Our Biggest Experiment: A History Of The Climate Crisis

Description

Did you know the link between carbon dioxide and global warming was first suggested in the 1850s? Climate change books are usually about the future, but Our Biggest Experiment turns instead asks how did we get into this mess, and how and when did we work out it was happening? Join Alice Bell on a rip-roaring ride through the characters, ideas, technologies and experiments that shaped the climate crisis we now find ourselves in.

From an emerging idea of greenhouse gases in the 19th century and, via scientific expeditions across oceans and ice caps and into space, the coining of the term global warming in the 1970s, Bell explores how we began to realise that not only could human pollution dangerously warm the climate, but that it was already doing so. Drop by the first climate talks, weather forecasts and early experiments. Watch excitement over solar and wind power start in the 1870s, only to be forgotten before being rediscovered a century later. See the monster of big oil slain by a plucky investigative journalist back in the 1910s, only tore-emerge more powerful than ever. However, this isn t a simple story with exploitative fossil-fuel baddies on one side and the goodies of renewable energy, environmentalism and climate science on the other. It s more complex than that.

As citizens of the 21st century, we ve been left an almighty mess, but as this ultimately hopeful book argues, we ve also inherited the tools for our survival.

About the Author

Alice Bell is a climate campaigner and writer based in London. She co-runs the climate change charity Possible, working on a range of projects from community tree-planting to solar-powered railways. She has a BSc in history of science from UCL and a PhD in science communication from Imperial College. She was a lecturer in science communication at Imperial for several years where she also launched a college-wide interdisciplinary course on climate change. As an academic, Alice has also worked at Sussex s Science Policy Research Unit, City University Journalism School and UCL s Technology Studies Department. She s also written for a host of publications including the Guardian, The Times, The Observer, Mosaic and New Humanist, and was editor of the magazine for the future , How We Get to Next.