An atmospheric scientist explains why global climate change mitigation and energy decarbonization demand American diplomacy, technology, and policy "Daniel Cohan makes a compelling case that the problem of climate change is solvable. Fixing the gridlock on global action requires fixing the gridlock here in the United States of America. Cohan shows how that can be done."--David Victor, University of California, San Diego Professor of environmental engineering Daniel Cohan argues that escaping the gravest perils of climate change will first require American diplomacy, technological innovation, and policy to catalyze decarbonization globally. Combining his own expertise along with insights from more than a hundred interviews with diplomats, scholars, and clean-technology pioneers, Cohan identifies flaws in previous efforts to combat climate change. He highlights opportunities for more successful strategies, including international "climate clubs" and accelerated development of clean energy technologies. Grounded in history and emerging scholarship, this book offers a forward-looking vision of solutions to confronting climate gridlock and a clear-eyed recognition of the challenges to enacting them.

The issues that increasingly dominate the 21st century cannot be solved by any single country acting alone, no matter how powerful. To manage the global economy, prevent runaway environmental destruction, reign in nuclear proliferation, or confront other global challenges, we must cooperate. But at the same time, our tools for global policymaking - chiefly state-to-state negotiations over treaties and international institutions - have broken down. The result is gridlock, which manifests across areas via a number of common mechanisms. The rise of new powers representing a more diverse array of interests makes agreement more difficult. The problems themselves have also grown harder as global policy issues penetrate ever more deeply into core domestic concerns. Existing institutions, created for a different world, also lock-in pathological decision-making procedures and render the field ever more complex. All of these processes - in part a function of previous, successful efforts at cooperation - have led global cooperation to fail us even as we need it most. Ranging over the main areas of global concern, from security to the global economy and the environment, this book examines these mechanisms of gridlock and pathways beyond them. It is written in a highly accessible way, making it relevant not only to students of politics and international relations but also to a wider general readership.

This book is a collection of stories and reflections that represent Chinese American leaders and depict their tortuous journeys in U.S. higher education that comes at a critical point in time. Many books have been devoted to academic leadership, but this volume uniquely focuses on subjects most relevant to Chinese Americans. We live at a time that not only witnesses an increase in Chinese American leaders on U.S. campuses but also mounting incidents of discriminatory treatment of this group. This book showcases 36 stories and reflections from past, present, and future leaders, including the five previously published stories. They represent leaders holding different ideological values in various academic fields, positions, stages of careers, professional trajectories, generations, Chinese ethnic groups, and geographical locations. The Rise of Chinese American Leaders in U.S. Higher Education makes a valuable contribution to the body of literature that has assisted countless academic leaders in navigating their careers, bringing to the forefront a distinct group of academic leaders who have been underrepresented.

Using enlightening exercises and rich examples, this book helps us become aware of the role we unwittingly play in getting conversations stuck and empowers us to share what really matters so that together we can create positive change. --

In a world of dwindling natural resources and mounting environmental crisis, who is devising ways of living that will work for the long haul? And how can we, as individuals, make a difference? To answer these fundamental questions, Professor Karen Litfin embarked upon a journey to many of the world’s ecovillagesÑintentional communities at the cutting-edge of sustainable living. From rural to urban, high tech to low tech, spiritual to secular, she discovered an under-the-radar global movement making positive and radical changes from the ground up. In this inspiring and insightful book, Karen Litfin shares her unique experience of these experiments in sustainable living through four broad windows - ecology, economics, community, and consciousness - or E2C2. Whether we live in an ecovillage or a city, she contends, we must incorporate these four key elements if we wish to harmonize our lives with our home planet. Not only is another world possible, it is already being born in small pockets the world over. These micro-societies, however, are small and time is short. Fortunately - as Litfin persuasively argues - their successes can be applied to existing social structures, from the local to the global scale, providing sustainable ways of living for generations to come. You can learn more about Karen's experiences on the Ecovillages website: http://ecovillagebook.org/

Though the scientific community largely agrees that climate change is underway, debates about this issue remain fiercely polarized. These conversations have become a rhetorical contest, one where opposing sides try to achieve victory through playing on fear, distrust, and intolerance. At its heart, this split no longer concerns carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, or climate modeling; rather, it is the product of contrasting, deeply entrenched worldviews. This brief examines what causes people to reject or accept the scientific consensus on climate change. Synthesizing evidence from sociology, psychology, and political science, Andrew J. Hoffman lays bare the opposing cultural lenses through which science is interpreted. He then extracts lessons from major cultural shifts in the past to engender a better understanding of the problem and motivate the public to take action. How Culture Shapes the Climate Change Debate makes a powerful case for a more scientifically literate public, a more socially engaged scientific community, and a more thoughtful mode of public discourse.

For an increasing number of people, global warming is not an academic and scientific debate, but a matter of survival. As the planet warms at a rate of four degrees Fahrenheit per century, violent storms are increasing in frequency, icebergs are melting, sea level is rising, species are losing their habitats, and temperature records are being broken. Feeling the Heat consists of chapter-length visits by well-known authors to actual world "hot" spots, where people are already coping day-to-day with the consequences of climactic disruption. The locations for the book were strategically chosen because each represents a separate and important global warming impact, such as rising tides, melting glaciers, evolving ecosystems and air pollution. Feeling the Heat takes global warming out of the realm of armchair speculation and arcane scientific debate, revealing the process of climate change to be ongoing, serious and immediate.