Assessing accountability for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1989.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-124).by Susan Subak.M.C.P

Rescue and Flight

When Susan Elisabeth Subak discovered that members of the Unitarian Church had helped her Jewish father immigrate to the United States, she was unaware of the impact the organization had made during World War II. After years of research, Subak uncovers the little-known story of the Unitarian Service Committee, which rescued European refugees during World War II, and the remarkable individuals who made it happen. The Unitarian Service Committee was among the few American organizations committed to helping refugees during World War II. The staff who ran the committee assisted those endangered by the Nazi regime, from famous writers and artists to the average citizen. Part of a larger network of American relief workers, the Unitarian Committee helped refugees negotiate the official and legal channels of escape and, when those methods failed, the more complex underground channels. From their offices in Portugal and southern France they created escape routes through Europe to the United States, South America, and England, and rescued thousands, often at great personal risk

The impacts of climate change on Africa

This paper considers the problem of determining future climate change in Africa due to human modification of the global atmosphere. Some of the main conclusions may be summarised as follows: Natural climate variability in Africa, particularly rainfall, is large. This variability can be manifest regionally as severe droughts on yearly time-scales or as more prolonged desiccation over one or more decades. The nature of future climate change for Africa is not known with any great confidence. Climate change scenarios have been constructed here in a systematic manner making clear their assumptions and uncertainties, but it remains impossible to attach specific probabilities to them. There is a paucity of detailed climate change impact case studies for Africa. The level of vulnerability of African societies to climate change depends on their present-day vulnerability which is determined by their economic, political and institutional capabilities. Future demographic changes in Africa and the development path the continent pursues will determine the eventual significance of global warming for Africa. The scope for alternative African emissions trajectories to significantly alter global warming rates over the next 100 yr is very limited