Lawrence M. Krauss

The first book to briefly and clearly present the science of climate change in a way that is accessible to laypeople, providing the perspective needed to understand and assess the foundations and predictions of climate change. “Brilliant and fundamental, this is the necessary book about our prime global emergency. Here you’ll find the facts, the processes, the physics of our complex and changing climate, but delivered with eloquence and urgency. Lawrence Krauss writes with a clarity that transcends mere politics. Prose and poetry were never better bedfellows.” —Ian McEwan “A brief, brilliant, and charming summary of what physicists know about climate change and how they learned it.” —Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Metcalf Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Boston University “The distinguished scientist Lawrence Krauss turns his penetrating gaze on the most pressing existential threat facing our world: climate change. It is brimming with information lucidly analysed. Such hope as there is lies in science, and a physicist of Dr. Krauss’s imaginative versatility is unusually qualified to offer it.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker and Science in the Soul “Lucid and gripping, this study of the most severe challenge humans have ever faced leads the reader from the basic physics of climate change to recognition of the damage that humans have already caused and on to the prospects that lie ahead if we do not change course soon.” —Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona, author of Internationalism or Extinction? “Lawrence Krauss tells the story of climate change with erudition, urgency, and passion. It is our great good luck that one of our most brilliant scientists is also such a gifted writer. This book will change the way we think about the future.” —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Good Boy and She’s Not There “Everything on climate change that I’ve seen is either dumbed down and bossy or written for other climate scientists. I’ve been looking for a book that can let me, a layperson, understand the science. This book does just what I was looking for. It is important.” —Penn Jillette, Magician, author of Presto! and God, No! “The renowned physicist Lawrence Krauss makes the science behind one of the most important issues of our time accessible to all.” —Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego “Lawrence Krauss is a fine physicist, a talented writer, and a scientist deeply engaged with public affairs. His book deserves wide readership. The book’s eloquent exposition of the science and the threats should enlighten all readers and motivate them to an urgent concern about our planet’s future.” —Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, former president of the Royal Society, author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity

The Physics of Climate Change

Already highlighting in the Foreword chapter lmao

Amira BEN

First off, it is worth recognizing that climate change science is not rocket science. Having once written a book albout rocket science, or at least imaginary rocket science, I decided I was in a good position to judge. And the urgency of the issue is surely greater than pondering the possibilities of space travel in the twenty-third century, as fascinating as those might be.

I was surprised and dismayed as numerous publishers and editors I reached out to indicated to me that they change would be ones that appeal to emotions and communicate only to the true believers through a sense of doom and gloom. Since they are in some sense the gatekeepers for what information the public gets, this demonstrated to me how important it is to combat that perception with a book that could provide actual information the public can use to make informed decisions about how to respond to what they might read in the papers or hear from politicians. thought the only marketable books on climate

The science behind climate change is accessible and interesting, and it should be the basis of arguments and policy discussions.

Climate change, evolution, and the Big Bang are all empirical facts, not speculation, and the relevant data validate fundamental theoretical expectations.

I will not advocate for specific policies; that is the purview of politicians, advocacy groups, and political movements. I will, however, be unabashed about the seriousness of the challenges we now face so the risks and possible consequences of inaction are manifest.

Climate change as a global issue may manifest itself in a thousand different ways in a thousand different places. 

The CO2 abundance has increased by about 100 ppm in sixty-two years. This is about 1.6 ppm per year. Recall that Keeling himself estimated the CO2 generation by fossil fuel consumption in 1960 to be about 1.4 ppm, about the same order of magnitude. 

Keeling himself pointed out a very plausible reason why one might expect that not all the CO2, being produced by humanity would be reflected directly by a concomitant rise in atmospheric co2 content. CO2 can dissolve in water, creating carbonic acid, so one would expect some CO2 to be taken up by the oceans. 

Perspective is everything, however, and we must always remember a key warning in science: correlation does not imply causation. So, it is possible, without some underlying physical explanation and without more data, that the comparable rates of CO2 in the atmosphere and human-generated CO2 is just a coincidence.

To get a better idea of whether the observed co2 increase is correlated to human industrial activity, we can hope to explore longer-term variations to see if the current fossil fuel-generating era is anomalous or not. 

The Physics of Climate Change quotes

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