Geoffrey Parker— Once upon a time, climate change was a hot topic. In 1979 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Environment Programme, the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation paid for 250 historians, geographers, archaeologists and climatologists from thirty countries to share their expertise
Carl Death— The Paris Agreement on climate change is set to enter into force on November 4, 2016, after its ratification by more than fifty-five countries representing over 55% of total greenhouse gas emissions in early October 2016. This was hailed by US President Barack Obama as “a historic day
Dieter Helm’s The Carbon Crunch takes a look at the world’s failure to adequately address climate change and proposes pragmatic, much-needed solutions. The following excerpt is from the preface to the revised and updated edition. The underlying position continues to deteriorate. In 2012, another 2 parts per million (ppm) of
Jessica Barnes and Michael Dove— An August 2012 edition of The New Yorker magazine adopted an unseasonal topic for its front cover: Santa Claus. In the illustration, Santa is slumped on the ground against a striped pole, cheeks flushed, under the yellow orb of a bright sun. In place of
As a reflection of the state of environmental debates in the United States, the Senate recently could not pass an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill affirming that “human activity significantly contributes to climate change” (although an earlier amendment to the bill declaring the “climate change is real and
Follow @yaleSCIbooks “Global warming,” William Nordhaus declares, “is one of the defining issues of our time. It ranks along with violent conflicts and economic depressions as a force that will shape the human and natural landscapes for the indefinite future.” In his new book, The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty, and Economics
Geoffrey Parker prefaces his new book with a collection of quotes, including: “The times here are so miserable that never in the memory of man has the like famine and mortality happened.” –East India Company officials, letter, Surat, India, 1631 ”Among all the strange occurrences of disaster and rebellion, there had
Follow @yaleSCIbooks The world has always been fascinated by Antarctica, the coldest, driest, and windiest continent on Earth. Students of all ages are drawn to its study, enjoying photographs of penguins and stories of expeditions to this icy and brutal land. However, as the planet’s climate continues to change, Antarctica
Follow @yaleSCIbooks What does global warming look like through the eyes of an ant? Aaron Ellison, senior fellow in Harvard University’s Harvard Forest and co-author of the recent book, A Field Guide to the Ants of New England, answers this question in the final pages of his book. Along with
If a group of a scientist’s colleagues started an entire website to warn the world, especially the scientific community, about “the flaws in his work” before the scientist even published a book, you might be at least a little skeptical when his book was finally published. Howard Friel has finally done what should have been done a decade ago, as he points out, in the publishing house: fact-checking. In The Lomborg Deception: Setting the Record Straight About Global Warming, all Friel has to do is comb through the endnotes and compare them with their sources to find gaping holes more terrifying than a velociraptor.