Climate Change: What it Means for Us, Our Children, and Our Grandchildren

Front Cover
Joseph F. DiMento, Pamela Doughman
MIT Press, 2007 - 217 pages

Explains what science knows about climate change, how it will affect us, its impact on different areas, and what we can do about it.

Most of us are familiar with the terms climate change and global warming, but not too many of us understand the science behind them. We don't really understand how climate change will affect us, and for that reason we might not consider it as pressing a concern as, say, housing prices or the quality of local education. This book explains the scientific knowledge about global climate change clearly and concisely in engaging, nontechnical language, describes how it will affect all of us, and suggests how government, business, and citizens can take action against it. If people don't quite understand the seriousness of climate change, it is partly because politicians and the media have misrepresented the scientific community's strong consensus on it--politicians by selectively parsing the words of mainstream scientists, and the media by presenting "balanced" accounts that give the views of a small number of contrarians equal weight with empirically supported scientific findings. The science is complex, couched in the technical language of sinks, forcing, and albedo, and invokes probabilities, risks, ranges, and uncertainties. Policy discussions use such unfamiliar terms as no regrets policy, clean development mechanism, and greenhouse-gas intensity. Climate Change explains the nuts and bolts of climate and the greenhouse effect and describes their interaction. It discusses the nature of consensus in science, and the consensus on climate change in particular. It describes both public- and private-sector responses, considers how to improve the way scientific findings are communicated, and evaluates the real risks both to vulnerable developing countries and to particular areas of the United States. We can better tackle climate change, this book shows us, if we understand it. We can use this knowledge to guide our own behavior and pressure governments and businesses to take action.

From inside the book

Contents

Making Climate Change Understandable
1
2 A Primer on Global Climate Change and Its Likely Impacts
11
Global and Local Views
45
How Do We Know Were Not Wrong?
65
How the World is Responding
101
Challenges in Communicating Environmental Science
139
7 Climate Change and Human Security
161
What It Means to Us Our Children and Our Grandchildren
181
Glossary
197
Contributors
207
Index
209
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2007)

Joseph F. C. DiMento is Director of the Newkirk Center for Science and Society, Professor of Planning, Policy, and Design, and Professor of Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of The Global Environment and International Law and other books. Pamela Doughman is an Energy Specialist with the California Energy Commission.

Bibliographic information