Table of Contents
From Knowledge to Power: The Comprehensive Handbook for Climate Science and Advocacy
Preface
Chapter 1 – Earth’s Climate System
- Describing the Earth
- The Sun and the greenhouse effect
- The carbon cycle
- Carbon movements through land, ocean and atmosphere
- Short and long timescales of the carbon cycle
Chapter 2 – Earth Out of Balance
- Natural influences on climate
- Carbon dioxide and temperature
- Denial of the data
- Paleoclimatology
- Human influences on climate: greenhouse gases
- Methane and nitrous oxide
- Ozone, halocarbons, and short-lived pollutants
- Aerosols and clouds
- Land use change
Chapter 3 – Climate models and carbon budgets
- A cornucopia of fossil fuels
- Reserves and resources
- Climate models and carbon budgets
- Basics of climate modeling
- Climate models: simple and complex
- Reliability of climate models
- Carbon budget estimates
- Pathways for decarbonization
Chapter 4 – Impacts of climate change
- Evitable and inevitable impacts
- Climate tipping points
- Ice loss and sea level rise
- Extreme weather
- Earth’s hydrological cycle
- Ecology and biodiversity
- Endangered species
- Fragile marine ecosystems
- Forests and terrestrial ecosystems
- The human world
- Food and water
- Health
- Economy
- Intergenerational equity
Interlude: The renewable energy transition
- Our present situation
- Social and cultural dimensions
- Roadmaps for the US
- An advocacy agenda for the 2020s
Chapter 5 – Climate advocacy
- Is technology necessary?
- The climate advocacy landscape
- Two faces of climate advocacy
- The EcoRight
- Equity and climate policy
- The Green New Deal
- Practical strategies for advocacy
- Resources for advocates
- Climate narratives
Chapter 6 – Fossil fuels: business and politics
- The business of fossil fuels
- The demise of coal
- Oil and gas production
- Business strategies of oil and gas firms
- Advocacy: Divestiture
- Fossil fuel politics
- Subsidies
- Promotion of climate change denialism
- Advocacy: Lawsuits
- The role of government
- Federal emergency powers
- Basics of environmental regulation
- Regulation of carbon dioxide emissions
- Regulation of methane emissions
- State and local actions
- Transporting and exporting fossil fuels
Chapter 7 – Carbon pricing
- Why price carbon?
- Approaches to carbon pricing
- US emissions trading systems
- Cap and trade in California
- The Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)
- Advocacy: Expanding the state and regional programs
- Prospects for carbon taxes
- Federal carbon tax proposals
- Carbon pricing politics
Chapter 8 – Carbon-free power
- Powering the US electricity grid
- Solar power
- Wind power
- Hydroelectric power
- Geothermal power
- The nuclear option
- A net carbon-free grid by 2050
- Policies for renewable electricity
- Renewable and clean energy standards
- Advocacy: influencing state electricity policy
- Modernizing the electricity grid
- Distributed solar power
Chapter 9 – Carbon-free lifestyles
- Industry
- Steel, cement and petrochemicals
- Policies to reduce industry emissions
- Refrigeration: hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
- Waste management: methane
- Renewable hydrogen and carbon
- Transportation Fuels
- Crop biofuels and their discontents
- Carbon intensities and climate impacts
- The growing reach of the LCFS
- Biofuels: policy and advocacy
- Electric vehicles
- Electric vehicle technology
- Policy and advocacy
- Cities
- Urban climate plans
Chapter 10 – Carbon removal and geoengineering
- The carbon removal challenge
- Natural land management
- Afforestation and forest restoration
- Forests: policy and advocacy
- Agriculture and grasslands
- Sustainable agriculture: policy and advocacy
- Livestock management
- Carbon capture technologies
- Carbon capture and storage in industry (CCS)
- Carbon capture and utilization (CCU)
- Direct air capture and storage (DACS)
- Accelerated weathering
- Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)
- Carbon removal: policy and advocacy
- Solar geoengineering