Book(s) of the Month

In 2001, an international panel of distinguished climate scientists announced that the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity.

The story of how scientists reached that conclusion―by way of unexpected twists and turns―was the story Spencer Weart told in The Discovery of Global Warming.

Now Spencer brings his award-winning account up to date, revised throughout to reflect the latest science, and with a new conclusion that shows how the scientific consensus caught fire among the general world public and how a new understanding of the human meaning of climate change spurred individuals and governments to action.

Here's a summary of essays on The Discovery of Global Warming https://history.aip.org/climate/pdf.htm

In 1972, three scientists from MIT created a computer model that analyzed global resource consumption and production. Their results shocked the world and created a stirring conversation about global 'overshoot,' or resource use beyond the planet's carrying capacity.

Meadows, Randers, and Meadows are international environmental leaders recognized for their groundbreaking research into early signs of wear on the planet. Citing climate change as the most tangible example of our current overshoot, the scientists now provide us with an updated scenario and a plan to reduce our needs to meet the planet's carrying capacity.

Over the past three decades, population growth and global warming have forged on with a striking semblance to the scenarios laid out by the World3 computer model in the original Limits to Growth. While Meadows, Randers, and Meadows do not practice predicting future environmental degradation, they analyze present and future resource-use trends and assess various possible outcomes.

The message contained in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update is a warning. Overshoot cannot be sustained without collapse. The authors carefully point out that there is reason to believe that humanity can still reverse some of its damage to Earth if it takes appropriate measures to reduce inefficiency and waste.