This is a serious look into the social and cultural significance of reality programming. The dynamics of spectatorship and self-revelation have changed in ways unimaginable just a decade ago. Television once worked as a form of sociality that preserved the private. Times have changed. The evolution of reality programming has accompanied a cultural swing toward revelation and voyeuristic consumption that has complicated the divide between public and private experience. And as the line between what is private and public blurs, reality programming's responsibility to its audience becomes more complicated. -- from Preface

Scientific debate on climate change:Scientists at odds ; Former global warming supporter now shows data that refutes it / Bob Adelmann ; 2009 second warmest year on record, end of the warmest decade / Adam Voiland ; Global warming : faster than expected? / John Carey ; The last great global warming / Lee R. Kump -- Climate change around the world: Global warming and instability ; A light in the forest / Jeff Tollefson ; Global warning / Michael Le Page ; Commodifying water in times of global warming / Astrid Bredholt Stensrud ; China confronts global warming dilemma / Christina Larson ; The shrinking glaciers of Kilimanjaro: can global warming be blamed? / Phillip W. Mote and Georg Kaser -- The politics of global warming: Climate change policy and economics ; Joint U.S.-China statement on climate change / US Department of State ; Hearing of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming US House of Representatives / Mario Molina ; UN climate change conference extends Kyoto treaty / Karl Ritter and Michael Casey ; Scientists, policymakers, and a climate of uncertainty / Fred Powledge ; A life measured in heartbeats / Brian Cox and Robin Ince ; Global warming conference: Bill McKibben's remarks / Bill McKibben -- Wildlife and a changing climate: Plants and animals in the balance ; Can evolution beat climate change? / David Biello ; Elephant seals help find missing piece in global climate puzzle / Richard A. Lovett ; Why a hotter world will mean more extinctions / Bryan Walsh ; Global warming's evil twin threatens West coast fishing grounds / Pete Spotts ; Common plants, animals threatened by climate change, study says / Neela Banerjee ; The climate change conundrum: what the future is beginning to look like / Jordan Carlton Schaul and Michael Hutchins ; Dynamics of coral reef recovery / Beth Polidoro and Kent Carpenter ; Running hot and cold: are rainforests sinks or tabs for carbon? / Sharon Levy -- The oceans and weather: In hot water : weather and global warming ; After Sandy : why we can't keep rebuilding on the water's edge / Bryan Walsh ; How climate change threatens the seas / Dan Vergano ; Amount of coldest Antarctic water near ocean floor decreasing for decades / NOAA ; Blue crabs in Maine? Something fishy about global warming / Pete Spotts ; Oceans under surveillance / Quirin Schiermeier ; Encroaching sea already a threat in Caribbean / David McFadden ; The coming Arctic boom / Scott Borgerson -- Health and human factors: What happens to us? ; Climate change and health / World Health Organization ; How we know global warming is real and human caused / Tapio Schneider ; Soot is no. 2 global-warming culprit, study finds / Pete Spotts ; Smoke jumpers / Elizabeth Grossman ; Monitoring EU emerging infectious disease risk due to climate change / Elisabet Lindgren, Yvonne Andersson, Jonathan E. Suk, Bertrand Sudre, and Jan C. Semenza.