A Newer World

Cover

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Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Quote

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Contents

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pp. ix-

Foreword

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pp. xi-xiv

I am hardly a disinterested reader of Bill Hewitt’s book. I spent several hours with him discussing climate change and the prospects for action. Hewitt has written a seminal work, cogent, compelling, readily accessible to those not steeped in climate lore. He not only explains the rationale for action, but examines options for putting our energy...

Introduction

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pp. xv-xviii

There is a perception by many informed and concerned observers that we are losing the battle against climate change. We are told that global warming’s momentum is unstoppable, that the greenhouse gases that have been accumulating will inexorably poison the oceans and push the climate system irrevocably out of balance. What’s...

1 | Science, Media, and the Public: The Message of Climate Change

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pp. 1-24

In the autumn of 2009, as the world was gearing up for a critical summit in Copenhagen on addressing climate change, e-mails and other data were stolen from a server at the Climatic Research Unit (cru) in the United Kingdom. The cru is one of the three key centers where data are continuously gathered from thousands of monitoring...

2 | Green Power: Renewable Energy Comes into Its Own

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pp. 24-48

The world is on fire. In fact, it has been on fire for over 250 years. Until the Industrial Revolution, we used wood and dung to fuel our cooking and heating fires, just as billions of people in the still-developing world do today. It’s a story that has been well told: James Watt’s steam engine in Scotland facilitated the explosion of heavy industries...

3 | Bringing It All Back Home

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pp. 49-75

Electricity, without question, has brought humankind enormous benefits: light and appropriately moderated heating and cooling, refrigeration, cleaning, extraordinary power and flexibility in manufacturing the many products upon which we rely to make life more manageable and pleasant, and, in recent years, the ability to gain...

4 | Breakthroughs: From Rio to Cancún, and Beyond

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pp. 76-105

The popular view on the un’s talks on climate change in Copenhagen in December of 2009 was that they were a failure. There were scenes of protesters in the streets getting pummeled by the local police, while journalists and delegates queued up outside the meeting hall for hours in the freezing cold waiting to get in. People have the picture that inside the Bella Center various fractious blocs of small nations were walking...

5 | Follow the Money: Environmental Finance and Green Business

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pp. 106-147

On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act by a vote of 219 to 212. Universally known as Waxman-Markey, named for its two authors, the bill was a long time in the making and fulfilled the expectations of the majority of, if not all, energy and climate activists, as well as a very large...

6 | Planet Green: The Policy, Politics, and Practice Revolution

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pp. 148-189

Global emissions of carbon dioxide in 2009, not counting land-use changes, were 30.303 billion tons (see figure 6.1). Of this, China was responsible for 25 percent, and the United States, 18 percent. The good news is that the United States has been reducing its output. The bad news is that China’s emissions have been increasing. Other good news...

7 | A Lighter Footprint: Climate Change and Sustainable Development

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pp. 190-226

We have seen the devastation visited on the Amazon rainforest over the past couple of decades. Photographs and film have shown us the indelible impact of our folly. This stark picture of deforestation on an epic scale has been reproduced in images from the Indonesian and Malaysian peatlands, and the forests of the Congo Basin and...

8 | A Resiliant Future: Adaption, Education, Law, and Lifestyle

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pp. 227-264

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced four Assessment Reports. The First Assessment Report came out in 1990 and played a tremendous role in galvanizing world opinion for addressing the climate crisis. The fifth will be rolled out from September of 2013 through October 2014. Each of the four Assessment Reports...

Acknowledgments

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pp. 265-266

Thanks to Davis Perkins and Bill Parkhurst, two old publishing pros who were good enough to read my proposal for this book and to give their approval. To Greg Julian and Vera Jelinek, I am extremely grateful for being given the privilege of teaching. I also need to thank all my students for making me think more and study harder...

Notes

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pp. 267-312

Index

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pp. 313-321