“How did we get to this point of staring cataclysmic changes in the face?  How can we move effectively toward the long-delayed imperatives that lie ahead?  The first step is to examine the past and draw the lessons from it to guide our way to a hopeful future.” ( P. 8)

The world is changing.  Before our very eyes, we can see the effects of climate change and environmental damage taking shape: shrinking glaciers, both water shortages and excesses, high temperature extremes, hazardous air conditions, and erratic weather patterns leading not only to immense property damage but also to untold human suffering and death—with worse to come if we stay on current path.  We know there’s a problem, but spurring the world to action has been a decades-long struggle, and Stephen H. Schneider has been in the front lines of the charge to understand the science, explain the warnings, and mitigate the damage we’ve inflicted upon the environment and ourselves for four decades.  One of the world’s leading climatologists, founder of the journal Climatic Change, and senior participant in the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), his work has been instrumental in framing both the internal debates within the scientific community and the very public debate on understanding and dealing with climate change. 

Science as a Contact Sport is Stephen Schneider’s first-hand account of a scientific odyssey, navigating in both the turbulent waters of the world’s power structures and the arcane theatre of academic debaters.  From the initial stages of understanding the science of human-induced climate change to predicting the consequences of our actions 10, 50 and even 250 years out, Dr. Schneider has been there to experience it all.  Few people know more about the struggles and knockdown, drag-out fights that have taken place behind the scenes and the people who try to repair the damage as well as those who will stop at nothing to deny that climate change is happening.  In this riveting memoir Schneider shares his unique eye witness perspective on an era of scientific discovery and debate that may well be one of the most important periods of time in our planet’s history. 

Schneider’s efforts have helped bring about important measures to safeguard our planet, but there’s still more to be done to get them implemented. 

This is a battle, and no one knows that better than Dr. Schneider—he’s fought with and against presidents, prime ministers, legislators, mayors, CEOs, movie and media stars, lobbyists, journalists, and even his fellow scientists to share good science and workable solutions with the world.