Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know is the essential primer on what will be the defining issue of our time. Newly updated with the latest in climate science from COP26 and beyond, this third edition offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding climate change. Drawing on the author's decades of experience as one of the country's most influential communicators on climate science and solutions, this authoritative guide highlights the following topics:
- Key updates from the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow
- Insights into changes in the political landscape, such as COVID-19 and Donald Trump's presidency, and what these have meant for climate action in the United States and internationally
- Contemporary implications of the clean energy revolution, from solar and wind power to batteries and electric cars
Acknowledgements
Preface: Why You Need To Know About Climate Change
I. Climate Science Basics
II. Extreme Weather and Climate Change
III. Projected Climate Impacts
IV. Avoiding The Worst Impacts
V. Climate Politics and Policies
VI. The Role of Clean Energy
VII. Climate Change and You
Primary Sources
Endnotes
Index
Joseph Romm, PhD, is one of the country's most influential communicators on climate science and solutions. Romm is Chief Science Advisor for Years of Living Dangerously series, which won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. He is the founding editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called "the indispensable blog". In 2009, Time named him one of its "Heroes of the Environment", calling him "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger". In 2009, Rolling Stone put Romm on its list of 100 "people who are reinventing America". Romm was acting assistant secretary of energy in 1997, where he oversaw $1 billion in low-carbon technology development and deployment. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and holds a PhD in physics from MIT.
Reviews of previous editions:
"This is, for my money, the best single-source primer on the state of climate change."
– New York Magazine
"Given the pressing need for action, Climate Change is the right book at the right time: accessible, comprehensive, unflinching, humane."
– The Daily Beast
"A must-read for those who want to become climate literate and join the growing conversation about the greatest threat humanity faces today."
– The Guardian
"Romm provides a useful primer on the drivers of climate change, the ways that the world might achieve that target, and the obstacles to moving away from business as usual [...] [the book] is full of useful information and accessible analysis."
– Foreign Affairs
"An up-to-date, comprehensive examination of the science behind climate change, what these environmental issues mean for the future, and possible clean energy solutions."
– Mother Earth News