CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge

If you're having trouble figuring out the chemical and other scientific aspects of global warming, we'd like to recommend CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge by Tyler Volk. On the one hand, Volk is a serious and accomplished scientist, but on the other hand, his book is not only readable, but relatively entertaining as science writing goes.

Much of the book involves a carbon atom named Dave, as well as a number of other carbon atoms and the atoms they bond with to form molecules. As the inside jacket states, we follow Dave "into a leaf of barley, then into an alcohol molecule in a glass of beer, through the human bloodstream, and then back into the air."

The knowledge of the carbon cycle that is gained through Dave's biography prepares the reader for a discussion of a number of global warming topics and issues.