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Offers hope for beating climate change by highlighting moments in history in which humans have successfully reversed environmental damage.
The popular media is full of doomsday scenarios regarding the environment and especially climate change. Perhaps these scare-tactics are necessary to call the public to action, however, they also have the unintended effect of convincing people that there is no hope for our planet.
In Reclaiming Our Planet: How Environmental History Can Help Solve the Climate Crisis, Alexander Gates explores past environmental crises that humanity has faced and successfully addressed to encourage readers that slowing and preventing climate change is possible. From the elimination of toxins and pesticides, such as lead and DDT, to an increase in Bald Eagle populations, Gates demonstrates that concerted efforts from motivated activists and scientists can and do lead to victories.
Set against the backdrop of these human victories over pollution, Reclaiming Our Planet also evaluates if our current approaches to are appropriate and highlights what more could be done. From solar panels and wind turbines to electric vehicles, Gates analyzes the advantages and drawbacks of such technologies along with possible new innovations in geothermal, algal fuels, and nuclear energy. Readers will be left optimistic that by learning from our history, the planet may still have a bright and healthy future ahead.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: The Reality of Climate Change
Chapter 2: Rachel Carson, DDT and Other Banned Pesticides
Chapter 3: Get the Lead Out
Chapter 4: Fixing a Hole in the Ozone
Chapter 5: The Air that We Breathe
Chapter 6: Supertanker Super-accidents
Chapter 7: Burning Rivers and Urban Surface Water Pollution
Chapter 8: Pollution Time Bombs
Chapter 9: Current Climate Change Efforts
Chapter 10: What Else Can Be Done?
Chapter 11: It Isn't Just Climate Change
Chapter 12: If We Ignore It, Will It Go Away?
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
About the author
Alexander Gates is a distinguished service professor and former vice chancellor at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ. He has been at Rutgers University for 37 years and served as chair of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences for 20 of those years. Gates is a field geologist who has conducted research on structural geology and tectonics from Maine to Alabama and in Colorado on a variety of topics. He is the author of 9 books, including the forthcoming Reclaiming Our Planet: How Environmental History Can Help Solve the Climate Crisis, and 81 professional papers and has edited 11 professional volumes. Gates has appeared on four television documentaries by PBS and the Discovery Channel among others and is commonly interviewed on television, radio, and newspaper features. He has developed several geology displays for large museums that are visited by hundreds of thousands of people. Gates also developed the Highlands Environmental Research Institute and served as director for eight years.
Summary
The climate crisis has been portrayed as deadly to humans, and it could be. However, serious environmental and resulting public health crises have run rampant for a century or more. This book looks at how several of these crises developed and were miraculously resolved and then compares how the climate crisis is being addressed.
