Climate Change
Guide to climate change, including research resources and discipline-specific tools
Climate change - the basics
Climate change is an extraordinarily complex issue, affecting all aspects of human life and every academic discipline. This guide provides resources for understanding and researching climate change.
Use this guide to find resources about
- the basics of climate change—see below
- information sources for researching climate change—learn about the different formats of information on the issue, and how to use these formats for a college research project
- solutions—what is being done to address climate change, and who is doing this work
- advocacy and organizing—grass-roots organizational work in response to climate change
- climate grief—the anxiety and grief that the climate crisis is causing
- climate justice—the equity lens for understanding a crisis in which those who did the least to create the problem are suffering the harshest impacts
- climate denial—the psychological and political reasons why people deny or ignore the climate crisis
- PCC Climate Action Plan—PCC's 2021 comprehensive plan to be carbon neutral by 2040!
Learn the basics of climate change from trusted sources
- What is climate change?Videos, graphics and text from the BBC
- Causes of climate changeFrom NASA
- Effects of climate changeFrom NASA
- Evidence for climate changeFrom NASA
- Climate Change SolutionsFrom the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Addressing Climate Change in OregonFrom Oregon Department of Energy
National Climate Assessment - Climate Change Risks and Opportunities in the U.S.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States. Released November 2023.
Recommended web resources
See also the resources recommended on the Information Sources for Climate Change Research page.
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ChangeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. Provides comprehensive reports drawing from extensive international expertise.
- IPCC "Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"From the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Working Group II report, Climate Change 2022, released February 27 2022: "Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature and affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, despite efforts to reduce the risks. People and ecosystems least able to cope are being hardest hit."
- IPCC "Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis Report""The Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report is the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, bringing together the latest advances in climate science, and combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations." Summary from the New York Times, Aug. 11, 2021: "Some devastating impacts of global warming are now unavoidable, a major new scientific report finds. But there is still a short window to stop things from getting even worse."
- Climate Change Indicators in the United StatesThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides data about climate change indicators in the areas of greenhouse gases; weather and climate; oceans; snow and ice; health and society; and ecosystems.
- NOAA Climate.govThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's climate.gov website is a source of timely and authoritative scientific data and information about climate. Provides News & Features; Maps & Data; and Teaching resources.
- Drawdown - the World's Leading Resource for Climate Solutions"Our mission is to help the world reach 'Drawdown'—the point in the future when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change—as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible."
- Yale Program on Climate Change CommunicationSocial science research on public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior at the global, national, and local scales.
- Oregon Climate Change Research InstituteA network of dozens of researchers and professionals at Oregon State University, Portland State University, the University of Oregon, and other universities, agencies, and organizations.
Latest climate change news from the New York Times
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Recommended books and videos
The Climate Book by Call Number: Cascade and Southeast Libraries 63.738 T58c 2023Publication Date: 2023"Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts--geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders--to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster."
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Call Number: 363.738 G37h 2021 and onlinePublication Date: 2021Bill Gates sets out a wide-ranging, practical—and accessible— plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe
All we can save: Truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis by Call Number: Ebook and Print (Southeast Library 363.7 A45 2020)Publication Date: 2020Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. Named one of the best books of the year by Smithsonian Magazine.
A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: how to keep your cool on a warming planet by Call Number: Ebook and Print (Cascade Library 363.738/74)Publication Date: 2020Combining insights from psychology, sociology, social movements, mindfulness, and the environmental humanities, Ray explains why and how we need to let go of eco-guilt, resist burnout, and cultivate resilience while advocating for climate justice. A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety is the essential guidebook for the climate generation—and perhaps the rest of us—as we confront the greatest environmental threat of our time.
The Future We Choose : surviving the climate crisis by Call Number: Cascade Main Collection 363.738 F54f 2020Publication Date: 2020The authors, architects of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement, outline two possible scenarios for the planet. In one, what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris targets for carbon dioxide emission reduction. In the other, what it will take to create and live in a carbon neutral, regenerative world.
Hope matters : why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis by Call Number: Ebook and Print (Southeast and Cascade libraries 363.738/746)Publication Date: 2020Timely, evidence-based, and persuasive, Hope Matters is an argument for the place of hope in our lives and a celebration of the turn toward solutions in the face of the environmental crisis.
- Before the FloodFollow Leonardo DiCaprio as he travels around the globe to witness first hand the devastating effects of climate change and what can be done to solve the climate crisis. 2016. 96 minute video.