Our Future Earth

Paleoclimatologist Curt Stager vividly describes how the decisions we make about the environment in the 21st century will affect the next 100,000 years of life on this planet, and how today's environmental debate is missing the long-term evidence. By considering the Earth's history over millions of years, this book changes our understanding: Most people accept that our planet is warming and that humans played the key role in causing it. We worry about the next few hundred years, yet miss its long-term magnitude. So what will the world look like? Curt Stager draws on geological history to show that the greatest threat to humans will not be global warming, but global cooling. When that hot 'backlash' eventually happens is entirely up to us: We have already put off the next Ice Age, but whether our descendents will see an ice-free Arctic, miles of submerged coasts, or an acidified ocean can still be decided. Whether we continue to pollute or rein ourselves in for the sake of future generations, the world will be vastly different. This lucid book will force climate sceptics, activists, and everyone in between think again about our future earth.

The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In The Future Earth, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus (“the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology”—Rolling Stone) offers a radical vision of our future, specifically how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. Anchored by world-class reporting, interviews with futurists, climatologists, biologists, economists, and climate change activists, it shows what the world could look like if we implemented radical solutions on the scale of the crises we face. What could happen if we reduced carbon emissions by 50 percent in the next decade? What could living in a city look like in 2030? How could the world operate in 2040, if the proposed Green New Deal created a 100 percent net carbon-free economy in the United States? This is the book for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the current state of our environment. Hopeful and prophetic, The Future Earth invites us to imagine how we can reverse the effects of climate change in our own lifetime and encourages us to enter a deeper relationship with the earth as conscientious stewards and to re-affirm our commitment to one another in our shared humanity.

This open access book provides a theoretical framework and case studies on decision science for regional sustainability by integrating the natural and social sciences. The cases discussed include solution-oriented transdisciplinary studies on the environment, disasters, health, governance and human cooperation. Based on these case studies and comprehensive reviews of relevant works, including lessons learned from past failures for predictable surprises and successes in adaptive co-management, the book provides the reader with new perspectives on how we can co-design collaborative projects with various conflicts of interest and how we can transform our society for a sustainable future. The book makes a valuable contribution to the global research initiative Future Earth, promoting transdisciplinary studies to bridge the gap between science and society in knowledge generation processes and supporting efforts to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Compared to other publications on transdisciplinary studies, this book is unique in that evolutionary biology is used as an integrator for various areas related to human decision-making, and approaches social changes as processes of adaptive learning and evolution. Given its scope, the book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an integrated overview of human decision-making in the context of social transformation.

A timely and inspiring nonfiction guide for middle grade readers about the history of our fight against climate change, and how young people today are rising to action. Inspired by Nathaniel Rich’s Losing Earth: A Recent History, the acclaimed book that grew out of an August 2018 issue of the New York Times Magazine solely dedicated to it, Saving Earth tells the human story of the climate change conversation from the recent past into the present day. It wrestles with the long shadow of our failures, what might be ahead for today’s generation, and crucial questions of how we understand the world we live in—and how we can work together to change the outlook for the better. Written by acclaimed author Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich and enlivened with illustrations from Tim Foley, and filled with the voices of climate activists from the past and present, this book is both a call to action and a riveting dramatic history. A Junior Library Guild Selection

Every four days there are a million more people on the planet. More people and fewer resources. In this timely work, Alan Weisman examines how we can shrink our collective human footprint so that we don't stomp any more species - including our own - out of existence. The answer: reducing gradually and non-violently the number of humans on the planet whose activities, industries and lifestyles are damaging the Earth. Defining an optimum human population for the Earth is an explosive concept. Weisman, one of the most brilliant environmental writers, will travel the globe, from the settlements of Israel and the plains of Mexico to the bustling streets of Pakistan and the teeming cities of the UK. In his search for answers, he will speak to religious leaders, demographers, ecologists, economists, engineers and agriculturalists in what promises to be an international classic.

In this extraordinary book, paleoclimatologist Curt Stager shows how what we do to the environment in the next one hundred years will affect not just the next few centuries but the next 100,000 years of human existence. Most of us have accepted that our planet is warming and that humans have played the key role in causing climate change. Yet few of us realize the magnitude of what’s happening. In Deep Future, Curt Stager draws on the planet’s geological history to provide a view of where we may be headed long term. On the bright side, we have already put off the next ice age. But whether we will barrel ahead on a polluting path to a totally ice-free Arctic, miles of submerged coasts or an acidified ocean still remains to be decided. And that decision is ours to make. Deep Future adds a new dimension to the debate—one that will change how we think about what we are doing to our planet.

'One of the most important books I've read this year. How Are We Going To Explain This? is a crystal clear treatise on where we are, and what we need to do right now. Especially recommended for those who feel hopeless.' Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists 'At a time when despair, malign fabrication and partisanship are combining to prevent vital action, How Are We Going To Explain This is a much-needed, joyful, clear and practical companion. Read this - it could save your planet. Give it to your friends and colleagues - it's their planet, too.' A.L. Kennedy 'Shines a light on the path forward with clarity and determination.' Christiana Figueres Architect of the Paris climate agreement, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 2010-2016 'As more of humanity adjusts to living with crises - we need books like this, which tell us what we can do - from small steps to big ones - to find our way to a new normal.' May Boeve, Executive Director 350.org and 350 Action Fund THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 'There's a new story in the making, one in which the consequences of our actions add up - and every contribution is meaningful.' If climate change is the biggest threat humanity has ever faced, then why are we doing so little? Will the corona pandemic make it worse or better? And where do we go from here? Drawing on the latest climate science, Jelmer Mommers helps you find hope in the midst of the climate crisis. He describes how we got here, what possible futures await us, and how you can help to truly make a difference. 'As a journalist, Jelmer Mommers has broken important stories about how we got in our current climate mess; as a thinker, he shows us there may still be some ways out, if we move with grace and speed. A fine account of where we stand, and where we could go if we wanted to!' Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, activist and founder of 350.org 'Climate change is a story so often told in the future tense. But Mommers roots it firmly in the present. The problem, the consequences and the solution - right here, right now.' Leo Hickman, editor of Carbon Brief

On 21 May 2019, it was officially recognized that we are now living in the Anthropocene, our earth’s latest geological epoch, named for the 'unmistakable imprint of human activities'. This announcement came almost 60 years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark work of environmental writing, Silent Spring, and next year (2022) it will be 50 years since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972. This book, Our Earth Matters: Pathways to a Better Common Environmental Future, is a special issue of the journal Environmental Policy and Law, which was first published in 1975. It presents 21 invited contributions by outstanding scholars from around the world, which examine existing global regulatory approaches, processes, instruments and institutions for the protection of the global environment. The articles are grouped under four headings: Prognoses, Processes, Problematique and Prospects, and in them the authors have sought to explore answers to the existential environmental crisis. They urge us to ponder our reckless destruction of natural spaces, endangering of plant and animal species, poisoning of the environment, and general disturbance of our essential ecological processes. The primary objective of the book is to raise the awareness of the global audience by inspiring scholars and decision-makers to re-examine current global approaches to environmental issues and explore the future trajectory with new ideas and frameworks for international environmental governance in the 21st century and beyond. The book will be of interest to all those working to secure the sustainable future of the human race on our only abode, planet Earth. Bharat H. Desai is Professor of International Law and Jawaharlal Nehru Chair in International Environmental Law, Centre for International Legal Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environmental Policy & Law (Amsterdam: IOS Press) and of the Yearbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford: OUP).