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Acknowledgments During the writing of this book, I was blessed with the support, encouragement, and advice of many students, colleagues, friends, and family members. In particular, I thank Roger Berry, Bruce Birkett, Andrew Charman, David Coleman, Jane Hoehner, Charles Nix, Sonia Perez, Susan Sgorbati, Ann Shaw, Charles Wohl, and all of the students in my Introductory Physics classes at Bennington College. It has been a pleasure working with Trevor Lipscombe and Bronwyn Madeo at the Johns Hopkins University Press, and I thank them for supporting this project and bringing this book to publication. Nino Mendolia and Charlotte Welch of Bennington College gave me valuable assistance with some technical aspects of producing the manuscript. The United Nations Environment Program, Information Unit for Conventions, kindly gave permission to use Figure 1 from the 2006 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I give special thanks to my wife, Rebecca. She made room for this project during a busy time in our lives, and she also read extensive portions of the manuscript, correcting many errors and improving the clarity of the exposition in a number of places. Needless to say, any errors and obscurities that may remain are entirely my own. ix ...

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