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The case for climate capitalism : economic solutions for a planet in crisis / by Rand, Tom,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The left and right -- the business community and environmentalists, bankers and activists -- must together reclaim capitalism and force profits to align with the planet. A warming climate and a general distrust of Wall Street has opened a new cultural divide: anti-market critics from Naomi Klein to the Pope target capitalism itself as a root cause of climate change, while neo-conservatives who diminish the climate threat are in favor of market fundamentalism. Rand argues that both sides in this emerging cultural war are ill-equipped to provide solutions to the climate crisis, and each is remarkably naïve in their view of capitalism. On one hand, we cannot possibly transition off fossil fuels without the financial might and entrepreneurial talent market forces alone can unlock. On the other, without radical changes to the way markets operate, capitalism will take us right off the climate cliff. Rejecting the old left/right ideologies, Rand develops a more pragmatic view capable of delivering practical solutions to this critical problem. A renewed capitalism harnessed to the task is the only way we might replace fossil fuels fast enough to mitigate severe climate risk. If we leave our dogma at the door, Rand argues, we might just build an economy that survives the century."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Capitalism; Climatic changes; Environmental economics.; Social responsibility of business.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Climate is just the start / by Loach, Mikaela.;
A guide to tackling the climate crisis from a prominent activist working on the front lines! Mikaela Loach's approach is one of HOPE and big-hearted optimism, inspiring kids and making them feel truly empowered to change the world. Kids hear about the climate crisis pretty much every day. From their parents, from their teachers, on social media, and in the news, there is no escaping it. Against a broader backdrop of social inequity and unfairness, it's easy for young people to feel a sense of "doom and gloom" about everything and to feel powerless. In CLIMATE IS JUST THE START, UK-based climate activist Mikaela Loach offers her urgent and inspiring message for kids who want to STOP the climate crisis and START building a better world for everyone. Mikaela explains the climate crisis and its broader social implications through personal stories about her activism journey. She writes about friends from around the world who are experiencing the worst of it today and about what they are doing to fight back. She delivers a message or not only hope, but of excitement for the opportunity to create not only a sustainable future for Earth, but better lives for people in the process. Mikaela is truly on the front lines of the climate movement: leading street protests, confronting fossil fuel executives, taking the UK government to court, and speaking up to those in power. Not only will kids love engage with her style, they will be inspired by her example.
Subjects: Climatic changes; Activism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Denial / by Raymond, Jonathan,author.;
"A futuristic thriller about climate change by the acclaimed screenwriter of First Cow, Meek's Cutoff, and HBO's Mildred Pierce. The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating effect: Venice submerged, cyclones in Oklahoma, megafires in South America. Yet it could be much worse. Two decades earlier, the global protest movement known as the Upheavals helped break the planet's fossil fuel dependency, and the subsequent Nuremberg-like Toronto Trials convicted the most powerful oil executives and lobbyists for crimes against the environment. Not all of them. A few executives escaped arrest and went into hiding, including pipeline mastermind Robert Cave. Now, a Pacific Northwest journalist named Jack Henry who works for a struggling media company has received a tip that Cave is living in Mexico. Hoping the story will save his job, he travels south and, using a fake identity, makes contact with the fugitive. The two men strike up an unexpected friendship, leaving Jack torn about exposing Cave--an uncertainty further compounded by the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness and a new romance with an old acquaintance. Who will really benefit from the unmasking? What is the nature of justice and punishment? How does one contend with mortality when the planet itself is dying? Denial is both a page-turning speculative suspense novel and a powerful existential inquisition about the perilous moment in which we currently live."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Dystopian fiction.; Political fiction.; Novels.; Climatic changes; Fugitives from justice; Interpersonal relations; Journalists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Cheaper, faster, better : how we'll win the climate war / by Steyer, Tom,author.;
"The climate is changing more rapidly than scientists predicted even a few years ago, with extreme weather already touching our everyday lives. At the same time, the clean energy revolution is forging ahead faster than nearly anyone anticipated. As Tom Steyer sees it, these two trends together create a moment like the one America faced during World War II: on the one hand, an existential threat calling for collective action; on the other, an opportunity to lead the world, protect the planet, and set the stage for a new generation of shared economic prosperity. In 2012, Steyer walked away from the highly successful investment fund he founded to devote himself full time to climate issues, and he's been on the front lines of the fight ever since: funding cleantech research and businesses, spearheading clean-energy ballot measures and voter registration drives, and running for president on a climate platform. Today, he leads a climate investment firm focused on accelerating climate solutions. In this accessible book, Steyer shares his own story and showcases the inspiring and innovative work of other climate leaders in the clean-energy transition. He shows us how capitalism can be used to scale climate progress, debunks many of the arguments made by fossil fuel companies, and calls on all of us to make stabilizing our planet part of our life's work. As green technology is fast becoming cleaner and cheaper, reshaping our planet's future -- and our own -- has never been more crucial or within our reach"--Dust jacket.
Subjects: Clean energy.; Climatic changes.;
Available copies: 1 / 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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Size : how it explains the world / by Smil, Vaclav,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."To answer the most important questions of our age, we must understand size. Neither bacteria nor empires are immune to its laws. Measuring it is challenging, especially where complex systems like economies are concerned, yet mastering it offers rich rewards: the rise of the West, for example, was a direct result of ever more accurate and standardized measurements. Using the interdisciplinary approach that has won him a wide readership, Smil draws upon history, earth science, psychology, art, and more to offer fresh insight into some of our biggest challenges, including income inequality, the spread of infectious disease, and the uneven impacts of climate change. Size explains the regularities--and peculiarities--of the key processes shaping life (from microbes to whales), the Earth (from asteroids to volcanic eruptions), technical advances (from architecture to transportation), and societies and economies (from cities to wages). This book about the big and the small, and the relationship between them, answers the big and small questions of human existence: What makes a human society too big? What about a human being? Which alternative energy sources have the best chance of scaling and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels? Why do tall people make more money? What makes a face beautiful? How about a cathedral? How can changing the size of your plates help you lose weight? The latest masterwork of "an ambitious and astonishing polymath who swings for fences" (Wired) Size is a mind-bending journey that turns the modern world on its head."--
Subjects: Size perception.; Stature.;
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: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Billion dollar burger : inside big tech's race for the future of food / by Purdy, Chase,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The riveting story of the entrepreneurs and renegades fighting to bring lab-grown meat to the world. The trillion-dollar meat industry is one of our greatest environmental hazards; it pollutes more than all the world's fossil-fuel-powered cars. Global animal agriculture is responsible for deforestation, soil erosion, and more emissions than air travel, paper mills, and coal mining combined. It also, of course, depends on the slaughter of more than 60 billion animals per year, a number that is only increasing as the global appetite for meat swells. But a band of doctors, scientists, activists, and entrepreneurs have been racing to end animal agriculture as we know it, hoping to fulfill a dream of creating meat without ever having to kill an animal. In the laboratories of Silicon Valley companies, Dutch universities, and Israeli startups, visionaries are growing burgers and steaks from microscopic animal cells and inventing systems to do so at scale--allowing us to feed the world without slaughter and environmental devastation. Drawing from exclusive and unprecedented access to the main players, from polarizing activist-turned-tech CEO Josh Tetrick to lobbyists and regulators on both sides of the issue, Billion Dollar Burger follows the people fighting to upend our food system as they butt up against the entrenched interests fighting viciously to stop them. The stakes are monumentally high: cell-cultured meat is the best hope for sustainable food production, a key to fighting climate change, a gold mine for the companies that make it happen, and an existential threat for the farmers and meatpackers that make our meat today. Are we ready?"--
Subjects: Meat; Meat industry and trade; Meat substitutes.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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It stops here : standing up for our lands, our waters, and our people / by George, Rueben,author.; Simpson, Michael(Lecturer),author.;
"A personal account of one man's confrontation with colonization that illuminates the philosophy and values of a First Nation threatened by the Trans Mountain pipeline. It Stops Here is the story of the spiritual, cultural, and political resurgence of a nation taking action to reclaim their lands, waters, law, and food systems in face of colonization. The book recounts the intergenerational struggle of the Tsleil-Waututh to overcome the harms of colonization and the powerful stance they have taken against the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline--a fossil fuel megaproject that would triple the capacity of tar sands bitumen piped to tidewater on their unceded territory and result in a sevenfold increase in oil tankers moving through their waters. The book provides a firsthand account of this resurgence as told by one of the most prominent leaders of the widespread opposition to the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion--Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. He has devoted more than a decade of his life to fighting this project and shares stories about his family's deep ancestral connections to these waters that have provided the Tsleil-Waututh with a rich abundance of foods and medicines since time immemorial. Despite the systematic attempts at cultural genocide enacted by the colonial state, Rueben recounts how key leaders of the community, such as his grandfather, Chief Dan George, always taught the younger generations to be proud of who they were and to remember the importance of their connection to the inlet. Part memoir, part call to action, It Stops Here urges policy makers to prioritize sacred territory over oil profits and insists that colonial Canada change its perspective from bending natural resources to their will to respecting this territory and those who inhabit it."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Personal narratives.; George, Rueben; George, Rueben.; Petroleum pipelines; Social justice; First Nations activists; First Nations; First Nations; First Nations;
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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