This page provides a concise overview of "AI Explains: Climate Change" from the AI Explains series, including a summary and where to buy it.
AI Explains Series
AI Explains: Climate Change
This book explains the urgent, human-driven climate crisis by tracing its scientific roots, highlighting how atmospheric CO₂ levels have surpassed natural limits, and exposing the economic and political systems fueling it. It critiques global policy failures, emphasizes the importance of renewable energy and climate justice, and urges decisive action within the critical next decade, providing a comprehensive, data-driven understanding for policymakers, leaders, and citizens to effectively address this existential challenge.
About the Book
The climate crisis is no longer a future threat; it is a present, systemic reality. Yet, public discourse often remains trapped in confusion, mistaking daily weather fluctuations for the long-term, relentless shift in planetary climate. This book moves past the noise, grounding the reader in the irrefutable physics and history of the crisis. We trace the scientific journey from the 19th-century pioneers who first identified the heat-trapping properties of $\text{CO}_2$ to the modern satellite data that provides the definitive proof of human causation. By analyzing ice core records, we reveal that current atmospheric carbon concentrations have shattered the natural 800,000-year ceiling, confirming that we are not in a natural cycle, but in a profound, human-driven geological event.
Understanding the science is only the first step; navigating the crisis requires dissecting the economic and political architecture that enabled it. This book provides that critical analysis, moving from the physical evidence—like the accelerating collapse of the cryosphere and the existential risk of an AMOC shutdown—to the global ledger. We expose how the world continues to subsidize its own destruction, detailing the staggering $5.9$ trillion USD spent annually on fossil fuel subsidies, and how this financial distortion creates the looming threat of "stranded assets." Furthermore, we analyze the policy failures of the UNFCCC framework, revealing the "Ambition Gap" between national pledges and the scientific imperative, and dissecting the sophisticated political infrastructure dedicated to manufacturing delay.
The final chapters pivot from diagnosis to prescription, examining the transformative push powered by the cost collapse of renewable energy and the moral force of global climate justice movements. We explore the ethical imperative of reparative finance for the vulnerable Global South and the necessity of achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century, a goal dictated by the rapidly expiring carbon budget. This book is designed for policymakers, business leaders, students, and any engaged citizen seeking a comprehensive, data-driven understanding of the most complex challenge of our time. It offers neither alarmism nor false optimism, but rather the rigorous, integrated knowledge required to move past debate and participate effectively in the decisive decade of climate action.