Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction

Description

Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge facing humanity. This book describes the substantial evidence for climate change and considers its potentially catastrophic impacts worldwide in the coming decades. It also discusses the geopolitical aspects, and explores what actions can be taken by individuals, companies, and governments.

• Fully updated for 2021 with the latest science on climate change, including key findings from the IPCC 2021 report
• Explains how and why climate change is happening
• Describes the mounting, wide-ranging evidence for climate change, and modelled predictions of future scenarios
• Looks at the political tensions surrounding climate change
• Examines the proposed solutions to protect our future and that of our planet
• Part of the bestselling Very Short Introductions series - over ten million copies sold worldwide

New to this edition

• Includes the very latest science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Covers the politics of climate change right up to the climate negotiations chaired by the UK in 2021
• Includes a new solutions chapter which discusses what individuals, companies and Governments can do to deal with the climate change emergency
• Inludes a new chapter covering the 150 year history of climate change science
• Includes a new final chapter that discusses the imapct and lessons that can be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic for dealing with the even greater crisis of climate change

About the Author(s)

Mark Maslin, Professor of Climatology, University College London

Mark Maslin FRGS, FRSA is a Professor of Earth System Science at University College London. He is a leading scientist with expertise in past and future climate change. Maslin appears regularly on radio and television, and has written ten books, including The Cradle of Humanity (2017), The Human Planet (2018, co-authored with Simon Lewis), and How to Save Our Planet: The Facts (2021). He is a Royal Society Industrial Fellow, working with Rezatec Ltd, a geoanalytics company he co-founded, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Scholar.

Table of Contents

Preface to the fourth edition xix
Acknowledgements xxi
List of illustrations xxiii
Abbreviations xxvii
1 What is climate change? 1
2 History of climate change 12
3 Evidence for climate change 26
4 Modelling future climate 44
5 Climate change impacts 64
6 Climate surprises 90
7 Politics of climate change 106
8 Solutions 122
9 Changing our future 148
Further reading 157
Index 163

Reviews

"Teaching climate change ... means choosing the right book by the right person. Enter Mark Maslin, Professor of Earth System Science at University College London and the author of Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction, a slim volume with a big punch ... University instructors ... will appreciate this book for its ambitious sweep and its accessible writing" - Donald Wright, Yale Climate Connections