Stephen H. Schneider

Armin Rosencranz

John O. Niles

Resources for the Future (RFF), located in Washington, D.C., offers the full text of the May 2000 discussion paper entitled "Climate Change Policy," written by Jason Shogren and Michael Toman. The text is available in PDF format. The authors discuss the risks that climate change poses for society, the benefits of protection against the effects of climate change, and the costs of alternative protection policies.

A Survey

Climate Change Policy

This is the mcomprehensive and currreference resource on climate change available today. It features forty-nine individual chapters by some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Its five sections address climate change in five dimensions: ecological impacts, policy analysis, international considerations, United States considerations, and mitigation options to reduce carbon emissions. In many ways, this volume supersedes the Fourth AssessmReport of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Many important developments too recto be treated in the 2007 IPCC documents are covered here. Overall, Climate Change Science and Policy paints a direr picture of the effects of climate change than do the IPCC reports. It reveals that climate change has progressed faster than the IPCC reports anticipated and that the outlook for the future is bleaker than the IPCC reported.

Climate Change Science and Policy

Questions surrounding the issue of climate change are evolving from "Is it happening?" to "What can be done about it?" The primary obstacles to addressing it at this point are not scientific but political and economic; nonetheless a quick resolution is unlikely.Ignorance and confusion surrounding the issue -- including a lack of understanding of climate science, its implications for the environmand society, and the range of policy options available -- contributes to the political morass over dealing with climate change in which we find ourselves. Climate Change Policy addresses that situation by bringing together a wide range of new writings from leading experts that examine the many dimensions of the topics mimportant in understanding climate change and policies to combat it. Chapters consider: climate science in historical perspective analysis of uncertainties in climate science and policy the economics of climate policy North-South and intergenerational equity issues the role of business and industry in climate solutions policy mechanisms including joint implementation, emissions trading, and the so-called clean developmmechanism Regardless of the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the issues raised in that debate will persist as new climate protection regimes emerge; this volume treats mof those topics. Tying the chapters together is a shared conclusion that climate change is a real and serious problem, and that we as a society have an obligation not merely to adapt to it but to mitigate it in whatever intelligways we can develop. Cost-effectiveness is not disdained, but neither is the imperative for valuing species threatened by rapid climate change.

R.S. Chen

E. Boulding

This volume presents the findings of a small group of both social and natural scientists who tackled the 'so what' question. Led by Dartmouth sociologist, Elise Boulding, and Boulder climatologist, Stephen Schneider, the group examined how a changing climate might affect people and institutions and how these might respond. The outcome of their interdisciplinary appraisal is a blend of careful reviews of relevant social-science work, group interaction and discussion, and concrete suggestions for further research and analysis.

An Interdisciplinary Appraisal

Social Science Research and Climate Change

Kenneth C. Land

Social and natural scientists often are called upon to produce, or participate, in the pro duction of forecasts. This volume assembles essays that (a) describe the organizational and political context of applied forecasting, (b) review the state-of-the-art for many fore casting models and methods, and (c) discuss issues of predictability, the implications of forecaSt errors, and model construction, linkage and verification. The essays should be of particular interest to social and natural scientists concerned with forecasting large-scale systems. This project had its origins in discussions of social forecasts and forecasting method ologies initiated a few years ago by several social and natural science members of the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Social Indicators. It became appar ent in these discussions that certain similar problems were confronted in forecasting large-scale systems-be they social or natural. In response, the Committee hypothesized that much could be learned through more extended and systematic interchanges among social and natural scientists focusing on the formal methodologies applied in forecasting. To put this conjecture to the test, the Committee sponsored a conference at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, on June 10-13, 1984, on forecasting in the social and natural sciences. The conference was co-chaired by Committee members Kenneth C. Land and Stephen H. Schneider representing, respectively, the social and natural science mem bership of the Committee. Support for the conference was provided by a grant to the Council from the Division of Social and Economic Science of the National Science Foundation.

Forecasting in the Social and Natural Sciences

Schneider's firsthand account of a scientific and political odyssey, in which he navigates both the turbulent waters of the world's power structures and the arcane theater of academic debaters.

Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate

Science as a Contact Sport

Does the solution to our energy crisis depend upon the de velopment of coal, nuclear, solar, or some other energy source? Are we better off because science and technology have made us less vulnerable to natural catastrophes? How, in fact, do we see ourselves now in relation to our natural world? The answers to these questions lie as much within the humanities as in the sciences. Problems as seemingly unrelated as our vulnerability to OPEC oil price hikes or a smog alert in Los Angeles or Tokyo often have common, hidden causes. One of these causes is simply the way our society sees its place in nature. There are many reasons for the heavy demand for oil. Among these we vii viii I PREFACE can include desire for industrial growth, hopes for improved living standards, mobility through automobiles and rapid transportation systems, and, not least, an attempt to loosen the constraints on man imposed by nature. These constraints and man's concomitant dependence upon nature are exam ples of the intense and finely interwoven relationship be tween man and nature, a relationship that constitutes a pri mordial bond forged long before the era of modem technology. Similarly, man has explored this primordial bond through the humanities for all the centuries prior to our present techno logical age. As we will see in this exploration, the bond un derlies many of the environmental and technological prob lems we have come to label the ecological crisis.

Exploring Connections between Man and Nature through the Humanities and Sciences

The Primordial Bond

Terry Root

Terry Louise Root

Wildlife Responses to Climate Change is the culmination of a three-year project to research and study the impacts of global climate change on ecosystems and individual wildlife species in North America. In 1997, the National Wildlife Federation provided fellowships to eight outstanding graduate students to conduct research on global climate change, and engaged leading climate change experts Stephen H. Schneider and Terry L. Root to advise and guide the project. This book presents the results, with chapters describing groundbreaking original research by some of the brightest young scientists in America. The book presents case studies that examine: ways in which local and regional climate variables affect butterfly populations and habitat ranges how variations in ocean temperatures have affected intertidal marine species the potential effect of reduced snow cover on plants in the Rocky Mountains the potential effects of climate change on the distribution of vegetation in the United States how climate change may increase the susceptibility of ecosystems to invasions of non-native species the potential for environmental change to alter interactions between a variety of organisms in whitebark pine communities of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Also included are two introductory chapters by Schneider and Root that discuss the rationale behind the project and offer an overview of climate change and its implications for wildlife.Each of the eight case studies provides important information about how biotic systems respond to climatic variables, and how a changing climate may affect biotic systems in the future. They also acknowledge the inherent complexities of problems likely to arise from changes in climate, and demonstrate the types of scientific questions that need to be explored in order to improve our understanding of how climate change and other human disturbances affect wildlife and ecosystems.Wildlife Responses to Climate Change is an important addition to the body of knowledge critical to scientists, resource managers, and policymakers in understanding and shaping solutions to problems caused by climate change. It provides a useful resource for students and scientists studying the effects of climate change on wildlife and will assist resource managers and other wildlife professionals to better understand factors affecting the species they are striving to conserve.

North American Case Studies

Wildlife Responses to Climate Change

Michael D. Mastrandrea

Why we should prepare for climate change now by taking anticipatory action in vulnerable regions. Global momentum is building to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So far, so good. The less happy news is that Earth's temperatures will continue to rise for decades. And evidence shows that climbing temperatures are already having serious consequences for vulnerable people and regions through droughts, extreme weather, and melting glaciers. In this book, climate experts Michael Mastrandrea and Stephen Schneider argue that we need to start adapting to climate change, now. They write that these efforts should focus primarily on identifying the places and people most at risk and taking anticipatory action—from developing drought-resistant crops to building sea walls. The authors roundly reject the idea that reactive, unplanned adaptation will solve our problems—that species will migrate northward as climates warm, and farmers will shift to new crops and more hospitable locations. And they are highly critical of “geoengineering” schemes that are designed to cool the planet by such methods as injecting iron into oceans or exploding volcanoes. Mastrandrea and Schneider insist that smart adaptation will require a series of local and regional projects, many of them in the countries least able to pay for them and least responsible for the problem itself. Ensuring that we address the needs of these countries, while we work globally to reduce emissions over the long term, is our best chance to avert global disaster and to reduce the terrible, unfair burdens that are likely to accompany global warming.

Stephen H. Schneider

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