A few bits and pieces of news on global warming, plus a book recommendation. First, scientists appear to be warming projections. As, it further turns out, is the whole world, as less CO2 is collecting in the oceans around Antarctica, which means warming is going to happen faster than previously though.
Now for the book recommendation. It is not about global warming, per se. However, since all news points to more hotness, I thought I'd recommend Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg's social autopsy of the 1995 Chicago heat wave. Heat waves are the real silent killers among natural disasters, killing more people than most other natural events. What comes out in Klinenberg's accounts is that it's not the heat that kills people, but the social disorder. In particular, he finds that community-oriented neighborhoods fared better than non-community-oriented neighborhoods, even holding constant relative poverty.
Neighborhoods are crucially important on a range of matters. Klinenberg's success is to show how they matter even in the case of a natural disaster. I think it's the case that our neighborhoods are going to dictate how well we respond to global warming. Both in terms of slowing and stopping it and reacting to the climate change that's already locked in. And this shows how, I think, there's nothing that we can do to fight global warming that doesn't also do something else for us.