The Core Blog

1. How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate by Seth B. Darling and Douglas L. Sisterson

This book addresses 15 common arguments against climate change and backs it up with some science, using illustrations and humor to bring a comprehensible case to supporting reform.

2. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert takes a look at how humans have impacted the Earth in a way no other species has before, through an interdisciplinary lens that ties together the previous and impending mass extinctions and the role humans have to play.

3. Climate Change in Human History: Prehistory to the Presentby Benjamin Lieberman and Elizabeth Gordon

This work looks not only at the impact that humans have on the environment and climate, but how they in turn affect human societies, starting all the way back at early humans and moving towards present day.

4. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein

Connecting negative climate impacts with other ethical problems facing the human population, this book makes the case that while climate change is a human-caused problem, working to solve it will help fix both our political and economical systems.

5. Enviromedics: The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health by Jay Lemery and Paul Auerbach

Taking a medical perspective on the impact of climate change, Lemery and Auerbach inform the reader of the consequences of climate change on human health in an effort to stimulate change.

6. Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert

In another of her earlier works, Kolbert lays out current issues resulting from climate change, from tar sands to acidic rain, and frames it in a way that reminds us of the challenges that are currently affecting us today.

7. Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations by Anthony J. McMichael

This book takes a historical lens to the issue of climate change, reviewing previous transformations in climate throughout time and how it has impacted human civilizations, all with the aim of teaching us howimportant our Earth is to us now.

8. A Global Warming Primer: Answering Your Questions About the Science, The Consequences, and The Solutions by Jeffery Bennett

A simple outlined look at what climate change is and what it is doing, framed in way that thoroughly breaks down all parts of the debate over climate change and the benefits of working to resolve it.

9. Lukewarming: The New Climate Science that Changes Everything by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger

With a typically dichotomous population, a new group of people are entering the climate change conversation: lukewarmers. This book examines this new perspective on what climate change is and what our part we are believed to play, and how it reflects our actions to change current behaviors.

10. The Long Thaw by David Archer

Archer takes a straight-forward approach to the topic of climate change, presenting the harsh factsof what it is, how much of it is due to human impact, and what the long term reality is for our planet.

Or Le Grande K, if you will.

For years the kilogram was defined by the weight of a metal cylinder kept under the strictest lock and key in Versailles, France. That little cylinder is affectionately called 'Le Grande K'. However, despite the cylinder's vacuum sealed climate control storage and the six clones kept in other parts of the world, the weight of this metal cylinder always varied ever so slightly, to the dismay of the scientists. This meant the kilogram measurement itself, one of the base SI units, was not entirely dependable. In fact, before recently, all other SI units are based on fundamental constants of nature, which means they are unchanging. But now, as of Friday, 11/16/2018, the Conference of Weights and Measures met in Versailles to agree, the kilogram will not be defined by the Big K any more.

After years of research and work, scientists have agreed base the kilogram on a fixed Planck's constant, rather than basing Planck's Constant on the kilogram. The kilogram now joins the other SI units as independent of any real world object.

As Confucius would say, "If I was made governor, the first thing I would do is rectify names." Now we have rectified the kilogram and there is no more uncertainty in all our scientific modes of measurements.

Farewell Big K, you've served us well.

P.S. If you're wondering what the pound is based on; fundamentally, it's a ratio of the kilogram. So in one way we do use the metric system!