Into the Clear Blue Sky
The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere
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- 14,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
One of Scientific American and The Times (London)’s Best Books of 2024
From one of the world’s leading climate scientists, a heart- and mind-changing book that offers a hopeful and attainable vision for restoring the atmosphere and ending the climate crisis.
Climate change is here. From the millions displaced by the floods in Pakistan to Californian and Canadian towns incinerated by wildfires, we are experiencing the anguish that climate change causes. Fossil fuels are making the planet unlivable, and they are deadly. We know that we must cut emissions if we are going to limit the catastrophes, but is that enough?
In Into the Clear Blue Sky, climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project Rob Jackson explains that we need to redefine our goals. As he argues here, we shouldn’t only be trying to stabilize the Earth’s temperature at some arbitrary value. Instead, we can restore the atmosphere itself in a lifetime—and this should be our moral duty. Restoring the atmosphere means reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the air to pre-industrial levels—starting with super-potent methane—to heal the harm we have done. Emissions must be cut, first and foremost. But to safeguard a livable planet for future generations, we must repair the damage we have caused.
Jackson introduces us to the brilliant leaders and innovators behind some of the boldest and game-changing climate solutions under development. When it comes to greenhouse gas mitigation, our choices matter, because it is easier to stop emissions from happening than to remove greenhouse gases from the air later. But while mitigation is crucial, no number of solar panels, electric cars, and veggie burgers alone will be enough to halt climate change. Decades of inaction have convinced Jackson that we need to remove greenhouse gases from the air using everything from nature to cutting-edge technologies.
Into the Clear Blue Sky is a heart- and mind-changing book. Guided by one of the leading scientists in this fight and a deeply gifted storyteller, we learn why we should all feel hopeful. One way or another, we will restore the planet together. The question is how, and how long will it take?
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"The cheapest, safest, and only sure path to a safe climate starts with slashing emissions," according to this invigorating report. Jackson (The Earth Remains Forever), an environmental science professor at Stanford University, surveys how cows, gas ranges, and the cement industry, among others, are filling the atmosphere with methane and carbon dioxide. Spotlighting individuals working on sustainable solutions, he shares how the CEO of a Swedish steel business, incentivized by laws requiring companies to pay for the carbon dioxide they release, developed a way to replace coal with hydrogen in the manufacturing process, which generates water instead of CO2 as a byproduct. Technology capable of removing greenhouse gases from the air will be necessary to achieve pre-industrial levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane, he contends, describing how "direct-air capture" and "enhanced weathering" technologies work (the latter involves exposing certain reactive minerals to air, which initiates a chemical reaction that binds CO2 with the rock and removes the gas from the atmosphere). The scientific descriptions are crisp and accessible ("The carbon-hydrogen bonds in methane absorb long-wave radiation and bounce like hyperactive schoolkids. These vibrations are how greenhouse gases warm the earth"), and the profiles offer reason for hope amid the gloom. This is an exceptional inquiry into the fight against global warming.
