The great transformation: climate - can we beat the heat?

Messner, Dirk / John Schellnhuber / Claus Leggewie / Reinhold Leinfelder / Stefan Rahmstorf / Jürgen Schmid / Nebosja Nakicenovic / Renate Schubert / Sabine Schlacke
Books (2014)

Alexandra Hamann / Claudia Zea-Schmidt (eds.), Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen (WBGU)

ISBN: 978-3-93619-141-7

Dt. Ausg. u.d.T.:
Die große Transformation: Klima - kriegen wir die Kurve?
Berlin: Jacoby & Stuart

Volltext/Full text

Climate change, the Anthropocene, rising CO2 levels, the Earth Summit in Rio, wind turbines, combined heat and power generation, desertification, biodiversity loss, Germany's Renewable Energy Act, pioneers of change – what do all these terms mean exactly and how are they all linked? This comic offers answers.

The evidence for man-made climate change is overwhelming. Other global environmental changes, such as the loss of biodiversity, are closely linked to climate change and to our customary industrial economic practices. We can stop a global climate catastrophe if engineers, business people and policy-makers all pull together and if all work on the great transformation across national borders.

A major transformation is needed to stop climate change; in other words, we have to learn to live and to produce what we need in sustainable ways. Any transformation of society must begin in people's minds; only then can it be achieved technically with any chance of economic success. Scientists, politicians and citizens will have to work together to achieve this. In this comic, nine top scientists, the members of WBGU as comic-book heroes, show us that we can beat the heat – and how to do it!

About the author

Messner, Dirk

Political Scientist