened wet and dry lands are graphically represented on satellite images downloaded electronically on the topographical maps. Means of protection are proposed and locations of deep seawalls, sandy dams and bridges are suggested as well as land barriers to be set aside to counter the invasion of the sea off the coast of the Nile Delta. It is understood that these proposals may be suitably modified by experts in order to reduce the costs associated with coastal protection as long as efficiency and benefits are not lost.
The topography, geomorphology and geology of the Qattara Depression, are described with the hope to revive the proposal of connecting the Qattara Depression to the Mediterranean Sea to reduce the effects of sea level rise on the Nile Delta while creating a positive economic return. The national need to implement the Qattara -Mediterranean project has been emphasized in order to save billions of Dollars that will be lost as a result of the marine invasion of the northern coast of the Nile Delta. All earlier objections encountered in the implementation of this project have been refuted. An economic feasibility of this project has also been proposed in light of the new economic innovations. It is also proposed the most appropriate places from the standpoint of topography to create a surface channel between the Mediterranean and Qattara Depression. The view is expressed of the need to restore a natural balance to the River Nile. That balance was lost after the construction of the High Dam at Aswan. The negative effects of the High Dam on the Egyptian Delta must be assessed and work must be immediately undertaken to remedy them for the benefit of future generations.
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