From the “scientist finding climate change’s smoking gun” (WIRED) and a Times 100 Most Influential Person comes a bracing investigation into extreme weather’s impact on the world’s most vulnerable. For fans of Naomi Klein and Greta Thunberg. Climate change does not affect everyone equally. While many scientists focus on studying climate change as a physics problem, Friederike Otto, one of the world’s most renowned climate scientists, sees it as a symptom of the global crisis of inequality, not its cause. In this ambitious, fast-paced book, she offers concrete examples of how extreme weather events caused by climate change reveal uncomfortable truths about the failures of political and social infrastructures around the world. Comparing eight extreme weather events—including heat waves in North America, floods in Pakistan, droughts in Madagascar, and wildfires in Australia—Otto reveals how climate change is affecting the world’s most vulnerable, whether they are women working on farms in Ghana during heat waves, or elderly people who died during floods in Germany. In particular, Otto examines the Global North’s extractionist view of the Global South, a view that ensures elites are protected while others bear the brunt of the climate disaster. Climate Injustice shares the stories of real people, shining a light on the real damage inflicted on real lives. Above all, it shows how racism, colonialism, sexism, and climate change are interconnected, and how positive changes on one level can lead to positive effects on another. Authored by the co-founder of World Weather Attribution, a cutting-edge scientific method that pinpointed the role of climate change in extreme weather events for the first time, Climate Injustice offers a groundbreaking view on the fires, floods, heatwaves, and storms that are wreaking havoc at an alarming pace. Inequality and injustice are at the core of what makes climate change a problem for humanity. Fairness and global justice must therefore be at the core of the solution. Climate justice concerns everyone.
"Friederike Otto is a pioneer in the exciting field of climate attribution science. In Climate Injustice, Otto combines hard-hitting data analysis with deep sensitivity to local experiences around the world to show that climate action must grapple with the enormity of global inequality to have any chance of success. This is an essential, beautiful book—a clarion call for environmental justice." —Sunil Amrith, author of The Burning Earth "Dr. Friederike Otto goes beyond explaining a multitude of extreme weather events: unpacking the cruel global injustice of who is paying the steepest cost. The language and framing pull no punches." —Seth Klein, climate campaigner and author of A Good War "In her day job, [Friederike] Otto reveals how climate change causes disasters and stops those responsible from hiding. In this masterful book, she flips the script to expose the root causes of climate change and forces us to stop hiding from confronting them." —Akshat Rathi, author of Climate Capitalism "Friederike Otto is not just a great scientist, but a great scientist who sees beyond science. Climate Injustice is a passionate, fantastically readable argument that the climate crisis is not about saving the planet. It is about saving human dignity and rights. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It will change how you think about the most important story of our time." —Jeff Goodell, author of The New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First "We call it global warming, but as Friederike Otto's evocative and provocative volume makes clear, 'the globe' is not some undifferentiated mass. Climate change invariably comes first and worst for those that did the least to cause it—and only by understanding and dealing with this truth can we make the progress we must." —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature “Friederike Otto is one of the most important scientists at work on climate change today. Her pioneering attribution studies don't just help us to understand climate disasters better, they give us a powerful tool for doing climate justice. As Climate Injustice explains, the climate crisis is not a scientific problem with technical solutions, but a justice problem that reflects and reinforces unequal power relationships. Combining a climatologist's insights with voices from the margins, Otto's writing glows with scientific curiosity, anger and compassion.” —Jeremy Williams, author of Climate Change Is Racist
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