Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Sounding the alarm
• Heat waves and droughts (local impacts & fatalities)
• Natural disasters: hurricanes, cyclones, droughts and floods
• A world on fire
• The big melt (glaciers, sea ice, & ice sheets)
• Oceans - acidification, deoxygenation, trash
• Coral reefs
• Air pollution
• Water pollution
• Pesticides
• Sickness and health
• Biodiversity – extinctions then and now
• Gloom but not doom
Chapter 2. The overheated Earth
• In the greenhouse (CO2, methane, NOx, other GHGs) keeling curve
hockey stick
• Carbon cycling (brief intro carbon cycle)
The sources and the sinks (why zero carbon is impossible)
• CO2 – friend or foe?
• Methane – the sly one
• Warming soil: the bacteria awaken (also smouldering peat)
• The rising oceans
• Species on the move: Biodiversity diversifies
• Man on the move : But where to? (Food insecurity, drought, water stress)
• The threat multiplies (security & terrorism)
Chapter 3 Carbon- the massive mess
• Coal mining – dust, disease, detonation and dirt
• Oil and pipelines: the muck, the mess and the damage ( + refining air pollution)
• Tar sands: the plot thickens
• Natural gas and methane
• Fracking and shaking
• Carbon on the move: oil trains & tankers. The accidents
• Who pays? Keeping the costs external. Outside the box?
• Business as usual: subsidies and profits
Chapter 4 Carbon – the end game
• UNFCCC, Kyoto, and COP 21, 22, 23 (Paris agreement , HFCs)
• The renewables revolution
• The nuclear option?• The great transition (EVs, smart stuff, electric public transport)
• Efficiency in action
• Powering down (EE & E/GDP)
Chapter 6 Big carbon fights back
• Undermining science and manipulating data
• The evisceration of the scientific method
• Clear as MUD: Manufacturing uncertainty and doubt
• Targeting the messenger (attacking scientists, FOIA weaponized, suing the ‘eco-terorists”)
• Alternative facts and fake news
Chapter 7 The urgency of action
• The existential threat—Small island developing States
• Adapting to the new normal (coastal, marine, ecosystems,forestry, water)
• Designing the future (what does a carbon-neutral world look like?)
• Mapping the road ahead – cities take the lead
• Controlling the land (indigenous rights)
• The art of interference – case studies from the front line
Chapter 8 Conclusion.
