Climate change Books

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Book SynopsisOur earliest mythologies tell us we all start as a little bit of dirt. These stories carry a profound message: each of us is born with a deep and abiding connection to the earth, one that many of us have lost touch with. The Silent Spring for today''s environmental activists, this book offers an invitation to reestablish our relationship with nature to repair our damaged environment. Chapter 1 examines the threats to the planet''s health through the lens of the human energy system known as the chakras, describing how the broken first chakra relates to our disconnection from our biosphere. Chapter 2 shows how our current environmental crises--global warming, climate change, dwindling water resources, natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes--represent severe manifestations of our disconnection from the earth.Chapter 3 describes how the preponderance of oil in our culture--especially agribusiness--compounds this disconnection, from our dependence on other countries for our energy, to current issues of oil depletion, peak oil, and fracking, to the dumbing down of our agricultural polyculture.Chapter 4 explains how the most basic building blocks of our nourishment--seeds--are being compromised with a loss of biodiversity and rise of GMOs, and how that adversely affects the farmers whose sacred connection to the land has in many cases been severed. Chapter 5 describes the ways in which we as individuals can begin to wake up to climate activism as a spiritual practice. This chapter includes specific activities that you can use to implement change and heal your own connection to the earth. By learning and practicing ritual and understanding the earth''s rhythms and seasonal rites of passage, each of us can find unique ways to heal our own connections and help others heal theirs. Chapter 6 brings to life Goethe’s wisdom: “Knowing isn’t enough; neither is being willing. We must do,” by providing strategies and resources for exploring how each of us can find our own Earth Calling, then anchoring that calling with the only force that ignites change: Action.

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Book Synopsis “Regenerative agriculture is going to be a key phrase in the decades ahead―and this book will get you in on the ground floor, so to speak. Not much could be more important!”―Bill McKibben, author of Falter Wondering what you can do to help address the global climate crisis? Joining the Grassroots Rising ‘Regeneration Revolution’ might be the best first step... Grassroots Rising is a passionate call to action for the global body politic; providing practical solutions for how to survive - and thrive - in catastrophic times. Author Ronnie Cummins educates and inspires citizens worldwide to organise and become active participants in preventing ecological collapse. This book offers a blueprint for building a ‘Regeneration Movement’ based on consumer activism, farmer innovation, political change, and regenerative finance, embodied most recently by the proposed Green New Deal in the US. Using regenerative agriculture practices that restore our agricultural and grazing lands, we can sequester massive amounts of carbon back into the soil. Coupled with an aggressive transition toward renewable energy sources, Cummins argues that we have the power to not only mitigate and slow down climate change, but actually reverse global warming. Grassroots Rising shows us that the solution lies right beneath our feet - and at the end of our forks - through the transformation of food systems around the world.Trade Review“The world is finally waking up to the ecological and climate emergency and the urgent need to realign the economy with the laws of ecology. In Grassroots Rising, tireless activist Ronnie Cummins outlines how we can address the multiple crises of our time by making a transition from industrial agriculture and food systems to a regenerative agriculture that recycles carbon and nitrogen in forests, grasslands, and farms; reverses climate change; creates healthy soils; and halts species extinction and the erosion of biodiversity. This is a book that should be in the hands of every activist working on food and farming, climate change, and the Green New Deal.”—Vandana Shiva, scientist, environmentalist, social activist; author of Earth Democracy, Soil Not Oil, and Stolen Harvest“Regenerative agriculture is going to be a key phrase in the decades ahead—and this book will get you in on the ground floor, so to speak. Not much could be more important!”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter“Grassroots Rising is one of the most important books you will ever read. It shows the existential environmental and health disasters caused by the toxic and degenerative practices of the poison cartels, Big Agriculture, the fossil fuel industries, predator tycoons, and the money manipulators. Most importantly, though, it is a book with good news! It outlines a logical and very achievable pathway for how we can shift from degeneration to regeneration and make this a healthy, fair, prosperous, diverse, democratic, and environmentally robust world for all of us.”—André Leu, former president, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM); author of The Myth of Safe Pesticides“Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy food, healthy people. My friend and fellow activist Ronnie Cummins makes a strong case for how organic and regenerative food, farming, and land use can lead us to a healthier and happier world with a stable climate.”—Dr. Joseph Mercola, founder, Mercola.com“Grassroots Rising is not only a rousing call to action, but a book that also demystifies the confusing rhetoric about carbon that stops many of us from taking action. Ronnie Cummins, with clear and uncomplicated examples, puts the magnifying glass on the Climate Chaos issue, how it’s connected to farming and land use, and shows us exactly what needs to be done to save life on the planet within the next ten years. If you have been confused or depressed about the future, read this book. It’s time to regenerate.”—Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America“The future doesn’t have to be gloomy. In this upbeat call to action, Ronnie Cummins, longtime campaigner for healthy food and land, guides us on a hopeful and pragmatic journey into the crucial upcoming decade. A Regenerative Economy is not pie-in-the-sky; it can be done. We have all the tools we need. And thanks to leaders such as Ronnie, we know what to do. This book is a must-read!”—Courtney White, author of Grass, Soil, Hope and Two Percent Solutions for the PlanetTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Rules for Regenerators 2. Regeneration: The Big Picture 3. Regeneration Driver #1: Grassroots Awareness, Political Mobilization, and Marketplace Demand 4. Regeneration Driver #2: Carbon Farming, Reforestation, and Ecosystem Restoration 5. Regeneration Driver #3: Politics and Public Policy 6. Regeneration Driver #4: Commerce and Investment 7. The Global Road to Regeneration 8. Roadmap to Regeneration in the U.S., 2020-2030 Resources Notes Index

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Book SynopsisAn 800-CEO-READ "Editor's Choice" March 2019 How We Can Harness Carbon to Help Solve the Climate Crisis In order to rescue ourselves from climate catastrophe, we need to radically alter how humans live on Earth. We have to go from spending carbon to banking it. We have to put back the trees, wetlands, and corals. We have to regrow the soil and turn back the desert. We have to save whales, wombats, and wolves. We have to reverse the flow of greenhouse gases and send them in exactly the opposite direction: down, not up. We have to flip the carbon cycle and run it backwards. For such a revolutionary transformation we’ll need civilization 2.0. A secret unlocked by the ancients of the Amazon for its ability to transform impoverished tropical soils into terra preta—fertile black earths—points the way. The indigenous custom of converting organic materials into long lasting carbon has enjoyed a reawakening in recent decades as the quest for more sustainable farming methods has grown. Yet the benefits of this carbonized material, now called biochar, extend far beyond the soil. Pyrolyzing carbon has the power to restore a natural balance by unmining the coal and undrilling the oil and gas. Employed to its full potential, it can run the carbon cycle in reverse and remake Earth as a garden planet. Burn looks beyond renewable biomass or carbon capture energy systems to offer a bigger and bolder vision for the next phase of human progress, moving carbon from wasted sources: into soils and agricultural systems to rebalance the carbon, nitrogen, and related cycles; enhance nutrient density in food; rebuild topsoil; and condition urban and agricultural lands to withstand flooding and drought to cleanse water by carbon filtration and trophic cascades within the world’s rivers, oceans, and wetlands to shift urban infrastructures such as buildings, roads, bridges, and ports, incorporating drawdown materials and components, replacing steel, concrete, polymers, and composites with biological carbon to drive economic reorganization by incentivizing carbon drawdown Fully developed, this approach costs nothing—to the contrary, it can save companies money or provide new revenue streams. It contains the seeds of a new, circular economy in which energy, natural resources, and human ingenuity enter a virtuous cycle of improvement. Burn offers bold new solutions to climate change that can begin right now. Trade Review“A brilliant, climatic coup that uplifts biochar to an entirely new level of substance and urgency!”—Paul Hawken“We’re in a climate emergency, and we need to be using an awful lot of different approaches—here’s one that definitely deserves to be explored in full.”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter“Burn advances the discussion from fantasies of biochar-based agriculture to normative proposals for many ways the material could theoretically be used as an environmentally attractive, economically competitive resource in many sectors of society. The book opens new avenues of thought, and it will be a valuable reference in the coming decade in helping us to assess the inevitable cascade of ever bigger, riskier, costlier, and zanier proposals for carbon withdrawal.”—Dennis Meadows, 2018 laureate, The Earth Hall of Fame Kyoto“For anyone interested in solutions to climate change, this book is absolutely essential reading. It represents the latest, most innovative thinking and experimentation on removing carbon from the atmosphere. What’s delightfully startling is the authors’ detailed, example-laden argument that we can use carbon to regenerate landscapes while also producing an astounding array of products—from concrete to plastics to batteries to paper—that function better by incorporating the universe’s most versatile element. Written in a clear, entertaining style, Burn is an incendiary contribution.”—Richard Heinberg, senior fellow, Post Carbon Institute“I cannot recommend this book highly enough for going deep into the science of a potentially revolutionary technology that could be capable of stopping dangerous climate change in its tracks. For anyone who wants to know how societies can transform the very fabric of how we run our industries so that we protect and enhance our environment, not destroy it—while contributing to thriving economies—this is literally the manual. It is, in short, a window into the future we could build together. So read it, and start building.”—Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, system shift columnist, Motherboard; editor-in-chief, INSURGE Intelligence; research fellow, The Schumacher Institute“What if we could make carbon our ally, instead of our enemy, in preserving this planet? This deeply detailed book is about far more than the ancient, carbon-fixing Amazonian soil technology called terra preta. Practically everything humans do, Burn shows, could reimburse the Earth for the carbon we’ve exhumed, leaving civilization far cleaner and healthier—and with a chance for a future.”—Alan Weisman, author of Countdown, The World Without Us, and Gaviotas“Carbon, the most promiscuous of elements, can be our ruination or by better management, our salvation. Burn is a clear, accessible, and luminescent blueprint for the latter. It really is a must-read.”—David Orr, author of Dangerous Years“Carbon is the element that likes to hold hands and collaborate. We can learn a lot from carbon if we stop demonizing it. Burn does an exceptional job telling the vital story of how carbon can address the interconnected crises in waste, energy, food, soil, water, and, most pressingly, climate. This book plays a critical role in educating us to reorient with carbon math, reimagine the role of carbon cascades, and redesign the carbon cycle.”—Amanda Joy Ravenhill, executive director, Buckminster Fuller Institute“Reading Albert Bates is always a delight. He challenges us in his humorous, outside-the-box style with deep, practical, and original carbon insights based on years of experience as one of the world’s leading permaculture experts. His solutions are low-cost, scalable, and doable—right on.”—Ross Jackson, chair of Gaia Trust, Denmark; author of Occupy World Street“This book is a big deal. It argues persuasively that carbon has been vilified for far too long. Biochar, a hard, crystal-like form of carbon, can reanimate tired soils and help to mop up vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. The authors speak as seasoned scientists as well as practitioners, and their arsenal of arguments offers more than a glimpse of hope in a world threatened with climate doom. If there is a way out, here is a bunch of keys to the door at the end of the tunnel.”—Herbert Girardet, cofounder, World Future Council; executive council member, Club of Rome“Brilliant in its range and depth, Burn offers an integrated approach to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss and provides potential solutions for tackling the full range of activities that negatively impact our climate. It is a groundbreaking sequel to The Paris Agreement and gives hope to a world currently facing a multiplicity of interlinked crises.”—Feargal Duff, environmental activist

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Book Synopsis“What can I do, personally, about the climate crisis? . . . [Roop] says that civic engagement is one of the most effective ways for individuals to make a difference and to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the climate crisis....Ask yourself, what are you passionate about? Using this passion may motivate you to help shape the future of your community.”—The New York Times Climate Forward newsletterThis must-have book shows us WHY we need to take action now to combat climate change and then, critically, HOW, through easy-to-understand language and fascinating infographics that offer each of us varied and doable solutions to the many challenges facing our planet. As more focus is put on climate science, there is a need for each of us to learn how we can change our habits in our home, communities, and government to save our planet. Enter The Climate Action Handbook. A visually stunning guide, it does what no other climate change book manages to do: it's approachable, digestible, and offers the average person ideas, options, and a roadmap for action. It also offers hope—often overlooked in climate change conversations. Climate actions can create near-instantaneous improvements in air quality and can offer ways to address societal inequities, green our communities, save money, and build local economies. From food and fashion choices, rethinking travel, greening up our homes and gardens, to civic engagement and championing community climate planning, Dr. Heidi Roop shares 100 wide-ranging ways that readers from all walks of life can help move the needle in the right direction. Actions include: • Cutting down on food waste • Reducing your driving speed • Voting in every election • Using the cold-water cycle on your washing machine • Supporting healthy soils in your gardens and community green spaces • Engaging in local climate action planning • Preparing an emergency kit for your home • Deleting unused emails and online accounts • Swapping out milk for nondairy alternatives like oat milk • Opting for slower shipping whenever possible • Regularly maintaining and clean your heating and cooling systems • Engaging in climate conversations at work and at home And many more!Return to this invaluable resource again and again to discover a roadmap for action and much-needed hope. What will your climate journey look like?Trade Review“What can I do, personally, about the climate crisis? [Readers] often ask us a version of this question....[Roop] says that civic engagement is one of the most effective ways for individuals to make a difference and to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the climate crisis....Ask yourself, what are you passionate about? Using this passion may motivate you to help shape the future of your community.”—The New York Times Climate Forward newsletter"[The Climate Action Handbook] provides lots of ideas—like eating more plant-based meals, choosing slower shipping for deliveries, voting in every election, and supporting youth climate activists. ... The ideas are accompanied by striking illustrations that help readers understand what they can do and why it makes a difference."—Yale Climate ConnectionsTable of ContentsContentsPreface Overview Greenhouse Gases: Whey are they such a problem? Understanding the Scale of the Problem Understanding the Inequities of Climate Change Climate Action in Focus: Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Climate Impacts Across the United States Starting and Sustaining Your Climate Action Journey Action 1: Consider Collective and Individual Actions Action 2: Understand the Disconnect Between Our Actions and Our Impact Action 3: Be Privy to the Politics of Climate Change Action 4: Beware the Coordinated Corporate Anti-Climate Campaign Action 5: Center Action in Your Strengths and Passions Energy Production and Transportation Action 6: Know What Powers You…and Your Home Action 7: Support Renewables in Your Region Action 8: Curb the Cost of Renewable Energy Action 9: Weigh the Impact of Decarbonization Action 10: Commute Mindfully Action 11: Consider Carpooling and Rideshares Action 12: Buy and Drive an Electric Car Action 13: Drive Efficiently Action 14: Be Idle Free Travel and Work Action 15: Fly Less, Fly Economy Action 16: Vacation Closer to Home Action 17: Hotel or Home Share? Seek Out Eco-Friendly Accommodations Action 18: Reduce Trash When You Travel Action 19: Find Alternatives for Work-Related Travel Action 20: Divest and Reinvest Action 21: Learn More About Climate Financing Action 22: Work Remotely if Possible Action 23: Seek Out Climate Solutions in the Workplace Action 24: Reduce the Climate Footprints in the Buildings Around Us Action 25: Go Green and Cool with Rooftops Action 26: Consider Climate as Part of Your Career Action 27: Use Caution with Corporate Climate Commitments Food and Farming Action 28: Eat Your Broccoli and Pass on the Meat Action 29: Waste Not Want Not: Cut Down on Your Food Waste Action 30: Compost Action 31: Shop for or Order Your Meals Mindfully Action 32: The Climate Cost of Food Take-Out and Delivery Action 33: Thoughtfully Opt for Meat Alternatives Action 34: Switch to Non-Dairy Alternatives Action 35: Assess the Pros and Cons of Eating Local Action 36: Enjoy Your Chocolate Responsibly Action 37: Drink Responsibly--Imbibe with Climate in Mind Action 38: Get to Know Your Favorite Coffee Action 39: Support Local, Sustainable Fisheries Shopping and Consumer Choices Action 40: Reduce Consumption Through Community Sharing Action 41: Turn Away from Fast Fashion Action 42: Weigh Your Diaper Options Carefully Action 43: Ditch the Bottled Water Action 44: Reduce Your Consumption of Disposable Plastic Action 45: Learn About Microplastics and How You Can Avoid Them Action 46: Make More Thoughtful Online Purchases Action 47: Slow Down Your Shipping Action 48: Keep Your Devices Longer and Dispose of Electronics Properly Action 49: Shop Your Values (pull quote or other simple treatment) Action 50: Beware Greenwashing Actions Around the Home Action 51: Protect Your Property and Consider Where You Rent or Buy Action 52: Check your Insurance Policy and Premium Action 53: Prepare a “Go-Bag” and a “Stay-Bin” Action 54: Create a More Energy-Efficient Home Action 55: From Your Cooktop to Rooftop: Work Towards Electrification Action 56: Be Thoughtful About Your Air Conditioning Action 57: Go Solar Action 58: Lighten the Load and Switch to LEDs Action 59: Go Low Flow With Your Fixtures Action 60: Clean Your Clothes Efficiently Action 61: Garden for a Greener Planet Action 62: Reduce Waste and Recycle Action 63: Calculate your Carbon Footprint Nature-based and Natural Solutions Action 64: (Carefully) Consider Carbon Removal and Offsets Action 65: Learn About and Champion Bioenergy and Carbon Capture and Storage Action 66: Plant a Tree…or a Trillion Action 67: Reduce Your Carbon Offsets Action 68: Clean Up Your Dirt Action 69: Support Coastal Wetland Conservation Action 70: Conserve, Restore, (Re)connect Land Action 71: Go Green with Our Infrastructure Action 72: Plant Trees to Shade Houses and Buildings Health and Wellbeing Action 73: Protect Yourself and Your Community from Extreme Heat Action 74: Protect Your Air Action 75: Prepare for More Pests Action 76: Address Your Mental Health and Anxiety Action 77: Express Yourself Creatively Action 78: Buy Beauty Products Responsibly Action 79: Change Your Fitness Pattern and Habits Action 80: Cherish Your Winter Recreation Action 81: Pay the Appropriate Fees for Outdoor Recreation Civic and Community Engagement Action 82: Vote in Every Election Action 83: Engage Your Elected Officials Action 84: Champion Climate Planning in Your Community Action 85: Contribute to a Local Community Groups and Organizations Action 86: Support Youth Climate Activism Action 87: Share Your Observations and Experiences Action 88: Role-Play Climate Solutions Education and Climate Information Action 89: Act on Behalf of Your Children’s Future Action 90: Seek Climate Solutions for School Buses and Buildings Action 91: Teach Climate Change in the Classroom Action 92: Talk Climate with Our Kids Action 93: Be a Savvy Consumer of Information Action 94: Track the State of the Science Action 95: Look to Local Climate Science Leaders Action 96: Look to Local Community Climate Leaders Action 97: Talk About Climate Issues with Friends and Family Action 98: Get Social on Social Media Action 99: Embrace Your Inner Bookworm Action 100: Celebrate Success and Express Gratitude Conclusion: Continuing Your Climate Action Journey

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Book SynopsisCounting Bounty highlights a widespread blindspot: most of us overlook land and its power to twist an economy. Householders typically spend most of their budget on land without awareness. The story begins with the official and academic efforts to minimize the total worth of Earth in America. A perusal of the historical relationship between the elite and the intellectual shows that "paying the piper" is the norm, even up to the present. Using a slew of statistics and others’ research findings, this book tracks rent to its recipients, the rentiers who own much and wield power. Aware reformers can address pressing problems by tapping land value. Watching rent flow sheds light on how economies operate, why they sometimes fail, and what a society can do about it.Trade Review"The vast number of references and the apt details reflects the enormous amount of expertise and time which has been invested in it." -- Team PlanningTank"Land and money are the two main elements in political economy. Jeff Smith has been digging into "the land problem" for a long time and his expertise in that subject is without question. His findings deserve a wide audience as we struggle to bring into being a more just, equitable, and sustainable world order. In this book, Smith reveals many little-known facts about things that affect our lives, particularly land ownership, the process of rent-seeking, the concentration of wealth, and the corruption of politics, education, and other aspects of society by which the one percent continue to control the general framework of public thought." -- Thomas H Greco, author of The End of Money and the Future of Civilization"All property is made partly out of natural resources that aren't 'naturally' anybody's property. The government makes them into property. It gives them to private interests for free, and they sell it back to us for money. That might be an opportunity for corruption. This book explains problems caused by the way the world's governments dole out resources to the privileged and the potential of a better resource policy." -- Karl Widerquist, an American political philosopher and economist at Georgetown University-Qatar, is co-founder if the US Basic Income Guarantee (USBIG) Network, has been co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) since 2008, and co-founded Basic Income News in 2011

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Book SynopsisTraversing science, politics, and technology, Our Biggest Experiment shines a spotlight on the little-known scientists who sounded the alarm to reveal the history behind the defining story of our age: the climate crisis.Our understanding of the Earth''s fluctuating environment is an extraordinary story of human perception and scientific endeavor. It also began much earlier than we might think. In Our Biggest Experiment, Alice Bell takes us back to climate change science''s earliest steps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the point when concern started to rise in the 1950s and right up to today, where the “debate” is over and the world is finally starting to face up to the reality that things are going to get a lot hotter, a lot drier (in some places), and a lot wetter (in others), with catastrophic consequences for most of Earth''s biomes.Our Biggest Experiment recounts how the world became addicted to fossil fuels, how we discovered that electricity could be a savior, and how renewable energy is far from a twentieth-century discovery. Bell cuts through complicated jargon and jumbles of numbers to show how we''re getting to grips with what is now the defining issue of our time. The message she relays is ultimately hopeful; harnessing the ingenuity and intelligence that has driven the history of climate change research can result in a more sustainable and bearable future for humanity.

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Book Synopsis“Brilliant, wise, profound and persuasive. Common Sense for the 21st Century will come to be recognized as a classic of political theory.”—George Monbiot, via Twitter An urgent, essential, and practical call to action from a cofounder of Extinction Rebellion What can we all do to avert catastrophe and avoid extinction? Roger Hallam has answers. In Common Sense for the 21st Century, Roger Hallam, cofounder of Extinction Rebellion, outlines how movements around the world need to come together now to start doing what works: engaging in mass civil disobedience to make real change happen. The book gives people the tools to understand not only why mass disruption, mass arrests, and mass sacrifice are necessary but also details how to carry out acts of civil disobedience effectively, respectfully and nonviolently. It bypasses contemporary political theory, and instead is inspired by Thomas Paine, the pragmatic 18th-century revolutionary whose pamphlet Common Sense sparked the American Revolution. Common Sense for the 21st Century urges us to confront the truth about climate change and argues forcefully that only a revolution of society and the state, similar to the turn that Paine urged the Americans to take into the political unknown, can save us now.Trade Review“There is only one question: How do we stop climate change? In this tough-minded and uncompromising book, Roger Hallam gives the answer so many politicians and business people don’t want to hear. Common Sense for the 21st Century is not just an argument; it’s an instruction manual for ripping through the complacency and corruption that will destroy our planet.”—Paul Mason, author of Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere and Postcapitalism“Is Common Sense for the 21st Century the best hope we’ve got to prevent human extinction? Yes, I think it is.”—Dr. Alexandra Jellicoe, Monkey Wrench Magazine“Hallam . . . is widely seen as the driving force behind [Extinction Rebellion’s] tactics, [and] recommends that activists emulate past movements like the United States civil rights movement and the Yellow Vests in France.”—The New York Times

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Book SynopsisNineteen leading literary writers from around the globe offer timely, haunting first-person reflections on how climate change has altered their lives—including essays by Lydia Millet, Alexandra Kleeman, Kim Stanley Robinson, Omar El Akkad, Lidia Yuknavitch, Melissa Febos, and moreIn this riveting anthology, leading literary writers reflect on how climate change has altered their lives, revealing the personal and haunting consequences of this global threat.  In the opening essay, National Book Award finalist Lydia Millet mourns the end of the Saguaro cacti in her Arizona backyard due to drought. Later, Omar El Akkad contemplates how the rise of temperatures in the Middle East is destroying his home and the wellspring of his art. Gabrielle Bellot reflects on how a bizarre lionfish invasion devastated the coral reef near her home in the Caribbean—a precursor to even stranger events to come. Traveling through Nebraska, Terese Svoboda witnesses cougars running across highways and showing up in kindergartens.  As the stories unfold—from Antarctica to Australia, New Hampshire to New York—an intimate portrait of a climate-changed world emerges, captured by writers whose lives jostle against incongruous memories of familiar places that have been transformed in startling ways. 

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Book Synopsis"[A] well-reasoned and eye-opening treatise . . . [Kohei Saito makes] a provocative and visionary proposal." —Publishers Weekly, (starred review)"Saito’s clarity of thought, plethora of evidence, and conversational, gentle, yet urgent tone . . . are sure to win over open-minded readers who understand the dire nature of our global. . . . A cogently structured anti-capitalist approach to the climate crisis." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Why, in our affluent society, do so many people live in poverty, without access to health care, working multiple jobs and are nevertheless unable to make ends meet, with no future prospects, while the planet is burning?In his international bestseller, Kohei Saito argues that while unfettered capitalism is often blamed for inequality and climate change, subsequent calls for “sustainable growth” and a “Green New Deal” are a dangerous compromise. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on the value of products rather than their usefulness and by putting perpetual growth above all else. It is therefore impossible to reverse climate change in a capitalist society—more: the system that caused the problem in the first place cannot be an integral part of the solution. Instead, Saito advocates for degrowth and deceleration, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production. In practical terms, he argues for: the end of mass production and mass consumption decarbonization through shorter working hours the prioritization of essential labor over corporate profits By returning to a system of social ownership, he argues, we can restore abundance and focus on those activities that are essential for human life, effectively reversing climate change and saving the planet.Trade Review"If you want to get a jump on the book everyone will be talking about this winter, you should preorder Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto now."—Jeva Lange, Heatmap News"Saitō’s proposal is simple, salient, and adapts Marx for the modern day."—The Millions"Looking to start out the year with some big ideas? Look no further."—Tobias Carroll, InsideHook"[A] well-reasoned and eye-opening treatise . . . [Kohei Saito makes] a provocative and visionary proposal." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Saito’s clarity of thought, plethora of evidence, and conversational, gentle, yet urgent tone—even when describing the most alarming aspects of the climate crisis—are sure to win over open-minded readers who understand the dire nature of our global situation and that 'green capitalism is a myth.' A cogently structured anti-capitalist approach to the climate crisis."—Kirkus (starred review)"Achieving degrowth communism, [Saito] believes, is less about personal choices and more about changing overarching political and economic structures. Marxism, he argues, offers a viable model for reorienting society around the maximization of public goods as opposed to the endless pursuit and concentration of wealth."—Ben Dooley & Hisako Ueno, The New York Times"This necessary and energizing 21st Century manifesto is a truth mirror inviting us to see ourselves and our place in the metastatic growth engine that is our current economic system. Saito is a well-read soothsayer -- one who loves this world, who has done his homework, and who is eager to share a viable way forward." —John Vaillant, bestselling author of Fire Weather, The Tiger and The Golden Spruce"Kohei Saito is one of the most important scholars in the world. In Slow Down, he delivers a Karl Marx for the climate crisis and a vision of communism for the 21st century. No work could be more vital today." —Malcolm Harris, bestselling author of Palo Alto"Slow Down has an almost magic ability to formulate complex thoughts in clear language, as well as to combine strict conceptual thinking with passionate personal engagement. Saito's book is not just for anyone interested in ecology or in the problems of today's global capitalism, it is simply indispensable for those of us who want to SURVIVE—in short, to all of us."—Slavoj Žižek, author of Violence and The Sublime Object of Ideology "Saitō unites Marxism with ecology and lights a path out of our present crisis. A powerful book from one of the most compelling young thinkers of our time." —Jason Hickel, author of Less is MoreTable of ContentsSlow Down: The Deceleration Manifesto by Kohei Saito, translated by Brian Bergstrom Table of Contents Introduction: SDGs are the Opiate of the Masses! Chapter One Climate Change and the Imperial Mode of Living Chapter Two The Limits of Green Keynesianism Chapter Three Shooting for Degrowth within a Capitalist System Chapter FourMarx in the AnthropoceneChapter Five The Escapism Known as Accelerationism Chapter Six Capitalism’s Scarcity, Communism’s Abundance Chapter Seven Degrowth Communism Will Save the World Chapter Eight The Lever of Climate Justice Conclusion: How to Prevent History’s End

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Book SynopsisHow will climate change affect our lives? Where will its impacts be most deeply felt? Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from the coming chaos? In Extreme Cities, Ashley Dawson argues that cities are ground zero for climate change, contributing the lion's share of carbon to the atmosphere, while also lying on the frontlines of rising sea levels. Today, the majority of the world's megacities are located in coastal zones, yet few of them are adequately prepared for the floods that will increasingly menace their shores. Instead, most continue to develop luxury waterfront condos for the elite and industrial facilities for corporations. These not only intensify carbon emissions, but also place coastal residents at greater risk when water levels rise.In Extreme Cities, Dawson offers an alarming portrait of the future of our cities, describing the efforts of Staten Island, New York, and Shishmareff, Alaska residents to relocate; Holland's models for defending against the seas; and the development of New York City before and after Hurricane Sandy. Our best hope lies not with fortified sea walls, he argues. Rather, it lies with urban movements already fighting to remake our cities in a more just and equitable way. As much a harrowing study as a call to arms Extreme Cities is a necessary read for anyone concerned with the threat of global warming, and of the cities of the world.Trade ReviewExtreme Cities is a ground-breaking investigation of the vulnerability of our cities in an age of climate chaos. We feel safe and protected in the middle of our great urban areas, but as Sandy and Katrina made clear, and as this fine book reveals anew, the massive shifts on our earth increasingly lay bare the social inequalities that fracture our civilization. -- Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New PlanetMany books have elucidated the ever-increasing dangers of climate change, particularly the disastrous impact that rising sea levels will have on coastal regions, but Dawson goes further as he outlines some potential solutions to this crisis. Massive technological projects may not be what's needed, he finds; instead, the solution may already exist in radical movements to forge a more just and equitable society. * Publishers Weekly *The way we design and live in cities will determine humanity's ability to avoid an anthropogenic mass extinction event in the coming century. Dawson makes this vividly clear in Extreme Cities, laying out in detail the nature of the problem and some possible positive actions we can take. Crucial to his argument is the fact that technological solutions will not be enough, so that we need to drastically reform the capitalist economic system to properly price and value the biosphere and human lives. His point that social justice is now a necessary survival strategy makes this not just a meticulous history and analysis of our situation, but also an exciting call to action. -- Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Red Mars Trilogy and New York 2140Cities both in the North and the South are already suffering the effects of climate change. Government and business fitfully recognize and respond, but in ways that reinforce existing injustices and as often as not make things worse. Dawson shows how social movements have combined action on disaster relief with forms of equitable common life to produce models for radical adaptation from which we can all learn. This is a brilliant summation of what we know and what we can do build a new kind of city in the ruins of the old. -- McKenzie Wark, author of Molecular Red: Theory for the AnthropoceneA powerful argument in a dire situation: that we revise our cities to the new game changer, or climate change will revise urban existences as we know it. -- Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, director-general of Bengal Institute of Architecture, Landscapes and SettlementsA sophisticated and provocative exploration of the unfolding impact of climate change on urban environments. -- Christoph Lindner, Professor of Urban Theory and Visual Culture, University of OregonA revelatory confrontation between two forms of 'surplus liquidity': the rent-seeking excess of circulating global capital and the more literal liquidity of the rising tides of climate change. The setting is the city and this meticulously researched and argued book probes the nexus of myopia, greed, environmental disaster-and hope-that has placed the urban habitat of billions of us in extremis. -- Michael Sorkin, author of All Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and CitiesA must-read for everyone who wants to understand the politics of climate change in an increasingly urban planet, and to explore the possibilities for radical change beyond all technological fixes and governmental adjustments that only reproduce the system as it is. -- Marco Armiero, director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SwedenA superb essay of political ecology, Extreme Cities demonstrates that there is nothing more depending on nature than the city, offering both a diagnosis and a possible therapy for one of the greatest challenges of our time. -- Serenella Iovino, editor of Material Ecocriticism and Environmental Humanities: Voices from the AnthropoceneExtreme Cities takes the critical long view to challenge city decision-makers to deal seriously with the clash of business-as-usual development, threats from climate change, and persistent social inequality to develop real transformations to drive cities toward sustainability and resilience. -- Timon McPhearson, Director, Urban Systems Lab at The New School, New York CityWith the majority of humanity located in cities, it behooves us to consider urban ecologies as recent and future sites of non-natural disasters as well as inspiring places of collective resilience and struggles for justice. Dawson's book is a guiding light. -- T.J. Demos, Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at UC Santa Cruz, Director of its Center for Creative EcologiesThe definitive study of an urban-and planetary-system pushed to the breaking point. Extreme Cities paints a terrifying, but also hopeful, picture, weaving together accounts of iron-fisted states, greedy real estate developers, and the communities that challenge their rule. -- Jason W. Moore, author of Capitalism in the Web of LifeA profoundly sobering picture of climate change's uneven urban toll, both across global expanses and within particular neighborhoods, while also spotlighting instances of radical, on-the-ground resistance to such trends. -- Emily Scott, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zuric and co-editor of Critical Landscapes: Art, Space, PoliticsA substantive contribution to the growing dialogue about our response-or lack thereof-to climate change. * Kirkus Reviews *Dawson makes a convincing case that, unless urban dwellers and civic leaders engage in a fundamental reconceptualization of the city and whom it serves, the future of urban life is dim. * Publishers Weekly (? Starred Review) *[Dawson] is well attuned to the ways that upheavals and disasters disproportionately affect the socioeconomically disadvantaged. As Donald Trump continues to roll back protection measures and disavow the U.S.'s role in global cooperation to mitigate the effects of climate change, [Extreme Cities] is a clear-eyed reminder of who, and what, will be left most vulnerable as a result. * Fast Company *Books on climate change are a dime a dozen now, but few, if any, truly reckon with the potential scale of the disasters that await. Dawson reveals the inadequacies of current plans to deal with the problems that cities around the world will face. Forget such buzzwords as 'green cities,' 'resilience,' and 'sustainable development' - the age of 'disaster communism' is here. * Publishers Weekly *Named one of the top 10 books of the year by Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *[Extreme Cities] is a sobering account of how planetary urbanization has put us on a collision course with the natural world. -- Jonathan Hahn * Sierra Magazine *Extreme Cities is an angry book-as it should be ... Ashley Dawson outlines the existential dilemma facing coastal cities, and the refusal of various powerbrokers to acknowledge that reality, in bold and frequently horrifying terms. -- Chris Barsanti * Rain Taxi *Invoking terms such as "climate apartheid," he greatly expands what people traditionally think of as relevant climate policy language. Recognizing that climate change mitigation and adaptation are interwoven with-and exacerbated by-social inequities and other problems plaguing modern cities is sobering, but this realization provides hope that humanity can move toward greater resilience to environmental problems by addressing non-climatic factors that will improve cities in the presence or absence of climate change. * Choice *Extreme Cities takes on the needed work of slowing down to chronicle and consider this meantime, without shying away from its messiness.More than simply lay out the existence of disparities, it illuminates the relationship between them. -- Liz Koslov * Public Books *

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Book SynopsisIt is 2084. Climate change has made life on the Caribbean island of Bajacu a gruelling trial. The sun is so hot that people must sleep in the day and live and work at night. In a world of desperate scarcity, people who reach forty are expendable. Those who still survive in the cities and towns are ruled over by the brutal, fascistic Domins, and the order has gone out for another evacuation to less sea-threatened parts of the capital. Sorrel can take no more and she persuades her mother, Bibi, that they should flee the city and head for higher ground in the interior. She has heard there are groups known as Tribals, bitter enemies of the Domins, who have found ways of surviving in the hills, but she also knows they will have to evade the packs of ferals, animals with a taste for human flesh. Not least she knows that the sun will kill them if they can't find shelter. Diana McCaulay takes the reader on a tense, threat-filled odyssey as mother and daughter attempt their escape. On the way, Sorrel learns much about the nature of self-sacrifice, maternal love and the dreadful moral choices that must be made in the cause of self-protection.

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Book SynopsisWhat, then, for the work of poetry? It’s at the very periphery of popular speech, niche even among the arts, yet it’s also rooted in the most ancient traditions of oral storytelling, no matter where your ancestors originate from. And, as we were reminded by an audience member at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival in 2020, who are we to say poetry cannot change the world? A poem may not be a binding policy or strategic investment, but poems can still raise movements, and be moving in their own right. And there is no movement in our behaviours and politics without a shift in hearts and minds. Whether the poems you read here are cloaked in ironic apathy or bare their hearts in rousing calls to action, they all arise from a deep sense of care for this living world and the people in it. Our poets are eulogists and visionaries, warriors and worriers. Most of all, they’re ordinary people prepared to sit and stare at a blank page, trying to do something with the bloody big troubles looming over our past, present and future. (from the introduction by the editor)

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Book SynopsisPlanet Earth is heating up, and so is the debate over why our climate is changing and what it means for the future of our energy sources, of our cities, of our children. Now "Time" explores the science of global warming in an illuminating, beautifully illustrated book that ranges from polar ice caps to equatorial rainforests. Here are the scientists who are working to measure and counter the warming trend; here are the world's most endangered habitats and creatures; here are various scenarios for the future. Separating truth from fantasy, "Time" brings a cool eye to today's hottest issue.

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