This guide, for undergraduate students, is an introduction to strategies and tools for doing research and finding information on these topics.
What is climate change?
Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. The world is now warming faster than at any point in recorded history, which disrupts the usual balance of nature and is a threat to human beings and other forms of life on Earth. This topic guide includes sample keywords and search terms, databases to find sources, and samples of online books.
Example keywords and subtopics
Example keywords or search terms:
- Climate change
- global warming
- greenhouse effect or greenhouse gas
- climate crisis
- environmental change
- clean energy
- alternative energy or renewable energy
- green energy or renewable energy or clean energy
- Low carbon or carbon neutral
- Carbon offsetting
- sustainability environment or sustainability
- environmental protection
- pollution or contamination
- impact or effect or influence
- cost or price or expense or money or financial
- fossil fuels or coal or oil or gas
Tip: This is a big topic with lots written so you can often focus on one or two subtopics. This will help to find more relevant sources, more quickly and be a better fit for an assignment.
Possible subtopics ideas:
Pick one or two subtopics and then add those words to your search.
- Health impacts of climate changes (e.g. air pollution, water pollution, etc.)
- impacts on a specific city, state, region or country
- political impacts (e.g. voting, government policy, etc.)
- impact on specific population or culture (e.g. children, elderly, racial or ethic group, country, etc.)
- specific types of renewable or alternative energy (e.g. solar, wind, bio, etc.)
- example of new technology (e.g. electric cars or electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles
- economic impacts (e.g. business, employment, industry (e.g. oil, coal, etc.)
- weather and impacts (e.g. rising sea levels, flooding, droughts or heat waves, etc.)
- media aspects (e.g. news coverage, advertising, misinformation, movies, music, etc.)
Tutorial: Creating an effective search strategy
After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:
- Use meaningful keywords to find the best sources
- Apply search strategies like AND and OR to connect keywords
Tutorial: What is a library database and why should I use one?
After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:
- Identify what a library database is
- Recognize the two main types of library databases
- Know why you should use them
- Understand why searching a library database is different than searching the general internet
Databases for finding sources
Article Databases -
Use articles to find new research, specific information and evidence to support or refute a claim. You can also look at the bibliography or works cited to find additional sources. Some articles give an overview of a specific topic -- sometimes called "review articles" or "meta-analyses" or "systematic review." Databases are like mini-search engines for finding articles (e.g. Business Source Premier database searches business journals, business magazines and business newspapers). Pick a database that searches the subject of articles you want to find.
- Agricultural & Environmental Science DatabaseSearch journals and literature on agriculture, pollution, animals, environment, policy, natural resources, water issues and more. Searches tools like AGRICOLA, Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management (ESPM), and Digests of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) databases.
- GreenFILECollection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles. Multidisciplinary by nature, GreenFILE draws on the connections between the environment and agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
- Ethnic NewsWatchEthnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press from 1990, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives.
- Opposing Viewpoints in ContextFind articles on current issues, including viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, magazine and newspaper articles.
Sample of online books
Below are a selection of online books and readings on the broad topic. We have more online books, journal articles, and sources in our Libraries Search and article databases.
Climate change : the social and scientific construct by ISBN: 9783030862909Publication Date: 2022Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, the impacts of climate change have been fierce, causing loss of human life and irreparable destruction to natural and man-made infrastructure in many parts of the world. The difference between climate change now and in the past is that of sudden and disproportionate disruption of the natural energy dynamics by the changing consumption patterns of billions of human beings who have polluted terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The picture that emerges from the exhaustive analysis of international data drawn from the most reliable sources indicates that we have possibly gained access to the gateway of extinction and it is time that we take corrective steps immediately. Global climate change is further altering our relationship with the environment, modifying relatively stable climatic factors and making them uncertain, unpredictable, and threatening. Changes in land use and an increasing demand for water resources due to climate change have affected the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, ensure the supply of freshwater resources, provide ecosystem services, and promote rural multi-functionality. Ensuring food production does not just depend on increasing water efficiency, promoting climate resilient crop production, or reducing land-use competition for urbanization but also on a more suitable and stable climate as the changes in climatic factors like precipitation, temperature, radiation, evaporation, and wind bring about some major shifts in global food supplies.
Biodiversity and climate change : transforming the biosphere by ISBN: 9780300241198Publication Date: 2019PART I: OVERVIEW: WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE BIOLOGY?; ONE: Changing the Biosphere; TWO: What Is Climate Change?; PART II: WHAT CHANGES ARE WE OBSERVING?; THREE: Range and Abundance Changes; Case Study 1: The Bering Sea and Climate Change; FOUR: Phenological Dynamics in Pollinator-Plant Associations Related to Climate Change; FIVE: Coral Reefs: Megadiversity Meets Unprecedented Environmental Change; SIX: Genetic Signatures of Historical and Contemporary Responses to Climate Change- A climate policy revolution : what the science of complexity reveals about saving our planet byISBN: 9780674246812Publication Date: 2020"In this book, Roland Kupers argues that the climate crisis is well suited to the bottom-up, rapid, and revolutionary change complexity science theorizes; he succinctly makes the case that complexity science promises policy solutions to address climate change."
New World Coming: frontline voices on pandemics, uprisings, & climate crisis by ISBN: 9781948814546Publication Date: 2021-11-02"Different voices in New World Coming tell powerful stories of loss and difficulty plus messages of hope and promise for all as we seek a healing future for the earth and each other." New World Coming documents the distinct moment through personal narratives and intergenerational imaginings of a just, healthy, and equitable future. Writers reflect on what movements for justice and liberation can learn from the response to COVID-19, uprisings for Black lives, and climate crisis, through essays and poems that inspire and generate the change we need to survive and thrive.
Too Hot to Handle? : the democratic challenge of climate change by ISBN: 9781529206036Publication Date: 2020-03-25World leaders have agreed to limit rises in global temperatures, yet climate issues scarcely trouble domestic policies. Implementing climate solutions successfully through the democratic process requires a radical political shift and an overhaul of the laws and systems that govern our society. Drawing on interviews with politicians and activists, this book provides an in-depth comparative analysis of international climate policies to examine how we can build impactful democratic solutions to climate change. The author confronts the difficulties of fitting the climate change agenda into the current political system, including how to make it a voter priority, whilst proposing practical ways forward for climate change politics.
Engaged Research for Community Resilience to Climate Change by ISBN: 9780128155769Publication Date: 2020-06-17Engaged Research for Community Resilience to Climate Change is a guide to successfully integrating science into urban, regional, and coastal planning activities to build truly sustainable communities that can withstand climate change. It calls for a shift in academic researchers' traditional thinking by working across disciplines to solve complex societal and environmental problems, focusing on the real-world human impacts of climate change, and providing an overview of how science can be used to advocate for institutional change. Engaged Research for Community Resilience to Climate Change appeals to a wide variety of audiences, including university administrators looking to create and sustain interdisciplinary research groups, community and state officials, non-profit and community advocates, and community organizers seeking guidance for generating and growing meaningful, productive relationships with university researchers to support change in their communities. Focuses on the process of building a successful, active partnership between climate change researchers and climate resilience professionals Provides case studies of university-community partnerships in building climate resilience Includes interviews and contributors from a wide variety of disciplines engaged in climate resilience partnerships
Get help from the U Libraries - Online!
- Peer Research ConsultantsMake an online 30 minute appointment for one-on-one peer assistance with your research. Get help with researching your topic, finding sources, citing sources and more. Peer Research Consultants can also help you get started with faculty-sponsored research.
- Chat 24/7 online with the LibrariesAsk us anything! Chat with a librarian, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with any research or library questions.
- Meet with a librarianSchedule an online consultations for personalized research support primarily for University of Minnesota faculty, instructors, graduate and undergraduate students and staff.
Last Updated: Jul 19, 2024 2:41 PM
URL: https://libguides.umn.edu/c.php?g=1241429