The authors, who have over 120 years of combined experience in climate research and assessment, have written a collection of essays on how the fight against climate change is the ultimate challenge for human society. The essays explain, through lay language, the scientific community's current understanding of the climate crisis and how people can and should respond to it. The essays maintain and describe crucial aspects of the natural and social science behind it.
The essays were written within a particular social context. They were authored during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 US presidential election season, and up until the middle of 2022. They tackle how the growing distrust of science and political forces prevent the US and other governments from launching a widespread and comprehensive response against climate change.
“The science is clear – the planet is warming, and humans are primarily the cause. Impacts, such as wildfires, droughts, and heat waves, are showing up at the same place at the same time. These impacts will also have hard-hitting economic and societal consequences for human life,” Yohe says.
The book's cover, which was designed by Santer, features a satellite image through 2022 that shows a pattern of increase in Earth's surface temperature over the last 42 years, with darker red colors representing larger warming trends. Human interference with the climate system is the only explanation for the pattern.
“We've written the essays carefully and accurately with words that non-experts can understand. One of our goals was to give climate-conscious people the information that they can use at a cocktail party conversation against a neighborhood climate change denier. As a retired professor, I believe this book can also be used in university-level classes in environmental economics on six continents. It is easy to read, segmented, and divides itself easily into individual lectures,” Yohe says.
About the authors:
Gary Yohe was a Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University for more than 40 years. He is an expert in microeconomic theory, decision-making under uncertainty, natural resources, coastal risks from sea level rise including global financial contagion, and environmental economics in general. Besides this, he conducted extensive research on and assessment of the economics of climate change. His work in integrated assessment modeling allowed him to be actively involved in the IPCC as a senior member when they shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
Henry Jacoby is a Professor Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former Co-Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. He was previously Director of the Harvard Environmental Systems Program, Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, and Associate Director of the MIT Energy Laboratory. He is currently part of the US National Academies Committee to Advise the US Global Change Research Program.
Richard Richels is a former Director of climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute. He holds MS and PhD degrees in decision science from Harvard University's Division of Applied Sciences. He has served on several national and international advisory panels, including committees of the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Research Council. He was a lead author on the IPCC's Second, Third, and Fourth Assessment Reports.
Benjamin Santer is an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) who holds a PhD in Climatology from the University of East Anglia, England. His area of expertise is in climate model evaluation, the use of statistical methods in climate science, and the identification of natural and anthropogenic “fingerprints” in observed climate records. He was also the lead author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC report and has been a contributor to all six IPCC reports. Prior to joining the LLNL, Santer spent five years at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany.
Media Contact
Contact Person: Prof. Gary Yohe
Email: [email protected]
Text: 8608038670
Website: www.gyohe.faculty.wesleyan.edu
