Conversations about climate change are filled with challenges involving complex data, deeply held values, and political issues. Understanding Climate Change provides readers with a concise, accessible, and holistic picture of the climate change problem, including both the scientific and human dimensions.

Understanding Climate Change examines climate change as both a scientific and a public policy issue. Sarah L. Burch and Sara E. Harris explain the basics of the climate system, climate models and prediction, and human and biophysical impacts, as well as strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing adaptability, and enabling climate change governance. The authors examine the connections between climate change and other pressing issues, such as human health, poverty, and other environmental problems, and they explore the ways that sustainable responses to climate change can simultaneously address those issues.

An effective and integrated introduction to an urgent and controversial issue, Understanding Climate Change contains the tools needed for students, instructors, and decision-makers to become constructive participants in the human response to climate change.

Sarah L. Burch is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. She is a Lead Author in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

Sarah Burch's profile page

Sara E. Harris is a professor of teaching in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia, where she has taught since 2005. In 2017, she started a stint in the Faculty of Science Dean’s Office as Associate Dean Academic. She has the true honour of being a member of the marvelous 2015 3M National Teaching Fellow cohort.

Sara Harris' profile page

• Winner, Outstanding Rated Title awarded by the University Press Books Committee

“This book seeks to move beyond the fundamentals and introduces the reader to the economic, political, and social dynamics of climate change. Each chapter begins with “Main Points”, or guided questions, which is ideal for guided research in schools or undergraduate classes.”

University Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools 2015, Twenty Fifth Edition

‘This book would be a good book for a climate change course at the undergraduate or beginning graduate level. It is also a good book for those generally interested in climate change science and policy.’

Journal of Environmental Studies & Sciences vol 5:2015

Perhaps the most accessible book yet to be written on climate change: If you decide to read only one book about climate change, Understanding Climate Change is the one you should choose. 

Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal

‘This book is an excellent overview of the scientific and human dimensions of anthropogenic climate change… The main contribution is the seamless integration between the physical science and the social science… Highly recommended.’

Choice Magazine vol 52:07:2015