The ongoing assault on climate science in the United States has never been more aggressive, more blatant, or more widely publicized than in the case of the Hockey Stick graph—a clear and compelling visual presentation of scientific data, put together by Michael E. Mann and his colleagues, demonstrating that global temperatures have risen in conjunction with the increase in industrialization and the use of fossil fuels. Here was an easy-to-understand graph that, in a glance, posed a threat to major corporate energy interests and those who do their political bidding. The stakes were simply too high to ignore the Hockey Stick—and so began a relentless attack on a body of science and on the investigators whose work formed its scientific basis. The Hockey Stick achieved prominence in a 2001 UN report on climate change and quickly became a central icon in the “climate wars.” The real issue has never been the graph’s data but rather its implied threat to those who oppose governmental regulation and other restraints to protect the environment and planet. Mann, lead author of the original paper in which the Hockey Stick first appeared, shares the story of the science and politics behind this controversy. He reveals key figures in the oil and energy industries and the media front groups who do their bidding in sometimes slick, sometimes bare-knuckled ways. Mann concludes with the real story of the 2009 “Climategate” scandal, in which climate scientists’ emails were hacked. This is essential reading for all who care about our planet’s health and our own well-being.

Shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year award A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet. Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told can slow climate change. But the inordinate emphasis on individual behavior is the result of a marketing campaign that has succeeded in placing the responsibility for fixing climate change squarely on the shoulders of individuals. Fossil fuel companies have followed the example of other industries deflecting blame (think "guns don't kill people, people kill people") or greenwashing (think of the beverage industry's "Crying Indian" commercials of the 1970s). Meanwhile, they've blocked efforts to regulate or price carbon emissions, run PR campaigns aimed at discrediting viable alternatives, and have abdicated their responsibility in fixing the problem they've created. The result has been disastrous for our planet. In The New Climate War, Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters-fossil fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petrostates. And he outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change, including: A common-sense, attainable approach to carbon pricing- and a revision of the well-intentioned but flawed currently proposed version of the Green New Deal; Allowing renewable energy to compete fairly against fossil fuels Debunking the false narratives and arguments that have worked their way into the climate debate and driven a wedge between even those who support climate change solutions Combatting climate doomism and despair-mongering With immensely powerful vested interests aligned in defense of the fossil fuel status quo, the societal tipping point won't happen without the active participation of citizens everywhere aiding in the collective push forward. This book will reach, inform, and enable citizens everywhere to join this battle for our planet.

In this book Donald Rapp provides a balanced assessment of global warming, tending neither to the views of alarmists or nay-sayers. Rapp has the ability to move into a highly technical field, assimilate the content, organize the knowledge base and succinctly describe the field, its content, its unresolved issues and achievements. This is precisely what he does in this book in relation to global climate change. As such his approach is refreshingly different.

There is an ideological war of words waging in America, one that speaks to a new fundamentalism rising not just within the American public, but across other ideologically-torn nations around the globe as well. At its heart is climate skepticism, an ideological watershed that has become a core belief for millions of people despite a large scientific consensus supporting the science of anthropogenic climate change. While many scholars have examined the role of lobbyists and conservative think tanks in fueling the climate skepticism movement, there has not yet been a systematic analysis of why the narrative itself has resonated so powerfully with the public. Pulling from science and technology studies, narrative and discourse theory, and public policy, The Power of Narrative examines the strength of climate skepticism as a story, offering a thoughtful analysis and comparison of anti-climate science narratives over time and across geographic boundaries. This book provides fresh insight into the rhetorical and semantic properties on both sides of the climate change debate that preclude dialogue around climate science, and proposes a means for moving beyond ideological entrenchment through language mediation, further ethnographic study, and research-informed teaching. The Power of Narrative culminates in the revelation of a parallel between narratives about climate skepticism and those in other issue areas (e.g., gun rights, immigration, health crises), exposing a genetic meta-narrative of public distrust and isolation. Ultimately, The Power of Narrative is not a book about climate change in itself: it is, instead, a book about how our society understands and interacts with science, how a social narrative becomes ideology, and how we can move beyond personal and political dogma to arrive at a sense of collective rapprochement.

Examines how images of accumulation help open up the climate to political mobilization The current epoch is one of accumulation: not only of capital but also of raw, often unruly material, from plastic in the ocean and carbon in the atmosphere to people, buildings, and cities. Alongside this material growth, image-making practices embedded within the fields of art and architecture have proven to be fertile, mobile, and capacious. Images of accumulation help open up the climate to cultural inquiry and political mobilization and have formed a cultural infrastructure focused on the relationships between humans, other species, and their environments. The essays in Accumulation address this cultural infrastructure and the methodological challenges of its analysis. They offer a response to the relative invisibility of the climate now seen as material manifestations of social behavior. Contributors outline opportunities and ambitions of visual scholarship as a means to encounter the challenges emergent in the current moment: how can climate become visible, culturally and politically? Knowledge of climatic instability can change collective behavior and offer other trajectories, counteraccumulations that draw the present into a different, more livable, future. Contributors: Emily Apter, New York U; Hans Baumann; Amanda Boeztkes, U of Guelph; Dominic Boyer, Rice U; Lindsay Bremner, U of Westminster; Nerea Calvillo, U of Warwick; Beth Cullen, U of Westminster; T. J. Demos, U of California, Santa Cruz; Jeff Diamanti, U of Amsterdam; Jennifer Ferng, U of Sydney; Jennifer Gabrys, U of Cambridge; Ian Gray, U of California, Los Angeles; Gökçe Günel, Rice U; Orit Halpern, Concordia U; Gabrielle Hecht, Stanford U; Cymene Howe, Rice U; Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Simon Fraser U; Robin Kelsey, Harvard U; Bruno Latour, Sciences Po, Paris; Hannah le Roux, U of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Stephanie LeMenager, U of Oregon; Nashin Mahtani; Kiel Moe, McGill U; Karen Pinkus, Cornell U; Stephanie Wakefield, Life U; McKenzie Wark, The New School; Kathryn Yusoff, Queen Mary U of London.

How big data and machine learning encode discrimination and create agitated clusters of comforting rage. In Discriminating Data, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal—not an error—within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic attempts to “breed” a better future. Recommender systems foster angry clusters of sameness through homophily. Users are “trained” to become authentically predictable via a politics and technology of recognition. Machine learning and data analytics thus seek to disrupt the future by making disruption impossible. Chun, who has a background in systems design engineering as well as media studies and cultural theory, explains that although machine learning algorithms may not officially include race as a category, they embed whiteness as a default. Facial recognition technology, for example, relies on the faces of Hollywood celebrities and university undergraduates—groups not famous for their diversity. Homophily emerged as a concept to describe white U.S. resident attitudes to living in biracial yet segregated public housing. Predictive policing technology deploys models trained on studies of predominantly underserved neighborhoods. Trained on selected and often discriminatory or dirty data, these algorithms are only validated if they mirror this data. How can we release ourselves from the vice-like grip of discriminatory data? Chun calls for alternative algorithms, defaults, and interdisciplinary coalitions in order to desegregate networks and foster a more democratic big data.

Climate change is one of the most controversial and misunderstood issues of the 21st century. This book provides a clear understanding of the issue by presenting scientific facts to refute falsehoods and misinformation-and to confirm the validity of other assertions. Is public understanding of global warming suffering from politically biased news coverage? Is it true that the global scientific community has not reached a consensus on whether humans are causing climate change? This important book addresses these questions and many more about global warming, identifying common claims about climate change and using quantifiable, evidence-based information to examine their veracity. The authors of this work examine 35 specific claims that have been made about global climate change by believers and skeptics. These assertions-some true, some false-will guide readers to a much deeper understanding of the extent of climate change; whether any climate change that is taking place is human-caused; whether climate change is likely to be a serious problem in the future; whether scientists agree on the fundamentals of climate change; and whether climate change impacts can be mitigated. Examples of specific issues that are scrutinized and explained in the book include: trends in the extent and condition of Arctic and Antarctic Sea ice packs, the accuracy of climate forecasting models, whether extreme weather events are increasing as a result of climate change, and the benefits and drawbacks of various schemes to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Drawing together key frameworks and disciplines that illuminate the importance of communication around climate change, this Research Handbook offers a vital knowledge base to address the urgency of conveying climate issues to a variety of audiences.

How does one tell the story of energy production, use, or conservation in a manner sufficiently convincing to influence policy, behavior, and design? Energy Accounts explores potential answers to this question through compelling images, data visualizations, narratives, and other examples of accounting for energy. Organized into a collection containing both examples of best practices and critiques, this impressive array of projects and contributors combines text and graphic material to explore different representations of energy data. Including work from Kieran Timberlake, SHoP, AMO, Lateral Office, WOHA, and many more, the book boasts a unique graphic design which supports and enhances its role as a valuable resource for professionals and students in architecture, engineering, and urban design.

This report examines the economic aspects of climate change under the headings: the uncertain science of climate change; future impacts of the enhanced greenhouse effect; forecasting greenhouse gas emissions and temperature change; the cost of tackling climate change; benefits of climate change control; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process; international negotiations. The Committee think that the role of economic policy instruments and in the control of greenhouse gas emissions and economic arguments have not had sufficient attention in the debates over climate change. They want HM Treasury to have a more extensive role in examining costs and benefits of policy and in the work of the IPCC process, which they suspect is overly influenced by political considerations. Other conclusions include the need for: better information on the monetary costs of global warming; more adaptive measures; the retention of nuclear power capacity; the replacement of the Climate Change Levy with a carbon tax; new international protocols which are not tied to emission targets.