BOOKS
Global Warming
In 2001 a panel representing virtually all the world’s governments and climate scientists announced that they had reached a consensus: the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia, and that warming was caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases from human activity. The consensus itself was at least a century in the making. The story of how scientists reached their conclusion–by way of unexpected twists and turns and in the face of formidable intellectual, financial, and political obstacles–is told for the first time in The Discovery of Global Warming. Spencer R. Weart lucidly explains the emerging science, introduces us to the major players, and shows us how the Earth’s irreducibly complicated climate system was mirrored by the global scientific community that studied it.
Unlike familiar tales of Science Triumphant, this book portrays scientists working on bits and pieces of a topic so complex that they could never achieve full certainty–yet so important to human survival that provisional answers were essential. Weart unsparingly depicts the conflicts and mistakes, and how they sometimes led to fruitful results. His book reminds us that scientists do not work in isolation, but interact in crucial ways with the political system and with the general public. The book not only reveals the history of global warming, but also analyzes the nature of modern scientific work as it confronts the most difficult questions about the Earth’s future.
Global warming is perhaps the most prominent and urgent environmental issue of the past decade, continuing to make front-page headlines. Award-winning science and nature writer Laurence Pringle describes the cause of this worldwide trend, exploring its past, present, and potential future damage to our climate, ecology, and economy. He also offers solutions that may help avert a global disaster. With over 30 color photographs and an extensive glossary, here is an authoritative look at a timely topic that all children and adults must face—and soon.
Hurricane Katrina. A rapidly disappearing Arctic. The warmest winter on the American East Coast in recorded history. The leading scientist at NASA warns that we have only ten years to reverse climate change; the British government’s report on global warming estimates that the financial impact will begreater than the Great Depression and both world warsżcombined. Bill McKibben, the author of the first major book on global warming, The End of Nature, warns that it’s no longer time to debate global warming, it’s time to fight it.Drawing on the experience of Step It Up, a national day of rallies held on April 14, McKibben and the Step It Up team of organizers provide the facts of what must change to save the climate and show how to build the fight in your community, church, or college. They describe how to launch online grassroots campaigns, generate persuasive political pressure, plan high-profile events that will draw media attention, and other effective actions. This essential book offers the blueprint for a mighty new movement against the most urgent challenge facing us today.
SLA and Language Pedagogy
This book explores the relationship between research, teaching, and tasks, and seeks to clarify the issues raised by recent work in this field. The book shows how research and task-based teaching can mutually inform each other and illuminate the areas of task-based course design, methodology, and assessment. The author brings an accessible style and broad scope to an area of contemporary importance to both SLA and language pedagogy. Click here for a review of the book and here a review article on Task-based instruction written by Professor Peter Skehan from King’s College, London, UK.
Grouped into five sections, the papers in this volume:
* consider questions about L2 theory and pedagogy at the macro-level, from the standpoint of the L2 setting;
* consider input in terms of factors which are internal to the learner;
* examine the question of external factors affecting the input, such as the issue of whether points of grammar can be explicitly taught;
* deal with questions of certain complex, linguistic behaviors and the various external and social variables that influence learners; and
* discuss issues surrounding the teaching of pronunciation factors that affect a non-native accent.
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