Climate Change and How We'll Fix It by Alice Harman and Andrés Lozano

It's Earth Day and I've been saving my review of this book just for today! It's so good. Climate Change and How We'll Fix It by Alice Harman begins with the very first thing you need to know: What's the difference between weather and climate? As I read the beginning of the book, it occurred to me that already I found that it had defined climate change in a more palatable and easily comprehensible manner than any other book I've read (and I do enjoy reading about climate change), enough so that I couldn't help but think that a lot of adults could get a great deal out of Climate Change and How We'll Fix It. 

From the introduction of Climate Change and How We'll Fix It:

In the first section of this book, we're going to try to answer the big questions you might have about climate change. Questions like "How do we know it's happening?", "What is causing it?", and "What will happen if we don't stop it. 

Then, in the second section, we'll look at some of the problems getting in the way of fixing climate change. And in the third section, we'll try to figure out how humans — including you! — can help solve these problems and create a better, safer world for us all. 

There's a pretty substantial list of contents but the first section, "What We Know" talks about the Greenhouse Effect, different types of energy/fuel and how they contribute to climate change or can reduce it, food and farming (impacts of farming on the climate and the reverse), "Too much stuff" (conspicuous consumption, particularly in advanced nations where advertisers try to convince everyone they need more, and how wasteful consumption adds to the problem), and how exactly scientists find the evidence and impact of climate change. 

The second section uses talking heads (illustrated with little conversation bubbles) to show the two sides of various issues. For example, the "That's not fair" problem has a person from an advanced nation and a nation that is trying to become wealthier in discussion. The person from the wealthier nation tells the other that his country needs to reduce its carbon emissions but the other country's opinion is, "Hey, you did it to make yourselves wealthy and now it's our turn." 

The third section, about solutions, goes into some interesting territory in that it tells the reader that there are ways to do your part but it's also important to understand that there are reasons people don't understand and act on climate change, that it's important to listen to others and learn from them, try to promote fairness in climate action, and not lecture people. I thought the bit about not lecturing because it doesn't work anyway but simply doing what you can was particularly great because, in fact, I've read an entire book about why people don't want to even think about climate change, much less accept it, and it makes a lot of sense to stick to simplicity — do what you can to help, but let others come to understanding of what needs to be done in their own time. 

Geared for older elementary level, Climate Change and How We'll Fix It would be an excellent library resource and wonderful for use in classrooms or for science reports. Adults who don't want to read a more in-depth book but just want to know the basics will get a lot out of it, as well. Here's an interior image to give you an idea of the reading level (click on the image to enlarge). 

Highly recommended - I've read quite a few books about climate change but this children's book is one of the clearest, most easily comprehensible books I've read. It does become a little repetitive in the latter half and I thought the fictional conversations were a tiny bit more complex than the text. Still, Climate Change and How We'll Fix It is an excellent primer about climate change: what it is, how scientists know it's not normal, why progress in reversing it has been slow, and what readers can do to help bring about change. It also contains a very nice glossary. 

My thanks to Sterling Children's Books for the review copy! 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Kivalina: A Climate Change Story by Christine Shearer

Climategate is emblematic of the "discourse of doubt" deliberately employed by the fossil fuel industry and its allies. This discourse sets up certainty as the only acceptable standard for acknowledging and thus acting on climate change, while simultaneously manufacturing uncertainty, to ensure such certainty is never achieved. Demanding certainty is also a deliberate misrepresentation of science, as science consists of gathering and assessing reliable data, producing replicable results, establishing areas of consensus, and building on the findings for greater understanding, while acknowledging areas in need of further research. In demanding certainty while manufacturing uncertainty, industries can forever frame the discussion as "the science is out and more research is needed," delaying regulations indefinitely even when evidence of harm and danger is overwhelming. 

~ p. 16

While downplaying and attacking government science, those opposed to regulations have also drummed up support by funding research institutes, such as the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, that produce primarily dire economic analyses of the possible consequences of regulation. Such reports have contributed to a widespread public perception that regulation in any form is inevitably expensive [...] These analyses seldom factor in, however, the costs already borne by society due to increased sickness and disease and thus medical care, as well as environmental degradation and clean-up -- public costs that therfore act as invisible subsidies to industry. Such cost-benefit analyses also systematically downplay or ignore the value and benefits of a healthy society and healthy ecosystems. 

~ pp. 32-33

Under the New Jersey and Rhode Island courts' reading, since former lead paint manufacturers do not presently "control" the premises containing lead hazards, meaning they do not own the buildings, they are not liable -- a decision deliberately ignoring the evidence suggesting that the companies knowingly created the nuisance in the first place. 

~ p. 48

The growing understanding of anthropogenic warming has been a process of international, cross-disciplinary scientific inquiry and collaboration going back more than a century. Weather refers to atmospheric conditions including temperature, wind, and precipitation over a short period of time, while climate measures the mean (average) and variability of weather over a relatively longer period of time. The term "global warming" describes the increasing average surface temperature of the earth due to steady buildup of heat-trapping gases in our lower atmosphere, while "climate change" more fully captures the scope of the effects. 

~ p. 77

More evidence of anthropogenic warming was unearthed in the 1980s, as samples of ancient air trapped in ice cores showed correlations between carbon dioxide levels and temperature. A two-kilometer-long ice core drilled in 1985, carrying a 150,000-year record, showed carbon dixoide levels rose and fell in line with records of past temperature shifts. Records going back 800,000 years show carbon dioxide levels got as low as 180 parts per million (ppm) in cold periods and 280 ppm in warm periods, but never higher. In 1980, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 340 ppm. As of 2011, it is about 390 ppm and rising at an average rate of about 2 ppm per year. 

~ p 82


First, a note. Kivalina: A Climate Change Story was published in 2011 and there is no update  reflecting what has happened since publication, although I just looked up the "current concentration of Co2 in the atmosphere" and Google tells me it was up to 405 ppm in 2017. In spite of the book's age (things are definitely changing fast), the book is still revelant because it's not just about the battle against rising water in a single island town. Instead, fully half of the book is about how corporations were allowed to grow and thrive, quickly giving them more rights than individuals, how and when human-driven climate change was first discovered and acknowledged (over 100 years ago) and how and why we have been deceived by corporations in ways that are not just damaging but deadly. It even describes how the American justice system has favored corporations over individuals, over the past century.

If you've read The Radium Girls and felt like screaming at the injustice, you'll feel the same about Kivalina. Rather than just describing climate change, it goes into other known hazards that were deliberately covered up by corporations who benefitted from the production of harmful products: leaded paint, tobacco products, and asbestos (which has never been banned and is actually making a comeback, in spite of being a known carcinogen) are the major products discussed.

The second half of the book is dedicated to Kivalina itself, a small island in Alaska. The history alone is rage-inducing. The children of Alaskan natives, now in "a small Inupiaq village that sits on a barrier reef island", were forced to attend a school where they would be taught like white people, deliberately keeping the children from being taught the traditional ways of their people, in the last century. Their school was built on the island of Kivalina in 1905, forcing families to relocate to the island. They're a people who practice subsistence living and the government tried to stop that, as well, but did not succeed. When climate change began causing the ice to melt sooner, removing protection from the island during storms and eating away at its shores, the islanders sought help relocating their population. They selected a location that works for continued subsistence. But, it turns out there is not a single U.S. government entity that has been created for the purpose of helping people relocate due to climate change.

Highly recommended - I'd like to see an update added to Kivalina: A Climate Change Story because the only articles I can find online are outdated (although there is still a website dedicated to amassing funds for a future move and info online indicates that the island is expected to completely disappear by 2025) but even slightly outdated the book serves the purpose of educating readers about how they've been deceived. It is equally fascinating and horrifying to find out just how far corporations will go -- to the point of letting people die -- to suppress important information about health and well-being in the name of making money. Everyone should read this book. It's a little on the dry side, especially in the first half. At times, I felt practically assaulted by information. But, it's incredibly well-researched, organized, and intelligently presented.

Note: I tried to adjust the color of the photo, above, and couldn't get it to come out quite right. The book is actually closer to black and white with a slightly brownish tinge -- nowhere near as brown as it looks. I bought my copy of Kivalina: A Climate Change Story from Haymarket Books.

And, just FYI, Haymarket Books is currently having a sale on books on "black liberation". I placed an order so I can have some reading material for Black History Month and thought that was worth sharing (black liberation titles are 50% off). I can't wait till they arrive! I've been very happy with all of the Haymarket titles I've purchased.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert

Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change

By Elizabeth Kolbert

Copyright 2006

Bloomsbury - Non-fiction/Science/Environment

225 pages, incl. chronology, index, selected resources, bibliography and notes

As the snow is compressed, its crystal structure changes to ice. (Two thousand feet down, there is so much pressure on the ice that a sample drawn to the surface will, if mishandled, fracture, and in some cases even explode.) But in most other respects, the snow remains unchanged, a relic of the climate that first formed it. In the Greenland ice, there is nuclear fallout from early atomic tests, volcanic ash from Krakatau, lead pollution from ancient Roman smelters, and dust blown in from Mongolia on ice age winds. Every layer also contains tiny bubbles of trapped air, each of them a sample of a past atmosphere. --p. 30

The Vostok core, which is now stored in pieces in Denver, Grenoble, and on Antarctica, contains a continuous climate record stretching back four full glacial cycles. --p. 129

In legitimate scientific circles, it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global warming. Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at the University of California at San Diego, recently tried to quantify the level of consensus. She conducted a study of more than nine hundred articles on climate change published in refereed journals between 1993 and 2003 and subsequently made available on a leading research database. Of these, she found that 75 percent endorsed the view that anthropogenic [human-caused] emissions were responsible for at least some of the observed warming of the past fifty years. The remaining 25 percent, which dealt with questions of methodology or climate history, took no position on current conditions. Not a single article disputed the premise that anthropogenic warming is under way. --p. 164

To research climate change, Elizabeth Kolbert traveled around the world, speaking to scientists who study changes in not only climate but flora and fauna affected by climate changes. In Field Notes from a Catastrophe, she explains in clear (but sometimes a little technical) terms how and why recent climate change has been proven to be man-made and what we can expect if changes aren't made . . . well, yesterday. It's been 4 or 5 years since the book was published and things were already looking ominous.

Field Notes from a Catastrophe is definitely a scary book. One scientist made a discovery that led him to go home and tell his wife that the good news is that the job is going well and the bad news is that the verdict is pretty much the end of life as we know it, not that far down the road.

Combine the text of this book with the daily reports of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and it's a little hard to be optimistic about life on Earth continuing for as long as we'd like. The most fascinating facts, in my opinion, were some parallel discoveries by scientists in totally different fields. One discovered a buried city in the region of ancient Babylonia and came to the conclusion that a severe drought that lasted for many, many years led to the death of that city. Written records of that particular city and its lasting drought (unfortunately, I didn't mark those bits and can't recall the name) were previously thought to be mere legend but were proven accurate. At the same time, another scientist determined that the same drought was responsible for the end of the Mayan civilization.

The conclusion: (in my words) There is a breaking point beyond which civilizations cannot continue and humans die off -- even in advanced civilizations with specialized means for growing and storing agricultural products.

Meanwhile, a warming Earth means changing precipitation patterns. Just as some regions, like the American Midwest, are predicted to suffer from drought, others will experience more--at least more intense--rainfall. The effect is likely to be particularly punishing in some of the most densely populated regions on Earth, including the Mississippi Delta, the Ganges Delta, and the Thames basin. A study commissioned a few years ago by the British government concluded that under certain conditions, floods of a magnitude now expected no more often than once a century could, by 2080, be occurring in England once every three years. (As it happened, the very week I was in the Netherlands, thirteen people were killed by exceptionally heavy winter storms in Britain and Scandinavia.) --pp. 125-6

4.5/5 - Comprehensive research; excellent writing. A book that will leave no doubt as to how and why we've been misled into believing that the scientific community is divided on the issue of climate change and how much evidence there is to show that global warming is a catastrophe in progress.

I ordered my copy of Field Notes from a Catastrophe from Paperback Swap after reading about it in Nick Hornby's Shakespeare Wrote for Money, which I've yet to review. I'm not sure I'll forgive Hornby for a while. This book is frankly terrifying, although I certainly feel like Kolbert did such a great job of explaining ice core samples that anyone who has been misled into believing climate change is a farce should be able to read this book and understand just how much evidence there is of climate change over, literally, hundreds of thousands of years and how scientists are able to determine that recent change is human-driven.

There is also some explanation of the Bush administration's fascinating level of disinformation, the U.S.'s embarrassing behavior at Kyoto and wobbly American policies that pretty much negated any potential progress toward slowing global warming, in recent years. China is predicted to become the biggest contributor to climate change, in the near future.

The good news? Flowers are still blooming in Vicksburg. It's not over, yet.

More photos forthcoming. We're really colorful, at the moment.