TUESDAY, JANUARY 14 AT 7PM
BUILDING A RESILIENT TOMORROW
BY ALICE C. HILL
moderated by ROBERT LEMPERT
This book offers better ways to manage the risks in a warming planet, even as we work to limit global temperature rise.
Climate change impacts-more heat, drought, extreme rainfall, and stronger storms-have already harmed communities around the globe. Even if the world could cut its carbon emissions to zero tomorrow, further significant global climate change is now inevitable. Although we cannot tell with certainty how much average global temperatures will rise, we do know that the warming we have experienced to date has caused significant losses, and that the failure to prepare for the consequences of further warming may prove to be staggering.
Building a Resilient Tomorrow does not dwell on overhyped descriptions of apocalyptic climate scenarios, nor does it travel down well-trodden paths surrounding the politics of reducing carbon emissions. Instead, it starts with two central facts: climate impacts will continue to occur, and we can make changes now to mitigate their effects. While squarely confronting the scale of the risks we face, this pragmatic guide focuses on solutions-some gradual and some more revolutionary-currently being deployed around the globe. Each chapter presents a thematic lesson for decision-makers and engaged citizens to consider, outlining replicable successes and identifying provocative recommendations to strengthen climate resilience. Between animated discussions of ideas as wide-ranging as managed retreat from coastal hot-zones to biological approaches for resurgent climate-related disease threats, Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz draw on their personal experiences as senior officials in the Obama Administration to tell behind-the-scenes stories of what it really takes to advance progress on these issues. The narrative is dotted with tales of on-the-ground citizenry, from small-town mayors and bankers to generals and engineers, who are chipping away at financial disincentives and bureaucratic hurdles to prepare for life on a warmer planet. For readers exhausted by today's paralyzing debates on yearly "fluke" storms or the existence of climate change, Building a Resilient Tomorrow offers better ways to manage the risks in a warming planet, even as we work to limit global temperature rise.
"As we race to awaken conscience and countries to meet an existential challenge, building resilience is an urgent and under appreciated part of the fight against global climate change. This timely and important book, by deeply knowledgeable veterans of that fight, offers practical ideas and lessons on how to do it and each story underscores a reality with which the world must reckon now."
— Former Secretary of State John Kerry
Alice Hill is a Senior Fellow for Climate Change Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also served at the White House as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council. Hill led the creation of national policy regarding catastrophic risk, including the impacts of climate change.
Robert Lempert is a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation and director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. He was a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 along with Vice President Al Gore.
Here's the thing...
If you're getting a book signed at Chevalier's, please purchase it at Chevalier's.
Our events are free, and we welcome anyone and everyone to enjoy a night of riveting intellectual discussion. We are, however, a small independent bookstore, and we rely on event revenues to continue hosting them. So, if you're going to get a book signed,please purchase that book here. This way, we can keep the spectacular nights coming.