Sarah L Burch and Sara E. Harris (eds): Understanding climate change: science policy and practice Richard Smardon
Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences ISSN 2190-6483 J Environ Stud Sci DOI 10.1007/s13412-015-0286-0
1 23
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by AESS. This eoffprint is for personal use only and shall not be self-archived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com”.
1 23
Author's personal copy J Environ Stud Sci DOI 10.1007/s13412-015-0286-0
BOOK REVIEW
Sarah L Burch and Sara E. Harris (eds): Understanding climate change: science policy and practice Richard Smardon 1
# AESS 2015
There are many books on climate change and science and policy but few effectively bridge climate change science, policy, and practice. A sampling of books that do span climate policy and practice include: Association of American Geographers Global Change and Local Place 2003 book Clausen and Pew Foundation’s Climate Change Science Strategies and Solutions 2001 book Davoudi et al. Planning for Climate Change; Strategies for Mitigation and Adoption for Spatial Planners 2009 book Dessler and Parson’s The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change 2006/2008 book Mintzer’s Confronting Climate Change; Risks Implications and Responses 1992 book Permutter and Rothstein’s The Challenge of Climate Change; Which and How 2011 book Schneider et al. Climate Change Science and Policy 2010 book
but AAG (2003) and Davoudi et al. (2009) provide examples of regional to local climate change mitigation and adaption strategies. Only the dual authored books by Dessler and Parson (2008) and Perlmutter and Rothstein (2011) combine broad climate change coverage plus cohesiveness for a textbook useful for this subject area. Burch and Harris’s (2014) book covers many aspects of climate change science and policy in 275 pages including: & & & & & &
The books by Clausen (2001), Mintzer (1992), and Schneider et al. (2010) have multiple chapters (23–35) plus multiple contributing authors addressing climate change science and policy with a few chapters of practice examples. Most books predominately have a global policy perspective
& & &
* Richard Smardon
[email protected]; http://www.esf.edu/es/faculty/smardon.htm; http://www.esf.edu/es/faculty/smardon.htm 1
Department of Environmental Studies, SUNY/College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA
& &
An introductory overview chapter on climate change science and policy history A second chapter with a systems perspective on the earth’s climate system, including interacting parts and energy budgets A third chapter on the sun’s influence on climate dynamics A fourth chapter on the earth’s reflectivity, atmospheric effects, and anthropogenic influence on climate variability A fifth chapter where the authors explain the greenhouse effect including carbon stocks and flows, variability over time, and anthropogenic influences A sixth chapter on reducing green house gas emissions through various mitigation strategies A seventh chapter to explain climate models and how they work An eight chapter on climate emission scenarios projection utilizing the climate models covered in chapter seven A ninth chapter on climate change impacts on natural systems plus ecosystem based policy tools to address such impacts A tenth chapter on climate change impacts on human systems as well as policy tools for adaption The final chapter includes projecting possible pathways forward to address transformative approaches to addressing climate change as well as ethics, equity, and choice issues plus collective action.
Author's personal copy J Environ Stud Sci
This reviewer likes the author’s use of dynamic system stocks, flows, and feedback introduced in Chapter two, which continues through much of the book—especially those sections addressing climate science. Understanding climate meteorology and the interacting factors is a complex business, and so the systems dynamics perspective is useful for understanding these interactions. This reviewer also likes the way the authors have linked climate change impacts to natural and human systems to meaningful policy and practice measures. Unpacking climate change impacts at the regional scale and connecting to appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures is critical to the path forward. Chapter 7 on climate models and chapter 8 on projecting climate shifts suffer a bit as the authors attempt to explain how climate models work and limitations thereof. However, such models are complicated and are not easily explained. This book packages a large array of information regarding climate science policy and practice in a truly understandable way. This book is most comparable to Dessler and Parson’s The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change and Permutter and Rothstein’s The Challenge of Climate Change; Which and How but spans broader subject coverage. This reviewer wishes that he had the book for an environmental and energy audit course, which he taught for many years without such material packaged in such a way. So this book would
be a good textbook for a climate change course at the undergraduate or beginning graduate level. It is also a good book for those generally interested in climate change science and policy.
References Association of American Geographers Global Change & Local Places Research team (AAG) (2003) Global change and local places: estimating and understanding and planning greenhouse gas. Cambridge University Press, 270pp Burch SL, Harris SE (2014) Understanding climate change: science, policy and practice. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 307pp Claussen E (ed) (2001) Climate change science, strategies and solutions. Pew Center for Global Climate Change and Brill Publishers, 399pp Davoudi S, Crawford J, Mehmood A (eds) (2009) Planning for climate change; strategies for mitigation and adaptation for spatial planners. Earthscan, London, 319 pp Dessler AE, Parson EA (2008) The science and politics of global climate change. Cambridge University Press, 189pp Mintzer IM (ed) (1992) Confronting climate change; risks impacts and responses. Stockholm Environmental Institute and Cambridge University Press, 382pp Perlmutter DD, Rothstein RL (2011) The challenge of climate change: which way now? Wiley, UK, 230pp Schneider SH, Rosencranz A, Mastrandrea MD, Kuntz-Duriseti K (eds) (2010) Climate change science and policy. Island Press, Wash DC, 520pp
