Climate Change

Stephen Peake is senior lecturer in environmental technology at The Open University. Over the last 19 years, Stephen has worked on climate change in various interesting guises: as a researcher at the University of Cambridge, as a Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London (including a stint at the Shell International Petroleum Company), as a Fonctionnaire at the International Energy Agency within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, and as a diplomat with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany. Over the years, he has been called on to give evidence to various national governments and international organisations including: the Fuel Economy Panel of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association in Detroit, USA; the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment; and the UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. He is author of seven authored books and numerous articles.Joe Smith is senior lecturer in environment in the social sciences faculty at The Open University. He is Co-Director of the Cambridge Media & Environment Programme which runs seminars on environmental change and development issues for senior media decision makers, mainly from BBC news and TV. He led the team of academic consultants on David Attenborough's BBC ONE programmes for the 2006 climate change season, BBC TWO's Coast (2005), and most recently consulted on the BBC's first climate change based drama Burn Up (2008). Joe is initiator and chair of Interdependence Day a new communications and research project (www.interdependenceday.co.uk). He holds a BA degree in Social and Political Sciences and a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge. Joe has written books on the green movement, climate change and the media and global environmental issues. His current research projects explore the politics of consumption, and the media's role in shaping public debate about complex issues.

If climate change is the biggest problem facing us in the 21st century then we need a reliable guide as we grope towards a solution. You are holding that guide in your hands: a lively introduction to the full range of climate issues, ranging from science to ethics to policy. Everyone should have one.

• 1. The climate strikes back ; 2. A citizen's guide to climate science ; 3. Planetary engineering ; 4. Tuning in: integrated assessments of climate futures ; 5. Listening out: climate, politics, philosophy ; 6. Climate change and sustainability - inseparable ; 7. Changing the world