Books worth adding to your collection (of course that is if you have a budget at all in your library right now!)

RealClimate suggested two titles:

Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat–and How to Counter It
by Wallace S. Broecker & Robert Kunzig
Their review: This is a book written in a particular style – a number of recent advances in relevant paleo-climate (abrupt changes, mega-droughts, etc.) are examined through the lens of a single scientist and their one key measurement or observation. This makes for a good narrative, but without wishing to take anything away from the great science discussed or the individual insights, it’s only a partial picture of how these interesting ideas actually took root and got validated by the wider community. The climate fix the book ends up backing is a scheme for the air capture of CO₂ (discussed here, and more recently here). The technology is fascinating, but at over a couple of hundred $/per ton CO₂, the economics are a long way from being viable.

.

.

The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change (2nd edition)
by Richard C. J. Somerville
Their review: It is definitely worth paying attention to books that may have been out for a while, or in a new edition. We were particularly impressed with Richard Somerville’s award-winning introduction to understanding environmental change.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Ice, Mud and Bloog: Lessons from Climates Past
By Chris Turney
Their review:  Also dwelling on paleo-climate is Chris Turney’s Ice, Mud and Blood. Eric reviewed this for Nature, noting that “Turney is by no means the first to try to articulate the point that paleoclimatology has lessons for our future. Richard Alley’s The Two-Mile Time Machine and Mark Bowen’s Thin Ice, to name just two, have made the same basic arguments. But Turney’s book is the most up to date, and I would certainly recommend it to colleagues, who will enjoy it and may well learn something new, as I did.”

.

.

.

.

Also check out books Real Climate has been involved with since 2005:

• Our Threatened Oceans Stefan Rahmstorf and K. Richardson (2008)
• Climate Change: Picturing the Science. Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe, W.W. Norton (2009)
• The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate. David Archer, Princeton University Press (2009)
• Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming Michael Mann and Lee Kump, DK/Pearson (2008)
• Wie bedroht sind die Ozeane? Stefan Rahmstorf and K. Richardson (2007, in German)
• Global warming: Understanding the Forecast, David Archer (2006)
• Der Klimawandel Diagnose, Prognose, Therapie, Stefan Rahmstorf and H. J. Schellnhuber (2006, in German, Korean, Vietnamese; Arabic version forthcoming)
• Solar Activity and Earth’s Climate, Rasmus Benestad (2006, 2nd Edition)
• Paleoclimatology: Reconstructing Climates of the Quaternary, Ray Bradley (2005, 2nd Edition)

And a recommendation from Green Today, Green Tomorrow blog:

Environmenal Issues in American History: A Reference Guide with Primary Documents
by Chris J Magoc
Their review: discusses key environmental battles from the founding of our country to the present day.  Importantly, this book includes primary documents, so that the reader can “hear” from the people who are locked in these battles.