Cranston Public Library

"The consequential age we are living in will be remembered as one of the great turning points in civilization. Once we turn, though, where will we be? That is the compelling question Al Gore sets out to answer by examining the drivers of global change, connecting the dots among the social, economic, and political forces shaping our present and future. A rising global consciousness is forcing people around the world, but especially Americans, to rethink...

"It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible. In California, wildfires now rage year-round, destroying thousands of homes. Across the US, "500-year" storms pummel communities month after month, and floods displace tens of millions annually. This is only a preview of the changes to come. And they are coming fast....

Diane Ackerman confronts the unprecedented reality that one prodigiously intelligent and meddlesome creature, Homo sapiens, is shaping the future of planet Earth. Humans have "subdued 75 percent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness." We tinker with nature at every opportunity; we garden the planet with our preferred species of plants and animals, many of them invasive; and...

"A prize-winning journalist upends our centuries-long assumptions about migration through science, history, and reporting--predicting its lifesaving power in the face of climate change. The news today is full of stories of dislocated people on the move. Wild species, too, are escaping warming seas and desiccated lands, creeping, swimming, and flying in a mass exodus from their past habitats. News media presents this scrambling of the planet's migration...

"By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change--including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. [This] is their story"--

"In a near-future world where tree pollen has made outdoor air unbreathable, a woman's safe but tedious life is thrown into turmoil when she witnesses a murder and her young daughter starts sleep-talking about the killer"--

"The world itself won't end, of course. Only ours will: our livelihoods, our homes, our cultures. And we're squarely at the tipping point. Longer droughts in the Middle East are causing extreme water shortages. Growing desertification in China and Africa is creating a severe food-security challenge. The monsoon season is shrinking in India, perhaps upending a century-old water cycle. Amped-up heat waves in Australia re making part of the continent...

A collection of 250 stunning images showing locations around the world as they were and as they are now, with captions explaining the often breathtaking changes that have occurred in just a short amount of time.

"A NASA astrobiologist outlines optimistic messages about humanity's future in the face of climate change, explaining how the human role in managing the planet's evolution is determining the course of life,"--NoveList.