Climate Change For Dummies. Elizabeth May

Introduction

      On Monday, news reports tell you the ice caps are melting, and people everywhere are about to be swept off in a giant flood. On Tuesday, you hear a radio interview with a scientist who says global warming is galloping faster than expected. Wednesday finds you standing in the grocery line, listening to people upset to see deaths in the unprecedented heatwave. By Thursday, you just don’t know whether it’s time to actively dig in to be engaged in the issue.

      Think of today as Friday — the day all these stray pieces come together right here in your hands, thanks to Climate Change For Dummies.

      Climate change is here. It’s no longer a future threat — catastrophic events due to global warming occur somewhere around the world daily. Wildfires, extreme droughts, heatwaves, more intense hurricanes, and deadlier tornados are causing massive economic losses and tragic loss of lives.

      We don’t know how bad things can get; we only know that humanity has time to avoid the worst. The more climate changes around the world, the more you have to understand what global warming is. But you know what? It’s really quite exciting. Although global warming is connected to scary scenarios featuring soaring temperatures and worsening hurricanes and monsoons, it’s also a link to a better future. Global warming is opening doors for the development of new types of energy, leading the shift to reliable energy sources, and creating a vision of a greener tomorrow. And the best part? You’re right in the middle of it all, helping to make those changes.

About This Book

      Climate Change For Dummies is your guide to climate change. We use the terms climate change, climate emergency, climate crisis, and global warming interchangeably in this book, though they’re slightly different things, as we discuss in Chapter 1. This book gives you the basics so that you can understand the problem, relate it to your daily life, and be inspired to start working on solutions to this complex and important issue.

In this book, we explain the concepts behind global warming clearly and simply by using the latest, most credible science, mainly from the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is a team of more than 2,000 scientists who assess peer-reviewed climate change science and compile the assessments into a number of reports. These reports are mainly to inform the politicians and bureaucrats at the United Nations’ decision-making table, but anyone looking for detailed scientific information on climate change can read them. The IPCC is the most credible source of climate change information in the world today. (We discuss the IPCC in greater detail in Chapter 11.)

      Although this book covers what climate change is and its impact on the world, Climate Change For Dummies isn’t just about the science. The handy guide also looks at a wide range of solutions to tackle climate change. We explore everything from the big-picture solutions that governments and businesses can implement to a slew of practical, can-do-it-today solutions for you at work, at home, and on the road.

      In this book we include the following updates:

Foolish Assumptions

      We wrote this book assuming that you know zero, nil, zilch about global warming. You don’t have to look up the definitions of big, ridiculous words or drag out your high school science textbook to read this book.

      We also assume, however, that you know climate change exists, that you recognize humans contribute to this problem, and that you want to understand why global warming is happening.