Living on the Real World

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Living on the Real World

How Thinking and Acting Like Meteorologists Will Help Save the Planet
William H. Hooke
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 978-1-935704-56-0
List Price: $30.00
Member Price: $22.00
Student Price: $22.00

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Title information

Pages: 272
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Every day meteorologists sift through a deluge of information to make predictions that help us navigate our daily lives. Instead of being overwhelmed by the data and possibilities, they focus on small bits of information while using frequent collaboration to make decisions. With climate change a reality, author William H. Hooke suggests that meteorology's stepwise, collaborative approach points the way to solving urgent global problems.

Living on the Real Worldexplains why we should approach environmental issues collaboratively, each taking on a challenging aspect and finding solutions to small parts of the larger problem. It outlines current crises brought about by climate change and extreme weather, including impacts on food, water, energy, and then explores the ways we can tackle these problems together.

Blending science with a philosophical approach, Hooke offers a clear-eyed analysis as well as an inspiring call to action. Everyone from scientists to politicians, educators to journalists, and businesses large and small, can—and must—participate in order to save the planet for generations to come.

 

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

2 Living on the (Physical) Real World

3 Living on the Real World (Social Reality)

4 A Persistence Forecast for the 21st Century

5 A Basis of Facts

6 Policy

7 Opportunities for Improving Policy

8 Hazards Policy Innovation

9 Taking Policies from Abstraction to Action

10 Social Networking

11 Leadership

12 Reanalysis and an Updated Forecast

William H. Hooke

William H. Hookeis senior policy fellow and serves as associate executive director at the American Meteorological Society.

CHOICE Review

As the subtitle suggests, the author's approach to resolving such world problems as population growth, dwindling resources, and consumption of resources is through the strategies employed by meteorologists. Unlike their counterparts in STEM fields, meteorologists do not work with fixed entities but with uncertainties and sometimes rapidly changing variables and are very dependent on mutual collaboration across the globe. Hooke (senior policy fellow, American Meteorological Society) is well qualified to write this work. He draws attention to the fact that Earth is a resource (e.g., agriculture), a threat (e.g., tornadoes), and a victim (e.g., overexploitation of resources). He then emphasizes three major challenges that the world faces today: accessing needed natural resources, saving the environment, and developing resilience to natural hazards. This book is also a handbook for addressing these challenges with tools that include facts/knowledge, policy, technology and social media, and responsible behavior and leadership. The text abounds with myriad examples of the use of those four tools, and the author implores individuals and groups to employ them to help address, if not reverse, the threats that the world faces if society does nothing. Well-documented references, clarifying diagrams, and a fine index.

--E. J. Kormondy, University of Hawaii at Hilo

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.