Chapter 6 discusses ways in which scientists, activists, journalists, policy makers, and others concerned about global heating can most persuasively communicate climate science findings to the general public.

Chapter 9 addresses the kinds of steps that must be taken to make a renewable energy transition feasible from a technical, political, and social point of view and produce meaningful action and confrontation across many levels of government and realms of society.

Chapter 1 offers a historical examination of the causes and discovery of global heating and the development of the scientific consensus that it is human-caused and can be curtailed only by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and describes how those developments nonetheless failed to lead to extensive action.

Chapter 3 lays out in more detail the grave current impacts of global heating, including such extreme weather events as heat waves, droughts, floods, and hurricanes; the alarming projected scenarios if substantial cuts in emissions do not begin soon; and how the methods and assumptions used by many economists have contributed to the failure to cut emissions.

Chapter 7 explores ways in which people’s perceptions of the actual risks posed by climate change can be elevated adequately to motivate them to engage in individual and collective action to counteract it.

Chapter 5 introduces the major causes of skepticism, including misinformation and worldviews and values, and offers some possible strategies for countering these influences.

Chapter 10 turns to the sociology of social movements, the psychology of collective action, and the histories and tactics of prominent grassroots group to examine how to grow and empower a movement and increase broader advocacy.

Chapter 4 examines the role played by contemporary capitalism in both massively escalating emissions and creating structural, ideological, and psychological barriers to efforts to cut emissions.

Increasing numbers of people have become aware of the problem of global warming (referred to in this book as global heating) as extreme weather events and sea levels have continued to increase, private investment in renewable sources of power and in electric vehicles (EVs) and appliances has grown, and institutions and governments around the world have pledged to take action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Yet despite the overwhelming consensus among scientists and intergovernmental bodies about the danger that global heating poses to the environment and to organized life as we know it, more than thirty years of talk about the urgent need for action has led to very few tangible results. Global emissions continue to rise, and few people familiar with the situation feel confident that the world will manage to meet the internationally agreed goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C, or even to 2°C. Why this is the case – how it is that, despite all that we know about the causes and harms of global heating, so little effective action has yet been taken, and how that can be changed – is the central question of this book.