How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (Random House Large Print)

Getting to zero won’t be easy. Harmful emissions are caused by many things that we’ve come to take for granted. Electricity, heating, transportation, large-scale agriculture, and fundamental construction tools like iron and cement – all of these areas will require serious rethinking if we’re to reach the goal.

Air conditioning is a good example of a fixable problem. One of the biggest issues with AC is that most countries don’t set minimum standards for energy efficiency; of course, people tend to buy cheaper models, which often have very poor efficiency. If policies were updated, the energy demand caused by AC units would drop by 45 percent by 2050.

We need to get to zero emissions because every second we don’t, the situation gets worse. Greenhouse gases don’t vanish overnight. They stick around for tens of thousands of years. Think of it like a bathtub on the verge of overflowing. Even a small but steady drip will cause the water to start spilling over.

Setting a goal to reduce our emissions - but not eliminate them - won't do it. The only sensible goal is zero.

When Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975, they were living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Back then, the city was already pretty hot; temperatures climbed to over 90 degrees Fahrenheit an average of 36 days a year. But by 2050, that number of days is expected to double. And by the end of the century, it will triple. The health and econ... See more

What’s more, many areas of the world are just now getting more industrialized. Economies are booming. Overall, this is good news. It means more people are being lifted out of poverty and becoming wealthier. But as these countries begin to take steps toward improving their infrastructure and building thriving cities, they’re picking up the same tool... See more

To bring our planet back from the brink of disaster, we need to get our greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

You may know that cattle produce a lot of methane, one of the most harmful greenhouse gases in terms of contributing to warming temperatures. But did you know that throwing away food is also a significant contributor? When food rots, it also produces methane. And we throw away lots of food every year – the equivalent of 3.3 billion tons of carbon d... See more

The effect of these greenhouse gases is that the planet has gotten hotter. Since the dawn of the Industrial Age, the average global temperature has risen one degree Celsius; some areas have even experienced a rise of over two degrees. That may not sound like much, but, on a global scale, it is. And there are many far-reaching consequences.