Ocean State Libraries

Twenty-years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we've waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We've created, in very short order, a...

Chronicles a scientific expedition through the Northwest Passage, a route made treacherous by Arctic sea ice, and discusses the effects of global warming on the Arctic region and climate.

Yellowstone is home to North America's most iconic wildlife, and every year these animals must survive the Thaw-one of the harshest seasonal changes on Earth when temperatures can swing from minus 40°F in winter to almost 100°F in summer. Learn how animals cope with this range, and witness the impact on individual families of wolves, grizzly bears, beavers, and great gray owls.

"Based on the true story of an orphaned cub. Far north in the Arctic Ocean on Wrangel Island, an orphaned polar ear cub struggles to find food. Without a mother to feed her, this young female must fend for herself. Due to rising global temperatures, food is hard to find because the pack ice that the bears rely on for hunting is late in coming."--Amazon.com.

Overview: In his meticulous notes on the natural history of Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau records the first open flowers of highbush blueberry on May 11, 1853. If he were to look for the first blueberry flowers in Concord today, mid-May would be too late. In the 160 years since Thoreau's writings, warming temperatures have pushed blueberry flowering three weeks earlier, and in 2012, following a winter and spring of record-breaking warmth,...

Explains how the semiarid land of the American Southwest, vulnerable to water shortages, rising temperatures, wildfires, and a host of other environmental challenges, is likely to bear the heaviest consequences of global environmental change in the United States.

"A journalist travels the world to collect personal stories about how flood, fire, drought, and rising seas are changing communities"--

"The Heat Will Kill You First is about the extreme ways in which our planet is already changing. It is about why spring is coming a few weeks earlier and fall is coming a few weeks later and the impact that will have on everything from our food supply to disease outbreaks. It is about what will happen to our lives and our communities when typical summer days in Chicago or Boston go from 90° F to 110°F. A heatwave, Goodell explains, is a predatory...

Journalist Mark Hertsgaard has reported on global warming for outlets including the New Yorker, NPR, Time, and Vanity Fair. But it was only after he became a father that he started thinking about the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption. In Hot, he presents a well-researched blueprint for how all of us―parents, communities, companies, and countries―can navigate this unavoidable...

Climate change is real but it's not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world's last unprotected redwoods. He cocreated the predecessor to today's Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some...