Part I: The Concept of Living Sustainably.- Defining the Problem.- What is Sustainability?.- The Concept of Resources.- Part II: Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming.- Global Warming and CO2.- Measuring and Offsetting CO2 Emissions.- The Real Cost of Carbon.- Ecological Footprint.- Part II: Our Use of Resources.- Energy - Green or Otherwise.- Travelling Here, There, Everywhere.- Having Enough to Eat.- Where Does Water Fit In.- Waste Not Want Not.- Part IV: Responding to the Impact of Global Warming.- Planet Health.- Your Health and Wellbeing.- In Your Hands.
In this volume, Professor N.F. Gray offers a comprehensive primer on climate change, sustainability, and how the two concepts are related. This book consists of fifteen chapters, each treating a specific aspect of the current global crisis, including scientific background as well as an up to date appraisal of the issue at hand. It covers the reasons behind climate change and the effect it will have on the planet and on the reader directly. Gray also presents readers with the means to assess their own environmental impact and details positive individual and community actions to address global warming.
“Climate change,” “global warming,” and “sustainability” are phrases that almost everyone has heard, whether on the news or around the dinner table. The increasing frequency of major events such as droughts, severe storms, and floods are beginning to make these concepts inescapable, and being fully informed is an absolute necessity for students and indeed for us all.
Nick Gray (PhD, ScD) is a founding member of the Environmental Sciences Unit (1979) at Trinity College Dublin, which was the first center for postgraduate research and training in environmental science and technology in Ireland. He has written a number of books and over 150 research papers and book chapters, and currently serves as the Director of the Trinity Centre for the Environment.