Science, Culture, and Climate

Science, Culture, and Climate: Navigating Change is a timely textbook that makes an engaging, accessible case that solutions to the climate crisis require a deep embrace of science, infused with an understanding of the social constructs and history that forged our culture.
The initial chapter calibrates the reader’s understanding and significance of science. The next chapters describe how climate and life on Earth are deeply interconnected, trace the nexus of climate change and the evolution of human society, and demonstrate how our energy choices have inadvertently triggered a climate crisis. Subsequent chapters explore how people process risk as they respond to challenges, reflect on how major change was accomplished in America’s past, and examine global approaches and U.S political response to climate change.
The concluding chapter highlights the moral imperatives that form the basis of trust, to help pave the fraught road to lasting climate solutions.
This textbook is ideal for undergraduate students in environmental science and non-science majors studying climate change within history, anthropology, ethics, political science, engineering, psychology, and other disciplines. It is also useful for professionals in areas related to environment and sustainability, for advanced high school students, as well as for a general readership. Supplementary resource materials to accompany the book include narrated videos, in-class activities, and PowerPoint slides.

• Provides a detailed overview of the social, scientific, and historical context framing climate change
• Explains key concepts from climate science, geology, history, anthropology, sociology, and political science that are relevant to the field of climate change
• Reviews global and national responses to the climate crisis and examines the politics of climate change in the United States
• Traces the importance of scientific discourse informing policy within a democracy, and discusses climate solutions based on trust in science