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How to avoid a climate disaster : the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need / by Gates, Bill,1955-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Bill Gates shares what he's learned in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address the problems, and sets out a vision for how the world can build the tools it needs to get to zero greenhouse gas emissions. Bill Gates explains why he cares so deeply about climate change and what makes him optimistic that the world can avoid the most dire effects of the climate crisis. Gates says, "We can work on a local, national, and global level to build the technologies, businesses, and industries to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." His interest in climate change is a natural outgrowth of the efforts by his foundation to reduce poverty and disease. Climate change, according to Gates, will have the biggest impact on the people who have done the least to cause it. As a technologist, he has seen firsthand how innovation can change the world. By investing in research, inventing new technologies, and by deploying them quickly at large scale, Gates believes climate change can be addressed in meaningful ways. According to Gates, "to prevent the worst effects of climate change, we have to get to net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases. This problem is urgent, and the debate is complex, but I believe we can come together to invent new carbon-zero technologies, deploy the ones we have, and ultimately avoid a climate catastrophe""--
Subjects: Climatic changes; Environmental policy.; Global warming; Greenhouse gases;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Autism spectrum disorder : what every parent needs to know / by Rosenblatt, Alan I.,author.; Carbone, Paul S.,author.; American Academy of Pediatrics.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."This guide helps parents understand how ASDs are defined and diagnosed and offers an overview of the most current behavioral and developmental therapies. Topics include: symptoms and types of ASDs, accessing care, services in the community, and the role of complementary and alternative medicine. Parents will also find inspirational and relatable stories from other caretakers"--
Subjects: Autism spectrum disorders in children.; Children with autism spectrum disorders.; Parents of autistic children.; Autistic children;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Sun power : how energy from the sun is changing lives around the world, empowering America, and saving the planet / by Williams, Neville,1943-;
Includes bibliographical references and index."America is on the brink of an energy revolution that can save the planet, and increase peace and prosperity, by harnessing the unlimited power of the sun. After decades of promise, the technology now exists to replace our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels with cheap, clean solar energy. Neville Williams has been on the leading edge of this revolution for decades and knows from firsthand experience how sun power can transform lives and communities for the better. He has traveled the globe bringing solar-generated electricity to struggling communities throughout Asia, Africa, India, and the developing world. From isolated villages high in the mountains of Nepal to remote settlements in South Africa, Williams has worked to bring sun power to even the most off-the-grid reaches of the planet. He has brought that knowledge and experience back to America where he founded one of the country's fastest growing solar companies. If millions of poor families in the Third World can get their power from the sun, why can't Americans concerned with their rising power bills, dependence on foreign oil, and carbon footprints do the same? The answer is that sun power is here, it works, and can light up a new era of economic and environmental security--if we have the will to seize this historic opportunity. This book is not about predictions or promises. It's about what's happening now, all over the world, and what still needs to done"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Williams, Neville, 1943-; Photovoltaic power generation; Photovoltaic power generation; Solar energy industries; Solar energy industries; Solar energy industries.; Solar energy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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We are eating the Earth : the race to fix our food system and save our climate / by Grunwald, Michael,1970-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Humanity has cleared a land mass the size of Asia plus Europe to grow food, and our food system generates a third of our carbon emissions. By 2050, we're going to need a lot more calories to fill nearly 10 billion bellies, but we can't feed the world without frying it if we keep tearing down an acre of rainforest every six seconds. We are eating the earth, and the greatest challenge facing our species will be to slow our relentless expansion of farmland into nature. Even if we quit fossil fuels, we'll keep hurtling towards climate chaos if we don't solve our food and land problems. In this rollicking, shocking narrative, Grunwald shows how the world, after decades of ignoring the climate problem at the centre of our plates, has pivoted to making it worse, embracing solutions that sound sustainable but could make it even harder to grow more food with less land. But he also tells the stories of the dynamic scientists and entrepreneurs pursuing real solutions, from a jungle-tough miracle crop called pongamia to genetically-edited cattle embryos, from Impossible Whoppers to a non-polluting pesticide that uses the technology behind the COVID vaccines to constipate beetles to death. It's an often infuriating saga of lobbyists, politicians, and even the scientific establishment making terrible choices for humanity, but it's also a hopeful account of the people figuring out what needs to be done -- and trying to do it.
Subjects: Agricultural systems.; Climatic changes.; Food security.; Food supply; Human ecology.; Sustainable agriculture.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The last resort : a chronicle of paradise, profit, and peril at the beach / by Stodola, Sarah,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."With its promise of escape from the strains of everyday life, the beach has a hold on the popular imagination as the ultimate paradise. In The Last Resort, Sarah Stodola dives into the psyche of the beachgoer and gets to the heart of what drives humans to seek out the sand. At the same time, she grapples with the darker realities of resort culture: strangleholds on local economies, reckless construction, erosion of beaches, weighty carbon footprints, and the inevitable overdevelopment and decline that comes with a soaring demand for popular shorelines. The Last Resort weaves Stodola's firsthand travel notes with her exacting journalism in an enthralling report on the past, present, and future of coastal travel. She takes us from Monte Carlo, where the pursuit of pleasure first became part of the beach resort experience, to a village in Fiji that was changed irrevocably by the opening of a single resort; from the overdevelopment that stripped Acapulco of its reputation for exclusivity to Miami Beach, where extreme measures are underway to prevent the barrier island from vanishing into the ocean. In the twenty-first century, beach travel has become central to our globalized world-its culture, economy, and interconnectedness. But with sea levels likely to rise at least 1.5 to 3 feet by the end of this century, beaches will become increasingly difficult to preserve, and many will disappear altogether. What will our last resort be when water begins to fill the lobbies?"--
Subjects: Stodola, Sarah; Beaches; Outdoor recreation; Outdoor recreation; Seaside resorts.; Outdoor recreation;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The hidden kingdom of fungi : exploring the microscopic world in our forests, homes, and bodies / by Seifert, Keith A.,author.; Dunn, Rob,writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For readers of Entangled Life and The Hidden Life of Trees comes an illuminating account of the "invisible" fungi that share our world: from the air we breathe to the dust beneath our feet. The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi traces the intricate connections between fungi and all life on Earth to show how these remarkable microbes enrich our lives: from releasing the carbon in plants for the benefit of all organisms to transmitting information between trees, to producing life-changing medicine, to adding umami flavor and B vitamins to our food. Divided into sections, each one exploring an environment where fungi live, this enthralling, science-backed book ventures into our homes, bodies, farms, and forests to profile the fungi that inhabit these environments, most of them invisible to the naked eye. Along the way, the author, the esteemed career mycologist Keith Seifert, explains the latest research into where these fungi came from: how yeast, lichens, slimes, and molds evolved and adapted over millions of years. And he shows us that, surprisingly, fungi share almost a quarter of human genes. We may have more in common with yeast and slime than we think ... But not all fungi are good for us. In fact, fungal diseases lead to over 1 million deaths each year and more than a quarter of our food goes to waste. How can we strike a better balance with our microbial cousins, both for their sake and ours? The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi urges us to better understand our relationship with fungi--and to plan our future with them in mind--while revealing their world in all its beautiful complexity."--
Subjects: Fungi; Fungi.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Under a white sky : the nature of the future / by Kolbert, Elizabeth,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction returns to humanity's transformative impact on the environment, now asking: After doing so much damage, can we change nature, this time to save it? That man should have dominion "over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" is a prophecy that has hardened into fact. So pervasive are human impacts on the planet that it's said we live in a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. In Under a White Sky, Elizabeth Kolbert takes a hard look at the new world we are creating. She meets scientists who are trying to preserve the world's rarest fish, which lives in a single, tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave. She visits a lava field in Iceland, where engineers are turning carbon emissions to stone; an aquarium in Australia, where researchers are trying to develop "super coral" that can survive on a hotter globe; and a lab at Harvard, where physicists are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back to space and cool the earth. One way to look at human civilization, says Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In The Sixth Extinction, she explored the ways in which our capacity for destruction has reshaped the natural world. Now she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the only hope for its salvation. By turns inspiring, terrifying, and darkly comic, Under a White Sky is an utterly original examination of the challenges we face"--
Subjects: Ecological engineering.; Environmental protection.; Human ecology.; Nature; Sustainability.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The parrot and the igloo : climate and the science of denial / by Lipsky, David,1965-author.;
Includes bibliographic key to online citations."The New York Times best-selling author explores how "anti-science" became so virulent in American life--through a history of climate denial and its consequences. In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall and plunked a sign on top: AL GORE'S NEW HOME: HONK IF YOU LOVE CLIMATE CHANGE. In The Parrot and the Igloo, best-selling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other. With narrative sweep and a superb eye for character, Lipsky unfolds the dramatic narrative of the long, strange march of climate science. The story begins with a tale of three inventors--Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla--who made our technological world, not knowing what they had set into motion. Then there are the scientists who sounded the alarm once they identified carbon dioxide as the culprit of our warming planet. And we meet the hucksters, zealots, and crackpots who lied about that science and misled the public in ever more outrageous ways. Lipsky masterfully traces the evolution of climate denial, exposing how it grew out of early efforts to build a network of untruth about products like aspirin and cigarettes. Featuring an indelible cast of heroes and villains, mavericks and swindlers, The Parrot and the Igloo delivers a real-life tragicomedy--one that captures the extraordinary dance of science, money, and the American character."--
Subjects: Climatic changes; Climatic changes.; Climatic changes;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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How the world really works : the science behind how we got here and where we're going / by Smil, Vaclav,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check--because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn't inevitable--the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world's rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020--and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future"--
Subjects: Science and civilization.; Technology and civilization.; Science; Technological innovations;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Into the clear blue sky : the path to restoring our atmosphere / by Jackson, Rob,1961-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."One of the world's leading climate scientists, a superb storyteller, shares his hopeful and attainable vision for restoring the atmosphere and ending the climate crisis within our lifetime.Climate change is here. From the millions displaced by the floods in Pakistan to California and Canadian towns incinerated by wildfires, we are experiencing the anguish that climate change causes. Fossil fuels are making the planet unlivable, and they are deadly. We know that we must cut emissions if we are going to limit the catastrophes, but is that enough? In Into the Clear Blue Sky, climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project Rob Jackson explains that we need to redefine our goals. As he argues here, we shouldn't only be trying to stabilize the Earth's temperature at some arbitrary value. Instead, we can restore the atmosphere itself in a lifetime -- and this should be our moral duty. Restoring the atmosphere means reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air to pre-industrial levels -- starting with super-potent methane -- to heal the harm we have done. Emissions must be cut, first and foremost. But to safeguard a livable planet for future generations, we must repair the damage we have caused. Jackson introduces us to the brilliant leaders and innovators behind some of the boldest and game-changing climate solutions under development. When it comes to greenhouse gas mitigation, our choices matter, because it is easier to stop emissions from happening than to remove greenhouse gases from the air later. But while mitigation is crucial, no number of solar panels, electric cars, and veggie burgers alone will be enough to halt climate change. Decades of inaction have convinced Jackson that we need to remove greenhouse gases from the air using everything from nature to cutting-edge technologies. Into the Clear Blue Sky is a heart- and mind-changing book. Guided by one of the leading scientists in this fight and a deeply gifted storyteller, we learn why we should all feel hopeful. One way or another, we will restore the planet together. The question is how, and how long will it take?"--
Subjects: Climate change mitigation.; Climatic changes.; Global warming.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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