Nature

Just cool it! : the climate crisis and what we can do : a post-Paris Agreement game plan

David T. Suzuki

363.73874 /Suzuki
Nature, Science, Nonfiction

For decades, Canadian scientist, activist, and broadcaster Suzuki (The Sacred Balance) has spoken up on behalf of the environment. With journalist coauthor Hanington, he updates the message, taking into account the points established at the UN 2015 Paris Agreement. At that conference, almost all nations made commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set a date by which they would stop burning coal, oil, and gas. The authors remind governments, businesses, and individuals that honoring these "breakthrough" commitments requires making major changes. They acknowledge that fighting global warming is challenging and expensive, but contend that ignoring it would be catastrophic. They state that agricultural solutions should revolve around sustainably working with nature and storing more carbon in soil, and that technological solutions should include building a smart power grid and storage to manage renewable energy that is replacing fossil fuels. More controversial statements are about economics and politics: that producing carbon pollution indicates market failure, that mainstream economics must value natural capital and ecological services, and that governments must lead the global shift from fossil fuels. As in Suzuki's earlier books, the tone is practical about the means to make change yet passionate about preserving an environment that supports biodiversity and human civilization.

Added by Candice

Climate justice : hope, resilience, and the fight for a sustainable future

Mary Robinson

363.7 /Robinson
Nonfiction, Science, Nature

"Holding her first grandchild in her arms in 2003, Mary Robinson was struck by the uncertainty of the world he had been born into. Before his fiftieth birthday, he would share the planet with more than nine billion people--people battling for food, water, and shelter in an increasingly volatile climate. The faceless, shadowy menace of climate change had become, in an instant, deeply personal. Mary Robinson's mission would lead her all over the world, from Malawi to Mongolia, and to a heartening revelation: that an irrepressible driving force in the battle for climate justice could be found at the grassroots level, mainly among women, many of them mothers and grandmothers like herself. From Sharon Hanshaw, the Mississippi matriarch whose campaign began in her East Biloxi hair salon and culminated in her speaking at the United Nations, to Constance Okollet, a small farmer who transformed the fortunes of her ailing community in rural Uganda, Robinson met with ordinary people whose resilience and ingenuity had already unlocked extraordinary change. Powerful and deeply humane, Climate Justice is a stirring manifesto on one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of our time, and a lucid, affirmative, and well-argued case for hope."--Dust jacket.

Added by Candice

Here : poems for the planet

811.608 /Here
Poetry, Nature, Science

"HERE: Poems for the Planet is a lovesong to a planet in crisis. Summoning a chorus of over 125 diverse poetic voices, this anthology approaches the impending environmental crisis with a sense of urgency and hopefulness. Now more than ever is the time for this book as it seeks to galvanize readers, students, teachers, philanthropists and everyday people to address the realities of climate change head on and become individual catalysts for change. Here looks at the world with a renewed sense of courage, fighting fear that so often leads to indifference and cynicism. The anthology also includes an activist guide, created in tandem with the Union of Concerned Scientists, and an introduction by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. With these poems, we hope you will see with new eyes what the astronauts saw the first time they peered down from space at our tiny world"--

Added by Candice

The end of ice : bearing witness and finding meaning in the path of climate disruption

Dahr Jamail

363.73874 /Jamail
Science, Nature, Nonfiction

"After nearly a decade overseas as a war reporter, the acclaimed journalist Dahr Jamail returned to America to renew his passion for mountaineering, only to find that the slopes he had once climbed have been irrevocably changed by climate disruption. In response, Jamail embarks on a journey to the geographical front lines of this crisis--from Alaska to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, via the Amazon rainforest--in order to discover the consequences to nature and to humans. In [this book], we follow Jamail as he scales Denali, the highest peak in North America, dives in the warm crystal waters of the Pacific only to find bleached coral reefs, and explores the tundra of St. Paul Island where he meets the last subsistence seal hunters of the Bering Sea and witnesses its collapsing food web. Accompanied along the way by climate scientists and people whose families for centuries have fished, farmed, and lived in the areas he visits, Jamail begins to accept the fact that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation. Ironically, this allows him to renew his passion for the planet's wild places, cherishing Earth in a way he has never been able to before. Like no other book, The End of Ice offers a firsthand chronicle of the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing and caring for this vulnerable, fragile planet while we still can."--Dust jacket.

Added by Candice