Climate Change: An Interdisciplinary Introduction - Hardcover

by Thomas Brewer (Author)

This textbook introduces and explains the issues around climate change and its mitigation. It includes topics across disciplines and can be used as a single-volume text by students studying a range of subjects. Among the topics included are:

-How to adopt significant mitigation measures now to avoid the most catastrophic long-term consequences of climate change.

-Reducing the rates of highly potent, short-lived emissions of methane gas and black carbon particulates-reductions that are necessary to meet the temperature targets of the Paris Agreements.

-Recognizing the unusually rapid warming in the Arctic, which is disrupting weather patterns in the northern hemisphere and currents in the Atlantic Ocean, causing world-wide sea-level rise, and also causing methane leaks in the Arctic region-leaks that could eventually lead to irreversible global warming consequences.

Meeting these challenges effectively requires action by both governments and businesses. The book examines the national and local governmental policies-and business practices-that are needed in sector-specific chapters.

An objective of the book is to inform readers about specific problems resulting from climate change-and the wide range of potential government policies and business practices, changes in technologies, and changes in public attitudes and actions that can reduce the emissions and otherwise lessen their impacts. Indeed, a central message is that understanding the issues posed by climate change requires no less than an understanding of climate science, micro- and macro-economics, technologies for mitigation and adaptation measures, as well as politics and law at many governmental levels from local to global. The author has included short case studies that illustrate and integrate multiple analytic perspectives. The book is therefore appropriate for students, professionals, and general audiences with wide-ranging interests and backgrounds.

Back Jacket

This textbook introduces and explains the issues around climate change and its mitigation. It includes topics across disciplines and can be used as a single-volume text by students studying a range of subjects. Among the topics included are:

-How to adopt significant mitigation measures now to avoid the most catastrophic long-term consequences of climate change.

-Reducing the rates of highly potent, short-lived emissions of methane gas and black carbon particulates--reductions that are necessary to meet the temperature targets of the Paris Agreements.

-Recognizing the unusually rapid warming in the Arctic, which is disrupting weather patterns in the northern hemisphere and currents in the Atlantic Ocean, causing world-wide sea-level rise, and also causing methane leaks in the Arctic region--leaks that could eventually lead to irreversible global warming consequences.

Meeting these challenges effectively requires action by both governments and businesses. The book examines the national and local governmental policies--and business practices--that are needed in sector-specific chapters.

An objective of the book is to inform readers about specific problems resulting from climate change--and the wide range of potential government policies and business practices, changes in technologies, and changes in public attitudes and actions that can reduce the emissions and otherwise lessen their impacts. Indeed, a central message is that understanding the issues posed by climate change requires no less than an understanding of climate science, micro- and macro-economics, technologies for mitigation and adaptation measures, as well as politics and law at many governmental levels from local to global. The author has included short case studies that illustrate and integrate multiple analytic perspectives. The book is therefore appropriate for students, professionals, and general audiences with wide-ranging interests and backgrounds.

Author Biography

Thomas Brewer is a member of the Emeritus Faculty of the Georgetown University School of Business, where he taught a course on energy and climate change issues in business. He has authored and co-authored numerous articles, chapters, and conference presentations related to climate change, black carbon, and emissions. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He has been a visiting scholar at the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR), a visiting senior research fellow at Oxford University in the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment, and a Schöller Foundation senior research fellow at Friedrich-Alexander University in Nuremberg, Germany.