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| climate change through the history lens: Climate Change and the Humanities Alexander Elliott, James Cullis, Vinita Damodaran, 2017-11-01 This volume of essays fills a lacunae in the current climate change debate by bringing new perspectives on the role of humanities scholars within this debate. The humanities have historically played an important role in the various debates on environment, climate and society. The past two decades especially have seen a resurfacing of these environmental concerns across humanities disciplines in the wake of what has been termed climate change. This book argues that these disciplines should be more confident and vocal in responding to climate change while questioning the way in which the climate change debate is currently being conducted in academic, political and social arenas. Addressing climate change through the varied approaches of the humanities means re-thinking and re-evaluating its fundamental assumptions and responses to perceived crisis through the lens of history, philosophy and literature. The volume aims thus to be a catalyst for emerging scholarship in this field and to appeal to an academic and popular readership. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Change Jason Smerdon, 2009-04-25 Climate Change is geared toward a variety of students and general readers who seek the real science behind global warming. Exquisitely illustrated, the text introduces the basic science underlying both the natural progress of climate change and the effect of human activity on the deteriorating health of our planet. Noted expert and author Edmond A. Mathez synthesizes the work of leading scholars in climatology and related fields, and he concludes with an extensive chapter on energy production, anchoring this volume in economic and technological realities and suggesting ways to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate Change opens with the climate system fundamentals: the workings of the atmosphere and ocean, their chemical interactions via the carbon cycle, and the scientific framework for understanding climate change. Mathez then brings the climate of the past to bear on our present predicament, highlighting the importance of paleoclimatology in understanding the current climate system. Subsequent chapters explore the changes already occurring around us and their implications for the future. In a special feature, Jason E. Smerdon, associate research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, provides an innovative appendix for students. |
| climate change through the history lens: Under Osman's Tree Alan Mikhail, 2017-03-13 The early modern Middle East was a crucial zone of connection between Europe and the Mediterranean world, on the one hand, and South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and sub-Saharan Africa, on the other. Accordingly, global trade, climate, and disease both affected and were affected by what was happening in the Middle East s many environments. The trans-territorial and trans-temporal character of environmental history helps shed new light on the history of the region, and Alan Mikhail s latest tackles major topics in environmental history: natural resource management, climate, human and animal labor, water control, disease, and the politics of nature. It also reveals how one of the world s most important religious traditions, Islam, has related to the natural world. This is a model book that sets the course for Middle East environmental history. |
| climate change through the history lens: Literature as a Lens for Climate Change Rebecca L. Young, 2022-03-03 Each chapter in this collection offers a practical approach for using literature to engage and empower students to confront aspects of climate crises. Educators from different backgrounds and parts of the world share their experience using novels, short stories, drama, poetry, and nonfiction to help students understand the causes and consequences of climate change as well as how they can contribute to potential solutions. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Contamination of the Earth Francois Jarrige, Thomas Le Roux, 2021-11-16 The trajectories of pollution in global capitalism, from the toxic waste of early tanneries to the poisonous effects of pesticides in the twentieth century. Through the centuries, the march of economic progress has been accompanied by the spread of industrial pollution. As our capacities for production and our aptitude for consumption have increased, so have their byproducts--chemical contamination from fertilizers and pesticides, diesel emissions, oil spills, a vast plastic continent found floating in the ocean. The Contamination of the Earth offers a social and political history of industrial pollution, mapping its trajectories over three centuries, from the toxic wastes of early tanneries to the fossil fuel energy regime of the twentieth century. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Change and the Health of Nations Anthony J. McMichael, Alistair Woodward, Cameron Muir, 2017 When we think climate change, we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to its vicissitudes. Tony McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal guide to this phenomenon, and in his magisterial Climate Change and the Health of Nations, he presents a sweeping and authoritative analysis of how human societies have been shaped by climate events. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Discovery of Global Warming Spencer R. Weart, 2003 In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world's governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The consensus itself was at least a century in the making. The story of how scientists reached their conclusion--by way of unexpected twists and turns and in the face of formidable intellectual, financial, and political obstacles--is told for the first time in The Discovery of Global Warming. Spencer R. Weart lucidly explains the emerging science, introduces us to the major players, and shows us how the Earth's irreducibly complicated climate system was mirrored by the global scientific community that studied it. Unlike familiar tales of Science Triumphant, this book portrays scientists working on bits and pieces of a topic so complex that they could never achieve full certainty--yet so important to human survival that provisional answers were essential. Weart unsparingly depicts the conflicts and mistakes, and how they sometimes led to fruitful results. His book reminds us that scientists do not work in isolation, but interact in crucial ways with the political system and with the general public. The book not only reveals the history of global warming, but also analyzes the nature of modern scientific work as it confronts the most difficult questions about the Earth's future. Table of Contents: Preface 1. How Could Climate Change? 2. Discovering a Possibility 3. A Delicate System 4. A Visible Threat 5. Public Warnings 6. The Erratic Beast 7. Breaking into Politics 8. The Discovery Confirmed Reflections Milestones Notes Further Reading Index Reviews of this book: A soberly written synthesis of science and politics. --Gilbert Taylor, Booklist Reviews of this book: Charting the evolution and confirmation of the theory [of global warming], Spencer R. Weart, director of the Center for the History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics, dissects the interwoven threads of research and reveals the political and societal subtexts that colored scientists' views and the public reception their work received. --Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times Book Review Reviews of this book: It took a century for scientists to agree that gases produced by human activity were causing the world to warm up. Now, in an engaging book that reads like a detective story, physicist Weart reports the history of global warming theory, including the internal conflicts plaguing the research community and the role government has had in promoting climate studies. --Publishers Weekly Reviews of this book: It is almost two centuries since the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier discovered that the Earth was far warmer than it had any right to be, given its distance from the Sun...Spencer Weart's book about how Fourier's initially inconsequential discovery finally triggered urgent debate about the future habitability of the Earth is lucid, painstaking and commendably brief, packing everything into 200 pages. --Fred Pearce, The Independent Reviews of this book: [The Discovery of Global Warming] is a well-written, well-researched and well-balanced account of the issues involved...This is not a sermon for the faithful, or verses from Revelation for the evangelicals, but a serious summary for those who like reasoned argument. Read it--and be converted. --John Emsley, Times Literary Supplement Reviews of this book: This is a terrific book...Perhaps the finest compliment I could give this book is to report that I intend to use it instead of my own book...for my climate class. The Discovery of Global Warming is more up-to-date, better balanced historically, beautifully written and, not least important, short and to the point. I think the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] needs to enlist a few good historians like Weart for its next assessment. --Stephen H. Schneider, Nature Reviews of this book: This short, well-written book by a science historian at the American Institute of Physics adds a serious voice to the overheated debate about global warming and would serve as a great starting point for anyone who wants to better understand the issue. --Maureen Christie, American Scientist Reviews of this book: I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Spencer Weart's account provides much valuable and interesting material about how the discipline developed--not just from the perspective of climate science but also within the context of the field's relation to other scientific disciplines, the media, political trends, and even 20th-century history (particularly the Cold War). In addition, Weart has done a valuable service by recording for posterity background information on some of the key discoveries and historical figures who contributed to our present understanding of the global warming problem. --Thomas J. Crowley, Science Reviews of this book: Weart has done us all a service by bringing the discovery of global warming into a short, compendious and persuasive book for a general readership. He is especially strong on the early days and the scientific background. --Crispin Tickell, Times Higher Education Supplement A Capricious Beast Ever since the days when he had trudged around fossil lake basins in Nevada for his doctoral thesis, Wally Broecker had been interested in sudden climate shifts. The reported sudden jumps of CO2 in Greenland ice cores stimulated him to put this interest into conjunction with his oceanographic interests. The result was a surprising and important calculation. The key was what Broecker later described as a great conveyor belt'of seawater carrying heat northward. . . . The energy carried to the neighborhood of Iceland was staggering, Broecker realized, nearly a third as much as the Sun sheds upon the entire North Atlantic. If something were to shut down the conveyor, climate would change across much of the Northern Hemisphere' There was reason to believe a shutdown could happen swiftly. In many regions the consequences for climate would be spectacular. Broecker was foremost in taking this disagreeable news to the public. In 1987 he wrote that we had been treating the greenhouse effect as a 'cocktail hour curiosity,' but now 'we must view it as a threat to human beings and wildlife.' The climate system was a capricious beast, he said, and we were poking it with a sharp stick. I found the book enjoyable, thoughtful, and an excellent introduction to the history of what may be one of the most important subjects of the next one hundred years. --Clark Miller, University of Wisconsin The Discovery of Global Warming raises important scientific issues and topics and includes essential detail. Readers should be able to follow the discussion and emerge at the end with a good understanding of how scientists have developed a consensus on global warming, what it is, and what issues now face human society. --Thomas R. Dunlap, Texas A&M University |
| climate change through the history lens: A Cold Welcome Sam White, 2017-10-16 Cundill History Prize Finalist Longman–History Today Prize Finalist Winner of the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize “Meticulous environmental-historical detective work.” —Times Literary Supplement When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia. The effects of this climactic upheaval were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, winters in which everything froze, even the Rio Grande. A Cold Welcome tells the story of this crucial period, taking us from Europe’s earliest expeditions in unfamiliar landscapes to the perilous first winters in Quebec and Jamestown. As we confront our own uncertain future, it offers a powerful reminder of the unexpected risks of an unpredictable climate. “A remarkable journey through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North America...This beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found it hard to put down.” —Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age “Deeply researched and exciting...His fresh account of the climatic forces shaping the colonization of North America differs significantly from long-standing interpretations of those early calamities.” —New York Review of Books |
| climate change through the history lens: Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain Jon Agar, Jacob Ward, 2018-04-09 Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain brings together historians with a wide range of interests to take a uniquely wide-lens view of how technology and the environment have been intimately and irreversibly entangled in Britain over the last 300 years. It combines, for the first time, two perspectives with much to say about Britain since the industrial revolution: the history of technology and environmental history. Technologies are modified environments, just as nature is to varying extents engineered. Furthermore, technologies and our living and non-living environment are both predominant material forms of organisation – and self-organisation – that surround and make us. Both have changed over time, in intersecting ways. Technologies discussed in the collection include bulldozers, submarine cables, automobiles, flood barriers, medical devices, museum displays and biotechnologies. Environments investigated include bogs, cities, farms, places of natural beauty and pollution, land and sea. The book explores this diversity but also offers an integrated framework for understanding these intersections. |
| climate change through the history lens: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2009-08-24 Summarizes the science of climate change and impacts on the United States, for the public and policymakers. |
| climate change through the history lens: Investing in the Era of Climate Change Bruce Usher, 2022-09-28 A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital. Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy. Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity. Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples in the United States Julie Koppel Maldonado, Benedict Colombi, Rajul Pandya, 2014-04-05 With a long history and deep connection to the Earth’s resources, indigenous peoples have an intimate understanding and ability to observe the impacts linked to climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge and tribal experience play a key role in developing future scientific solutions for adaptation to the impacts. The book explores climate-related issues for indigenous communities in the United States, including loss of traditional knowledge, forests and ecosystems, food security and traditional foods, as well as water, Arctic sea ice loss, permafrost thaw and relocation. The book also highlights how tribal communities and programs are responding to the changing environments. Fifty authors from tribal communities, academia, government agencies and NGOs contributed to the book. Previously published in Climatic Change, Volume 120, Issue 3, 2013. |
| climate change through the history lens: Past Antarctica Marc Oliva, Jesus Ruiz Fernandez, 2020-06-04 Past Antarctica: Paleoclimatology and Climate Change presents research on the past and present of Antarctica in reference to its current condition, including considerations for effects due to climate change. Experts in the field explore key topics, including environmental changes, human colonization and present environmental trends. Addressing a wide range of fields, including the biosphere, geology and biochemistry, the book offers geographers, climatologists and other Earth scientists a vital resource that is beneficial to an understanding of Antarctica, its history and conservation efforts. - Synthesizes research on the past and present of Antarctica, bringing together top Earth scientists who work in this discipline - Presents the most complete reconstruction of the paleoclimate and environment of Antarctica, tying in long-term climatic changes to the current environment - Offers perspectives from different branches of the Earth Sciences using a spatial-temporal lens |
| climate change through the history lens: Teaching Climate Change in Primary Schools Anne M. Dolan, 2021-07-26 This important and timely book provides an overview of climate change and highlights the importance of including climate change education in primary schools. It emphasises the importance of cross-curricular pedagogical approaches with a focus on climate justice, providing in-depth assistance for teaching children aged 3–13 years. Informed by up to date research, the book helps teachers to remain faithful to climate change science whilst not overwhelming children. Accompanied by online resources, this book includes practical and easy to follow ideas and lesson plans that will help teachers to include climate change education in their classrooms in a holistic, cross-curricular manner. Specific chapters address the following topics: • Inter-disciplinary approaches to climate change • Early childhood education • Pedagogies of hope • The importance of reflective practice • Ideas for including climate change education in curricular areas such as literacy, geography, science, history and the arts Designed to promote climate change education in primary schools, this resource will help primary teachers, student teachers, geography specialists and all those interested in climate change education develop their own conceptual knowledge and that of the children in their class. |
| climate change through the history lens: A Brief History of the Earth's Climate Steven Earle, 2021-10-12 I love it. Earle understands the big climate picture and paints it with exceptional clarity. — JAMES HANSEN, director, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, Columbia University Earth Institute What's natural, what's caused by humans, and why climate change is a disaster for all A Brief History of the Earth's Climate is an accessible myth-busting guide to the natural evolution of the Earth's climate over 4.6 billion years, and how and why human-caused global warming and climate change is different and much more dangerous. Richly illustrated chapters cover the major historical climate change processes including evolution of the sun, plate motions and continental collisions, volcanic eruptions, changes to major ocean currents, Earth's orbital variations, sunspot variations, and short-term ocean current cycles. As well as recent human-induced climate change and an overview of the implications of the COVID pandemic for climate change. Content includes: Understanding natural geological processes that shaped the climate How human impacts are now rapidly changing the climate Tipping points and the unfolding climate crisis What we can do to limit the damage to the planet and ecosystems Countering climate myths peddled by climate change science deniers. A Brief History of the Earth's Climate is essential reading for everyone who is looking to understand what drives climate change, counter skeptics and deniers, and take action on the climate emergency. AWARDS SILVER | 2022 IPPY Awards - Science |
| climate change through the history lens: An Environmental History of the Middle Ages John Aberth, 2013 The Middle Ages was a critical and formative time for Western approaches to our natural surroundings. An Environmental History of the Middle Ages is a unique and unprecedented cultural survey of attitudes towards the environment during this period. Exploring the entire medieval period from 500 to 1500, and ranging across the whole of Europe, from England and Spain to the Baltic and Eastern Europe, John Aberth focuses his study on three key areas: the natural elements of air, water, and earth; the forest; and wild and domestic animals. Through this multi-faceted lens, An Environmental History of the Middle Ages sheds fascinating new light on the medieval environmental mindset. It will be essential reading for students, scholars and all those interested in the Middle Ages |
| climate change through the history lens: The Climate of History in a Planetary Age Dipesh Chakrabarty, 2021-03-22 Introduction : intimations of the planetary -- The globe and the planet. Four theses; Conjoined histories; The planet : a humanist category -- The difficulty of being modern. The difficulty of being modern; Planetary aspirations : reading a suicide in India; In the ruins of an enduring fable -- Facing the planetary. Anthropocene time -- Toward an anthropological clearing -- Postscript : the global reveals the planetary : a conversation with Bruno Latour. |
| climate change through the history lens: Historical Perspectives on Climate Change James Rodger Fleming, 1998-09-10 This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems. |
| climate change through the history lens: Farming for Our Future PETER H.. ROSENBERG LEHNER (NATHAN A.), Nathan Rosenberg, 2021-12-07 Farming for Our Future examines the policies and legal reforms necessary to accelerate the adoption of practices that can make agriculture in the United States climate-neutral or better. These proven practices will also make our food system more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Agriculture's contribution to climate change is substantial--much more so than official figures suggest--and we will not be able to achieve our overall mitigation goals unless agricultural emissions sharply decline. Fortunately, farms and ranches can be a major part of the climate solution, while protecting biodiversity, strengthening rural communities, and improving the lives of the workers who cultivate our crops and rear our animals. The importance of agricultural climate solutions can not be underestimated; it is a critical element both in ensuring our food security and limiting climate change. This book provides essential solutions to address the greatest crises of our time. |
| climate change through the history lens: Our Biggest Experiment Alice Bell, 2021-09-21 Traversing science, politics, and technology, Our Biggest Experiment shines a spotlight on the little-known scientists who sounded the alarm to reveal the history behind the defining story of our age: the climate crisis. Our understanding of the Earth's fluctuating environment is an extraordinary story of human perception and scientific endeavor. It also began much earlier than we might think. In Our Biggest Experiment, Alice Bell takes us back to climate change science's earliest steps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the point when concern started to rise in the 1950s and right up to today, where the “debate” is over and the world is finally starting to face up to the reality that things are going to get a lot hotter, a lot drier (in some places), and a lot wetter (in others), with catastrophic consequences for most of Earth's biomes. Our Biggest Experiment recounts how the world became addicted to fossil fuels, how we discovered that electricity could be a savior, and how renewable energy is far from a twentieth-century discovery. Bell cuts through complicated jargon and jumbles of numbers to show how we're getting to grips with what is now the defining issue of our time. The message she relays is ultimately hopeful; harnessing the ingenuity and intelligence that has driven the history of climate change research can result in a more sustainable and bearable future for humanity. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Right to Be Cold Sheila Watt-Cloutier, 2018-05-01 A “courageous and revelatory memoir” (Naomi Klein) chronicling the life of the leading Indigenous climate change, cultural, and human rights advocate For the first ten years of her life, Sheila Watt-Cloutier traveled only by dog team. Today there are more snow machines than dogs in her native Nunavik, a region that is part of the homeland of the Inuit in Canada. In Inuktitut, the language of Inuit, the elders say that the weather is Uggianaqtuq—behaving in strange and unexpected ways. The Right to Be Cold is Watt-Cloutier’s memoir of growing up in the Arctic reaches of Quebec during these unsettling times. It is the story of an Inuk woman finding her place in the world, only to find her native land giving way to the inexorable warming of the planet. She decides to take a stand against its destruction. The Right to Be Cold is the human story of life on the front lines of climate change, told by a woman who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most influential Indigenous environmental, cultural, and human rights advocates in the world. Raised by a single mother and grandmother in the small community of Kuujjuaq, Quebec, Watt-Cloutier describes life in the traditional ice-based hunting culture of an Inuit community and reveals how Indigenous life, human rights, and the threat of climate change are inextricably linked. Colonialism intervened in this world and in her life in often violent ways, and she traces her path from Nunavik to Nova Scotia (where she was sent at the age of ten to live with a family that was not her own); to a residential school in Churchill, Manitoba; and back to her hometown to work as an interpreter and student counselor. The Right to Be Cold is at once the intimate coming-of-age story of a remarkable woman, a deeply informed look at the life and culture of an Indigenous community reeling from a colonial history and now threatened by climate change, and a stirring account of an activist’s powerful efforts to safeguard Inuit culture, the Arctic, and the planet. |
| climate change through the history lens: International Climate Change Law Daniel Bodansky, Jutta Brunnée, Lavanya Rajamani, 2017 A perfect introduction to climate change law, this textbook offers students and scholars an overview of the international law governing this fundamental issue. It demonstrates how to interpret the language used in the applicable instruments and conventions, and sets climate change law in its broader international legal context. |
| climate change through the history lens: Historical Archaeology and Environment Marcos André Torres de Souza, Diogo Menezes Costa, 2018-08-02 This edited volume gathers contributions focused on understanding the environment through the lens of Historical Archaeology. Pressing issues such as climate change, global warming, the Anthropocene and loss of biodiversity have pushed scholars from different areas to examine issues related to the causes, processes, and consequences of these phenomena. While traditional barriers between natural and social sciences have been torn down, these issues have gradually occupied a central place in the field of anthropology. As archaeology involves the transdisciplinary study of cultural and natural evidence related to the past, it is in a privileged position to discuss the historical depth of some of the processes related to environment that are deeply affecting the world today. This volume brings together substantial and comprehensive contributions to the understanding of the environment in a historical perspective along three lines of inquiry: Theoretical and methodological approaches to the environment in Historical Archaeology Studies on environmental Historical Archaeology Historical Archaeology and the Anthropocene Historical Archaeology and Environment will be of interest to researchers in both social and environmental sciences, working in different disciplines and research areas, such as archaeology, history, geography, anthropology, climate change studies, environmental analysis and sustainable development studies. |
| climate change through the history lens: Adapt and Be Adept Terry L. Anderson, 2021-04-01 How can markets help us adapt to the challenges of climate change? Editor Terry L. Anderson brings together this collection of essays featuring the work of nine leading policy analysts, who argue that market forces are just as important as government regulation in shaping climate policy—and should be at the heart of our response to helping societies adapt to climate change. Anderson notes in his introduction that most current climate policies such as the Paris Agreement require hard-to-enforce collective action and focus on reducing or mitigating greenhouse gases rather than adapting to their negative effects. Adaptive actions can typically deliver much more, faster and more cheaply than any realistic climate policy. The authors tackle a range of issues: the hidden costs of renewable energy sources, the political obstacles surrounding climate change policy, insurance and financial instruments for pricing risk of exposure to the effects of climate change, and more. Reliance on emerging renewable energies and a carbon tax are not enough to prevent the effects of global warming, they argue. We must encourage more private action and market incentives to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. |
| climate change through the history lens: Cool It Bjorn Lomborg, 2007-09-11 Bjorn Lomborg argues that many of the elaborate and staggeringly expensive actions now being considered to meet the challenges of global warming ultimately will have little impact on the world’s temperature. He suggests that rather than focusing on ineffective solutions that will cost us trillions of dollars over the coming decades, we should be looking for smarter, more cost-effective approaches (such as massively increasing our commitment to green energy R&D) that will allow us to deal not only with climate change but also with other pressing global concerns, such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. And he considers why and how this debate has fostered an atmosphere in which dissenters are immediately demonized. |
| climate change through the history lens: Teaching Climate Change and Sustainability in the Primary Curriculum Karin Doull, Susan Ogier, 2023-11-18 The first aim of the DfE′s 2022 Strategy for Sustainability and Climate Change is to prepare all young people for a world impacted by climate change through learning and practical experience. This practical text for new teachers empowers them to develop their knowledge and understanding of climate change and sustainability. It supports them to develop confidence in discussing difficult themes and to create safe learning spaces that allow children to articulate concerns. The book provides a structure for learning and teaching about climate change and sustainability across the primary curriculum. All chapters are linked to relevant and authentic research and include suggestions for practical activities. |
| climate change through the history lens: American Environmental History Dan Allosso, 2017-12-14 An expanded, new and improved American Environmental History textbook for everyone! After years of teaching Environmental History at a major East Coast University without a textbook, Dr. Dan Allosso decided to take matters into his own hands. The result, American Environmental History, is a concise, comprehensive survey covering the material from Dan's undergraduate course. What do people say about the class and the text? This was my first semester and this course has created an incredible first impression. If all of the courses are this good, I am going to really enjoy my time here. The course has completely changed the way I look at the world. (Student in 2014 class) One of the few classes I'm really sad is ending, the subject matter is fascinating and Dan is a great guide to it. His approach should be required of all students as it teaches an appreciation for a newer and better way of living. (Student in 2014 class) Allosso's lectures are fantastic. The best I have ever had. So impressed. The material is always extremely interesting and well-presented. (Student in 2015 class) It is just a perfect course that I think should be mandatory if we want to save our planet and live responsibly. (Student in 2015 class) A rare gem for an IB ESS teacher or any social studies teacher looking for an 11th or 12th grade supplementary text that aims to provide an historical context for the environmental reality in America today. Highly recommended. (District Curriculum Coordinator, 2016) I was so impressed with this material that I am using it as a supplement for a course I teach at my college. (History and Environmental Studies Professor, 2017) Beginning in prehistory and concluding in the present, American Environmental History explores the ways the environment has affected the choices that became our history, and how our choices have affected the environment. The dynamic relationship between people and the world around them is missing from mainstream history. Putting the environment back into history helps us make sense of the past and the present, which will help guide us toward a better future. More information and Dan's blog are available at environmentalhistory.us |
| climate change through the history lens: The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change Robert Henson, 2019 This book is derived from material originally published as The rough guide to climate change--Copyright page. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Law of the Sea and Climate Change Elise Johansen, Signe Veierud Busch, Ingvild Ulrikke Jakobsen, 2020-12-17 Explores how the law of the sea can develop in support of the objectives of the United Nations climate regime. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate in Motion Deborah R. Coen, 2018-07-19 Today, predicting the impact of human activities on the earth’s climate hinges on tracking interactions among phenomena of radically different dimensions, from the molecular to the planetary. Climate in Motion shows that this multiscalar, multicausal framework emerged well before computers and satellites. Extending the history of modern climate science back into the nineteenth century, Deborah R. Coen uncovers its roots in the politics of empire-building in central and eastern Europe. She argues that essential elements of the modern understanding of climate arose as a means of thinking across scales in a state—the multinational Habsburg Monarchy, a patchwork of medieval kingdoms and modern laws—where such thinking was a political imperative. Led by Julius Hann in Vienna, Habsburg scientists were the first to investigate precisely how local winds and storms might be related to the general circulation of the earth’s atmosphere as a whole. Linking Habsburg climatology to the political and artistic experiments of late imperial Austria, Coen grounds the seemingly esoteric science of the atmosphere in the everyday experiences of an earlier era of globalization. Climate in Motion presents the history of modern climate science as a history of “scaling”—that is, the embodied work of moving between different frameworks for measuring the world. In this way, it offers a critical historical perspective on the concepts of scale that structure thinking about the climate crisis today and the range of possibilities for responding to it. |
| climate change through the history lens: Exploring Climate Change through Science and in Society Mike Hulme, 2013-09-11 Mike Hulme has been studying climate change for over thirty years and is today one of the most distinctive and recognisable voices speaking internationally about climate change in the academy, in public and in the media. The argument that he has made powerfully over the last few years is that climate change has to be understood as much as an idea situated in different cultural contexts as it is as a physical phenomenon to be studied through universal scientific practices. Climate change at its core embraces both science and society, both knowledge and culture. Hulme’s numerous academic and popular writings have explored what this perspective means for the different ways climate change is studied, narrated, argued over and acted upon. Exploring Climate Change through Science and in Society gathers together for the first time a collection of his most popular, prominent and controversial articles, essays, speeches, interviews and reviews dating back to the late 1980s. The 50 or so short items are grouped together in seven themes - Science, Researching, Culture, Policy, Communicating, Controversy, Futures - and within each theme are arranged chronologically to reveal changing ideas, evidence and perspectives about climate change. Each themed section is preceded with a brief introduction, drawing out the main issues examined. Three substantive unpublished new essays have been specially written for the book, including one reflecting on the legacy of Climategate. Taken as a collection, these writings reveal the changes in scientific and public understandings of climate change since the late 1980s, as refracted through the mind and expression of one leading academic and public commentator. The collection shows the many different ways in which it is necessary to approach the idea of climate change to interpret and make sense of the divergent and discordant voices proclaiming it in the public sphere. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History Andrew Christian Isenberg, 2014 The Oxford Handbook of Environmental History draws on a wealth of new scholarship to offer diverse perspectives on the state of the field. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Leviathan Joel Wainwright, Geoff Mann, 2018-02-13 **Winner of the 2019 Sussex International Theory Prize** -- How climate change will affect our political theory - for better and worse Despite the science and the summits, leading capitalist states have not achieved anything close to an adequate level of carbon mitigation. There is now simply no way to prevent the planet breaching the threshold of two degrees Celsius set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What are the likely political and economic outcomes of this? Where is the overheating world heading? To further the struggle for climate justice, we need to have some idea how the existing global order is likely to adjust to a rapidly changing environment. Climate Leviathan provides a radical way of thinking about the intensifying challenges to the global order. Drawing on a wide range of political thought, Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann argue that rapid climate change will transform the world's political economy and the fundamental political arrangements most people take for granted. The result will be a capitalist planetary sovereignty, a terrifying eventuality that makes the construction of viable, radical alternatives truly imperative. |
| climate change through the history lens: Innovation and Experimentation in the International Climate Change Regime Lavanya Rajamani, 2021-02-22 This book takes a critical lens to humanity’s collective regulatory response to the existential threat of climate change. It explores those aspects of the international climate change regime that, albeit born of political dysfunction, demonstrate ingenuity, innovation and experimentation. This includes aspects relating to the legal form of instruments in the regime, the legal character of its provisions, as well as norm hybridity and mutation, and the nature, extent and evolution of differential treatment in the regime. This book argues that innovations and experiments in the international climate change regime have resulted in a highly sophisticated and nuanced legal regime – one that challenges the conceptual boundaries of international law, enriches the core of treaty law and practice and is likely to have an enduring impact on international law, legal practice and diplomatic intercourse. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Change and Society Riley E. Dunlap, Robert J. Brulle, 2015-08-24 Climate change is one of the most critical issues of the twenty-first century, presenting a major intellectual challenge to both the natural and social sciences. While there has been significant progress in natural science understanding of climate change, social science analyses have not been as fully developed. Climate Change and Society breaks new theoretical and empirical ground by presenting climate change as a thoroughly social phenomenon, embedded in behaviors, institutions, and cultural practices. This collection of essays summarizes existing approaches to understanding the social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of climate change. From the factors that drive carbon emissions to those which influence societal responses to climate change, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of the social dimensions of climate change. An improved understanding of the complex relationship between climate change and society is essential for modifying ecologically harmful human behaviors and institutional practices, creating just and effective environmental policies, and developing a more sustainable future. Climate Change and Society provides a useful tool in efforts to integrate social science research, natural science research, and policymaking regarding climate change and sustainability. Produced by the American Sociological Association's Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change, this book presents a challenging shift from the standard climate change discourse, and offers a valuable resource for students, scholars, and professionals involved in climate change research and policy. |
| climate change through the history lens: Climate Intervention National Research Council, Division on Earth and Life Studies, Ocean Studies Board, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Committee on Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts, 2015-06-23 The growing problem of changing environmental conditions caused by climate destabilization is well recognized as one of the defining issues of our time. The root problem is greenhouse gas emissions, and the fundamental solution is curbing those emissions. Climate geoengineering has often been considered to be a last-ditch response to climate change, to be used only if climate change damage should produce extreme hardship. Although the likelihood of eventually needing to resort to these efforts grows with every year of inaction on emissions control, there is a lack of information on these ways of potentially intervening in the climate system. As one of a two-book report, this volume of Climate Intervention discusses albedo modification - changing the fraction of incoming solar radiation that reaches the surface. This approach would deliberately modify the energy budget of Earth to produce a cooling designed to compensate for some of the effects of warming associated with greenhouse gas increases. The prospect of large-scale albedo modification raises political and governance issues at national and global levels, as well as ethical concerns. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth discusses some of the social, political, and legal issues surrounding these proposed techniques. It is far easier to modify Earth's albedo than to determine whether it should be done or what the consequences might be of such an action. One serious concern is that such an action could be unilaterally undertaken by a small nation or smaller entity for its own benefit without international sanction and regardless of international consequences. Transparency in discussing this subject is critical. In the spirit of that transparency, Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth was based on peer-reviewed literature and the judgments of the authoring committee; no new research was done as part of this study and all data and information used are from entirely open sources. By helping to bring light to this topic area, this book will help leaders to be far more knowledgeable about the consequences of albedo modification approaches before they face a decision whether or not to use them. |
| climate change through the history lens: The Humanities: Past, Present and Future Michael F. Shaughnessy, 2017 The humanities have been an integral part of humanitys cultural structure for centuries. In this book, a number of leading scholars reflect on the past, present and offer their perspectives for the future of the humanities. The first chapter (written by Jennifer Laubenthal, Jonathan Helmick and Kathleen Melago) describes the vitality of music for humanistic study. Next, Kevin Donnelly provides his perspectives and research of the humanities as they pertain to Australian history. Professor Donald Elder then extols the humanities from a historical perspective, investigating key crucial events that have taken place in America. Literacy and literacy instruction in the past, present and future are detailed by Professors Thompson and Coffey, while scholar Paul Horton examines the plight of the humanities in the vise of K-20 corporate education reform. Emerging technologies in humanities education is critically examined by Arjun Sabharwal while Gerald Cupchik explores the humanities, emotions and aesthetics in a singular fashion. The realms of pedagogy and knowledge are explored by Will Fitzhugh and Michael F. Shaughnessy, while Greg Eft paints a panorama of concerning the definition of beauty as it pertains to the humanities. Geni Flores then follows in a chapter that promotes and accentuates the importance of multiculturalism and diversity as instruments of social justice. Josh McVey interprets Scripture and its origins within the humanities while Anna Beck explores historical American theatre and provides a glimpse of this realm through various windows. Opal Greer sheds light on what we may be able to discern from the humanities past and envisions the realm of their future in universities and academia. Professor Elder contributes a second time to this manuscript, boldly going where not historian has gone before and examining the relevance of space history to this subject matter. Bringing the book to a close, Herbert London offers his perspective on the future of the humanities. Scholars, researchers, critics, historians, art lovers, and musicians as well as many involved in education will relish and enjoy this rich, robust exploration of the humanities and its relation to the past, present and future. |
| climate change through the history lens: States and Nature Joshua Busby, 2022-03-24 Busby explains how climate change can affect security outcomes, including violent conflict and humanitarian emergencies. Through case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, the book develops a novel argument explaining why climate change leads to especially bad security outcomes in some places but not in others. |
| climate change through the history lens: Nature's Nation Karl Kusserow, Alan C. Braddock, 2018 This multidisciplinary book offers the first broad ecocritical review of American art and examines the environmental contexts of artistic practice from the colonial period to the present day. Tracing how visions of the environment have changed from the Native-European encounter to the emergence of modern ecological activism, more than a dozen scholars and practitioners discuss how artists have both responded to and actively instigated changes in ecological understanding. |
| climate change through the history lens: Carbon Captured Matto Mildenberger, 2020-02-18 A comparative examination of domestic climate politics that offers a theory for cross-national differences in domestic climate policymaking. Climate change threatens the planet, and yet policy responses have varied widely across nations. Some countries have undertaken ambitious programs to stave off climate disaster, others have done little, and still others have passed policies that were later rolled back. In this book, Matto Mildenberger opens the “black box” of domestic climate politics, examining policy making trajectories in several countries and offering a theoretical explanation for national differences in the climate policy process. Mildenberger introduces the concept of double representation—when carbon polluters enjoy political representation on both the left (through industrial unions fearful of job loss) and the right (through industrial business associations fighting policy costs)—and argues that different climate policy approaches can be explained by the interaction of climate policy preferences and domestic institutions. He illustrates his theory with detailed histories of climate politics in Norway, the United States, and Australia, along with briefer discussions of policies in in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada. He shows that Norway systematically shielded politically connected industrial polluters from costs beginning with its pioneering carbon tax; the United States, after the failure of carbon reduction legislation, finally acted on climate reform through a series of Obama administration executive actions; and Australia's Labor and Green parties enacted an emissions trading scheme, which was subsequently repealed by a conservative Liberal party government. Ultimately, Mildenberger argues for the importance of political considerations in understanding the climate policymaking process and discusses possible future policy directions. |
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