Six degrees: Our future on a hotter planet

Mark Lynas

If we are going to act we need to realistically understand the problem of how our climate is changing. How much it is going to heat up by. Over what timescale and the consequences to natural habitats, farming, water supply, storms, flooding, society, politics. Mark Lynas summarises paleo-climatology research (he took months reading papers in the Oxford libraries) in an accessible format by telling a series of stories from all over the world of how our world is changing now and how it changed in the past when temperatures were higher. Written like a national geographic article divided into bite sized chunks. Each chapter covers a 1ºC rise up to 6 ºC. Will most likely be in your local library but if a group of you buy one copy and read it you can share and discuss the issues.     

Harper Perennial ISBN978-0-00-720905-7

Storms of my Grandchildren: The truth about the coming climate catastrophe and our last chance to save humanity  

Professor James Hansen

James Hansen is the worlds pre-eminent climate scientist, professor in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia university and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He has decided to be more vocal on climate change and the need for urgent change in policy direction. Since the 80’s Hansen began testifying to congress on climate change science and witnessed time and time again vested interest obstructing effective change in policy. Hansen’s message is clear if you have a vested interest in your loved ones especially the children,  get clued up about the vested interest in the political elite who are not acting responsibly for all life on the planet and start to try and change things before it is too late. Hansen in each chapter equips you with the whole story right up to telling us what we cant afford to happen which is the continued burning of coal and unconventional fossil fuels such as shale gas and tar sands. A very important read

Bloomsbury ISBN978-1-4088-0746-0

Report: Climate Extremes: Recent Trends with implications for National Security  Oct 2012

The CIA funded this study to look at the extent and pace of climate changes and how they will lead to potential impacts on food, water, energy and economic security. This document at just over a 100 pages is relatively easy to read and understand especially if you skip the technical bits. Presently it is having an effect in America as many congressman are reading this document and taking it seriously.  Coupled with many ordinary Americans being directly affected by drought, floods, storms and water shortages it is no wonder it has started to be put back on the political agenda. The report is global and concentrates on the next couple of decades, close enough to allow us to imagine what situation we will experience in our lifetimes.

Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies                                                                             

Richard Heinberg

The author is a journalist and educator who through explaining these issues to his students has come to write a book which deals with the imminent decline of cheap oil. It shows how oil and war have been closely related for the past century and how competition to control oil supplies is likely to lead to new resource wars. Tracing the crucial role of fossil fuels in the rise of industrialism, Heinberg discusses the degree to which energy alternatives can compensate for oil, and makes realistic recommendations to deal with the problem.

Clairview ISBN1-905570-00-7

 

Plan B   4.0 Mobilization to Save Civilization

Lester Brown

Lester Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute. In this book he gives a good description of global environmental issues and makes them accessible to the general reader.

W.WNorton ISBN 978-0-393-33719-8

 

Papers

Causes of Global Warming Observed since the 19^th Century

Authors: M.J Ring, D.Linder, E.Cross, M.Shlesinger Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2012, 2,401-415

Published online www.SciRP.org/journals/acs

 A Fair Plan to Safeguard Earth’s climate Authors M.Shlesinger, M.Ring, E.Cross Journal of Environmental Protection, 2012, 3, 455-461

Published online www.SciRP.org/journals/jep

Both these papers are worth reading, the teams who put these papers together have tried to make them accessible to non-scientists. Leave out the methodology, try to understand the graphs and concentrate on their summarised conclusions. The first report is looking at the influence of human activities and natural variability over the period 1908-2010 on near surface global temperature. It concludes that the overall warming is predominantly caused by human activity and not natural variability. However it breaks up the data into shorter periods: 1904 -1944, 1944-1976 and 1976-2010 and looks at the contributions of natural variability and human forcing in these periods. It highlights that early 20^th century warming is caused by natural variability and progressively warming through to the present day is caused overwhelmingly by human activity i.e. the burning of fossil fuels. It highlights this trend which is particularly prominent from 1976 onwards.

The second short report puts forward a plan of cuts for developing and developed countries where by the emissions peak in 2015 and get reduced to zero by 2065.Thereby preventing a 2ºC rise in global temperature.

Documentaries/films

Crisis in Civilization

This a documentary featuring Dr Nafeez Ahmed who  investigates how global issues  such as climate change, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single failed global system. It is a first rate analysis of our current problems. Filled with edited archive footage which brings irony and humour to some serious issues. Worth multiple viewings because there is a lot of interesting information in there that is well researched and worth taking note of.

Age of Stupid: Extended Interviews

George Monbiot and Richard Heinberg

These interviews describe in a nutshell many of the issues of climate change, peak oil and our current inaction to do anything to solve them. Each piece is c. 20mins long.