Climate Uncertainty and Risk

Climate Uncertainty and Risk

Rethinking Our Response

By Judith Curry

Anthem Environment and Sustainability Initiative

In Climate Uncertainty and Risk, Judith Curry shows how we can break the gridlock surrounding the climate debate. This book helps us rethink the climate change problem, the risks we are facing and how we can respond.

Paperback, 340 Pages

ISBN:9781839989254

June 2023

£25.00, $35.00

  • About This Book
  • Reviews
  • Author Information
  • Series
  • Table of Contents
  • Links
  • Podcasts

About This Book

World leaders have made a forceful statement that climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. However, little progress has been made in implementing policies to address climate change. In Climate Uncertainty and Risk, eminent climate scientist Judith Curry shows how we can break through this stalemate. This book helps us rethink the climate change problem, the risks we are facing and our response. It helps us strategize on how we can best engage with our environment and support human well-being while responding to climate change. Climate Uncertainty and Risk provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the climate change debate. It shows how both the climate change problem and its solution have been oversimplified. It explains how understanding the uncertainties helps us to better assess the risks. It describes how uncertainty and disagreement can be part of the decision-making process. It provides a road map formulating pragmatic solutions that can improve our well-being in the 21st century. Judith Curry brings a unique perspective to the debate on climate change. She has engaged extensively with decision makers in both the private and public sectors on a range of issues related to weather and climate. She engages with scientists, activists and politicians on both sides of the climate change debate. In her search for wisdom in this debate, she incorporates the philosophy and sociology of science, ethics, risk management and politics. Climate Uncertainty and Risk is essential reading for those concerned about the environment, professionals dealing with climate change and our national leaders.

Reviews

“Climate Uncertainty and Risk” provides a balanced, fair assessment of the content and conclusions of the IPCC ARs. It compares and contrasts some ancient but mostly more recent climate conditions and events in making the case for a broader inclusion of past situations to better understand and simulate the climate future. The book includes a thoughtful look at climate change versus COVID-19 risk, especially relative to applying the “precautionary principle.” “Climate Uncertainty and Risk” is an essential contribution to understanding and mitigating climate change. Ms. Curry’s goal is to better inform the reader “as to the uncertainties and the various values in play” surrounding the judgments as to “whether warming is dangerous or whether urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions is needed.”—Anthony J. Sadar, The Washington Times

 “Climate Uncertainty” is a serious, nonpolitical book, which will help to elevate the level of scientific and political discourse. It should be read by everyone who writes or speaks about climate change, including the political and media class— Richard Rahn, The Washington Times

The real import of Curry’s book is her analysis of the forms of science and economics that are rallied to support extreme policy actions —Terence Corcoran, Financial Post

A new book by a leading climate change scientist gives reason for hope that the light of truth is shedding a few rays into the dark, dystopian, ideologically driven pseudoscience known as global warming— American Thinker

Climate Uncertainty and Risk is more than a book. Curry has produced a single-author counter to the IPCC that offers a radical alternative to the UN paradigm of climate change that could well serve as a manual for a future Republican administration.—Real Clear Energy

It covers a remarkably broad array of interrelated topics, from the science to energy technology to policies that are sensitive to the needs of underdeveloped nations, with an attitude that’s more pragmatic than ideological. — Energy Law Journal

Key to Curry’s approach is a dynamic adaptive decision-making approach than one based on static plans that are nearly impossible to implement. Curry provides a careful history and understanding of risk analysis with attendant cautionary and precautionary principles and how these are weighted to problems with different degrees of confidence of what is actually and what is poorly known, and perhaps even guesses. —Minding the Campus

The courage to admit prevailing predictions of the Earth’s future climate are far from certainties makes Judith Curry a rare model scientist" — Stephen Wilson, IPA Review

“Judith A. Curry is one of the world’s leading scholars of climate change and a deep thinker about how science copes with uncertainty. In this refreshing and comprehensive book, she shows with meticulous care and great clarity that exaggerated claims about climate change made for political purposes are wide of the mark. Instead, she shows the way to a rational and practical discussion of this polarized topic.”—Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist and How Innovation Works.

“With climate models running too hot by a factor of 2 for 30 years, with everything that used to be called a weather event now a portent of climate change, and with billions being invested against this as opposed to other more pressing world needs, Judith A. Curry provides us with a much-needed and convincing rethink.”—Michael Kelly, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology, University of Cambridge, UK.

“Judith A. Curry leverages her background in climate science, weather forecasting, and devising risk management strategies to present the climate policy debate we have never had. Her balanced, evidence-based, and multifaceted discussion leaves the reader ‘better informed as to the uncertainties and the various values in play’ in designing climate policy.”—Peter Hartley, George A. Peterkin Professor of Economics, Rice University, USA; MEECON Co-Director.

Judith Curry’s book Climate Uncertainty and Risk aims to provide a framework for understanding the climate change ‘debate’. She argues that the climate change problem and its solution have been oversimplified; that understanding uncertainty can help in better assessing the risks; and that uncertainty and disagreement can be part of the decision-making process.  Curry’s book is divided into three parts. The first describes the climate change challenge. The second relates to the uncertainty of 21st century climate change, noting her emphasis on 21st century. The final section covers climate risk and response - Michael Muntisov & Greg Finlayson

Author Information

Judith Curry is Professor Emerita of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and President of the Climate Forecast Applications Network.

Series

Anthem Environment and Sustainability Initiative

Table of Contents

List of Figure and Tables; Description; Acknowledgments; Author’s Foreword; Part One The Climate Change Challenge, Chapter One Introduction; Chapter Two Consensus, or Not?; Chapter Three The Climate Change Response Challenge; Chapter Four Mixing Science and Politics; Part Two Uncertainty of Twenty-First Century Climate Change, Chapter Five The Climate Change “Uncertainty Monster”; Chapter Six Climate Models; Chapter Seven IPCC Scenarios of Twenty-First Century Cimate Change; Chapter Eight Alternative Methods for Generating Climate Change Scenarios; Chapter Nine What’s the Worst Case?; Part Three Climate Risk and Response, Chapter Ten Risk and Its Assessment; Chapter Eleven Risk Management; Chapter Twelve Decision-Making Under Deep Uncertainty; Chapter Thirteen Adaptation, Resilience, and Development; Chapter Fourteen Mitigation; Chapter Fifteen Climate Risk and the Policy Discourse; Index

Links

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