Climate change Books
Icon Books Buy Better, Consume Less: Create Real
Book Synopsis** One of Refinery29's Essential Books For Surviving 2022 **How to spot greenwashing, stop consuming and demand a more sustainable future.Climate change is now a mainstream conversation topic, and yet every week our recycling piles are still overflowing and we're faced with a steady stream of brands trying to persuade us to buy their eco-friendly products in our quest to live sustainably.For too long, corporations have shifted the eco-responsibility onto us, the consumers. It's time to push back and demand change.In Buy Better, Consume Less, #EthicalHour founder Sian Conway-Wood provides practical tips on how to stop consuming, advice on how to see through corporations' greenwashing, and steps to hold them accountable. In doing so we can create demand for sustainability in supply chains, and put pressure on decision makers to implement systemic change that puts people and planet above profit.
£13.49
Orion Publishing Co How to Save the World For Free
Book SynopsisThere is no greater aspiration than saving the world. Natalie Fee's upbeat and engaging book is a life-altering guide to making those changes that will contribute to helping our planet. Covering all key areas of our lives, from food and leisure to travel and sex, Natalie will galvanise you to think and live differently. You will feel better, live better and ultimately breathe better in the knowledge that every small change contributes towards saving our world.
£9.49
Profile Books Ltd How to Spend a Trillion Dollars: The 10 Global
Book SynopsisIf you had a trillion dollars and a year to spend it for the good of the world and the advancement of science, what would you do? It's an unimaginably large sum, yet it's only around one per cent of world GDP, and about the valuation of Google, Microsoft or Amazon. It's a much smaller sum than the world found to bail out its banks in 2008 or deal with Covid-19. But what could you achieve with $1 trillion? You could solve the problem of the pandemic, for one, and eradicate malaria, and maybe cure all disease. You could end global poverty. You could settle on the Moon and explore the solar system. You could build a massive particle collider to probe the nature of reality like never before. You could build quantum computers, develop artificial intelligence, or increase human lifespan. You could even create a new life form. Or how about transitioning the world to clean energy? Or preserving the rainforests, or saving all endangered species? Maybe you could refreeze the melting Arctic, launch a new sustainable agricultural revolution, and reverse climate change? How to Spend a Trillion Dollars is the ultimate thought experiment but it is also a call to arms: these are all things we could do, if we put our minds to it - and our money.Trade ReviewHow To Spend a Trillion Dollars is both original and ingenious. Rowan Hooper looks at the problems facing the world today - all the big ones - and presents solutions that are realistic and workable, if governments can wring the money out of giant corporations - and billionaires - that don't like paying tax. Hooper writes with great vivacity and persuasiveness and his book is an exhilarating, encouraging, and hopeful reminder that the solutions are there if we have the will to find them. I hope it sells a trillion. -- Philip PullmanWill someone iust give Rowan Hooper a mere trillion dollars and let him, very sensibly, save the world? -- Caitlin Moranln a world of doom-scrolling, trembling on the brink of causing a mass extinction event that will devastate civilisation, it's crucially important to point out that we already have the abilities needed not only to avoid catastrophe, but to thrive. That's what Hooper does in fascinating and exciting detail. -- Kim Stanley RobinsonAt a moment when science is proving it can solve the most urgent of problems - given the right funding - Rowan Hooper asks a very interesting question. How much would it cost to solve all the world's other problems? ... Like any good game, this is deadly serious. What starts off seeming absurd ends up feeling obvious. Why would we not invest in our future? As Hooper says, "The world is full of extraordinary opportunities, and the vast majority are never undertaken" -- James McConnachie * Sunday Times *Brimming with exciting possibilities for a future in which the health and safety of the whole population becomes their responsibility -- Delia SmithWhat would you do with a trillion dollars? In this hopeful and very readable book, Rowan Hooper shows us how a thoughtful investment of financial capital could be used to solve the great challenges we face. None is more near and dire than the climate crisis, and Hooper provides reason for optimism here. The solutions-green energy chief among them-already exist. It's simply a matter of us investing in them. And a trillion dollars spent on climate solutions would payback several times over in avoided damage and destruction and new jobs. Read this book and be inspired to change the world. -- Michael MannI've never before read a book which made me aspire to be a tax collector. But if I was, and if I could just get all the money which the greedy mega-Corps dodge paying, what Hooper so elegantly yet pragmatically shows is that we could so easily "save the world" and have so much fun too. I'll get my suit on! -- Chris PackhamIn a world in which everything seems to be going wrong, this is a refreshingly optimistic book about what real solutions to the world's biggest problems could look like - and cost. Beautifully positive, lucid and accessible. -- Angela Saini, author of SuperiorBy assessing what it would take to tackle the world's biggest problems, Hooper finds that even huge investments pay for themselves many times over. In that sense, his book is like a new version of Brewster's Millions: spend now, win later, with more jobs, better health and, crucially, a better functioning biosphere. * New Scientist *Rowan Hooper shows that the world's most intractable problems might not actually be intractable, if we just devoted the resources to solving them. How to Spend a Trillion Dollars is a fascinating, thought-provoking work. -- Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sixth ExtinctionFull of lucid and transformative ideas -- George Monbiot
£9.49
Agenda Publishing Pyromania: Fire and Geopolitics in a
Book SynopsisWe are the only species that uses fire. It has determined how we have made our home on this planet and it has propelled us to the role of the dominant species in the biosphere. But at the heart of contemporary climate change is the process of combustion. Simon Dalby explores what a life without burning things might look like, and how we might get there. Fires make the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is heating the planet, melting the ice sheets, changing weather patterns and making wildfires worse. Our civilization is burning things, especially fossil fuels, at prodigious rates. So much so that we are now heading towards a future “Hothouse Earth” with a climate that is very different from what humans have known so far. By focusing on fire and our partial control over one key physical force in the earth system, that of combustion, Simon Dalby is able to ask important and interesting questions about us as humans, including different ways of thinking about how we live, and how we might do so differently in the future. Simply put, there is now far too much “firepower” loose in the world and we need to think much harder about how to live together in ways that don’t require burning stuff to do so.Trade ReviewPyromania explores how we have reached the limit of the planet's natural resources and how we could stop burning up the atmosphere and using it as a free dumping ground for pollutants from fossil fuel. Fire, once an important element to human life, is now possibly our most relevant threat. -- Mia Funk, The Creative ProcessSimon Dalby gives us a radically new approach to the global problem of global heating and climate breakdown. Focusing on the human relationship with fire over time, he shows how our tardy response to the disastrously rapid burning of fossil carbon is forcing us to come to terms with the downside of that relationship. Essential reading. -- Paul Rogers, Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies, Bradford UniversityIn this remarkable tour de force, Simon Dalby convincingly shows how humanity's drive to exploit fire, in all its forms, has shaped world history and is transforming the planet – in an increasingly destructive fashion. The intensive combustion of fossil fuels, he argues, has enabled the rise of our modern, high-tech civilization, but now threatens to ravage our world unless we rapidly decrease our reliance on those very fuels. Sweeping in its scope and relevance, indisputable in its conclusions, Pyromania is an urgent plea for human and planetary transformation. -- Michael T. Klare, Professor Emeritus of Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College, AmherstIn 1954 the anthropologist and essayist Loren Eiselely wrote, ‘Man's long adventure with knowledge has, to a very marked degree, been a climb up the heat ladder ... and he is himself a flame – a great, roaring, wasteful furnace devouring irreplaceable substances of the earth’. In Pyromania, Simon Dalby builds brilliantly on Eiseley’s sketch, laying out the threats posed by humanity’s unbridled 'firepower' and offering a compelling call for a post-combustion path to progress. -- Andrew Revkin, author of The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico MendesThe world is burning but our international politics are ill-suited to firefighting. In this challenging yet accessible book, Dalby analyses the new geopolitics of the fire age, pinpointing the urgent action needed to cure the modern world of pyromania. -- Jo Sharp, Professor of Geography, University of St Andrews and Geographer Royal of ScotlandTable of ContentsIntroduction: A World on Fire 1. The Problem of Firepower 2. Fire History and the Making of the Modern World 3. Rethinking Firepower and Geopolitics 4. Shaping the Future: A World After Firepower Conclusion: Join the Fire Department!
£23.44
Troubador Publishing After the Great Recession: The New Normal
Book SynopsisPolitical economy is a vibrant field of study in which one can draw worrying and profitable conclusions. After the Great Recession: The New Normal is the hybrid of a passionate left-leaning pamphlet and an academic essay in political economy. It brings together in a legible synthesis wide ranging readings to clarify and answer key questions, generating new ones. Why does neoliberalist economy blow bubbles, only to burst them by blowing new ones? How was cheap energy from fossil fuel the cradle of modern economic growth and hegemony? Here writes a fellow seeker with unfailing curiosity and an inquiring mind sustained by hope to build a new society based on mutual aid and shared ethical rules. Mutuality is the second law of the jungle, assisting group survival. This insightful, provocative and timely book provides a comprehensive view of the devastating 2008 financial crisis and its lasting impact on our world and the economy. As well as the nature of capitalism and its financialised version, she considers how environmental changes impact the ability to govern humanity, and what constraints for access to materials and energy may mean for civilisation’s future. The history of several oil shocks is researched, secure energy supplies being a primary driver for geostrategic strategies. The book suggests fossil fuel may not be available and/or profitable to extract in the quantities required long before renewable energy is able to substitute for it. Financialised capitalism, plagued by cycles of boom and bust damaging the real economy, is crashing in slow motion. It is urgent to agree on simplified political structures that may help us face the decline foretold in ‘Limits to Growth’, half a century ago, and prepare for future re-building. After the Great Recession: The New Normal appeals to its audience with a stoic and constructive voice so that we may eventually come together for a better outcome for us all.
£11.69
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Stuck Monkey: The Deadly Planetary Cost of the
Book SynopsisPeople hunting monkeys in the jungle once devised a simple yet effective trap: When the creature found a banana in a large jar with a narrow neck, it would plunge its paw in to retrieve it. But it couldn’t let go. And unless the monkey released the banana, it was stuck. We are, of course, the stuck monkey, paralysed by our modern lifestyles and consumer habits: our constant stream of online shopping deliveries, our compulsive dependence on digital devices, our obsession with our pets. These addictions, as small and harmless as they may seem, are quietly destroying the planet. And the eco-friendly alternatives that alleviate our guilt are often not much better. In Stuck Monkey, James Hamilton-Paterson uncovers the truth behind the everyday habits fuelling the climate crisis. Drawing on eye-opening research and shocking statistics, he mercilessly dissects a wide spectrum of modern life: pets, gardening, sports, vehicles, fashion, wellness, holidays, and more. Ferociously unflinching and intelligent, this book will make you think twice about the ‘innocent’ habits we often take for granted.Trade ReviewA marvellous, anecdote-packed mix of head-on and sideways takes on how corporate, personal and collective actions are trashing the planet and bringing about a climate and ecological emergency ... I would defy anyone to read this excellent book and not be forced into taking a long, hard look at how they live their life, and then take urgent steps to change it. * Professor Bill McGuire *A highly original and lucid portrayal of the eco-catastrophe we face ... throughout, Hamilton-Paterson's mordant humour offers some solace * Literary Review *Not an easy read, but a timely one, which cuts through a lot of nonsense * Saga Magazine *PRAISE FOR JAMES HAMILTON-PATERSON: 'A superb book, not only meticulously researched but also supremely readable' - Daily Mail 'A terrific story, told with tremendous relish, elegance and attention to detail' * Sunday Times *
£17.00
Atlantic Books Saving the Planet Without the Bullsh*t: What They
Book Synopsis'Fast paced and energetic' Financial Times'Punchy, provocative and wonderfully readable' - David Shukman'Eye-popping and essential' - Rowan Hooper'A must-read' - Peter Stott Have you heard that you should plant trees to save the planet? Or buy carbon offsets when you fly? Or recycle plastic? Go vegan? Or not have children? What if all these actions were a distraction, no matter how well-intentioned?In this provocative manifesto, Assaad Razzouk shows that for too long our ideas about what's best for the environment have been unfocused and distracted, trying to go in too many directions and concentrating on individual behaviour. While some of these things can be useful, they are dwarfed by one big thing that simply has to happen very soon if we're to avoid major environmental breakdown: curtailing the activities of the fossil fuel industry.Full of counter-intuitive statistics and positive suggestions for individual and collective action, this ingenious book will change how you view the climate crisis.Trade ReviewFast paced and energetic, this is a very readable book with myriad interesting facts... ultimately it is successful in forcing us to focus more sharply on the bigger picture * Financial Times *A real breath of fresh air. Punchy, provocative and wonderfully readable. Assaad Razzouk not only shares his knowledge and experience, he also allows his impatience to shine through. The result is exactly the kind of no-nonsense clarity that's too often lacking in the climate agenda. * David Shukman, former BBC News Science Editor *If you're in any doubt about the duplicity, the obfuscation and the lies - just the sheer extent of the fight being waged by Big Oil to keep us hooked on fossil fuels - Assaad Razzouk's eye-popping and essential book will sort you out. * Rowan Hooper, Podcast Editor, New Scientist *Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit is a refreshing and provocative look at what needs to happen to overcome the climate crisis. A must-read for anyone concerned about avoiding the climate catastrophe. * Peter Stott, author of Hot Air *Beautifully written and very approachable. Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit covers many of the key issues facing the world with an easy comprehensibility and substantial research. * Chris Goodall, author of What We Need to Do Now: For a Zero Carbon Future *Table of Contents1: Plastic Is Your New Diet 2: Who Put Palm Oil in My Toothpaste? 3: The Fashion Show at the End of the World 4: Your Cat Doesn't Need to Eat Fish 5: Your Fresh Air Is Asphyxiating You 6: We Don't Have Time to Overthrow Capitalism 7: Hydrogen Makes Up 70 Per Cent of the Universe; I Didn't Know That Either 8: Nuclear Power Is So Over 9: Stinky Gas 10: Never Buy Carbon Offsets for Anything, Especially Your Car Gasoline 11: Please Don't Plant Trees 12: Have as Many Babies as You Like 13: Ride a Bicycle, Save the World 14: Fly Without Guilt 15: A Luxury Cruise Liner Is a Stinking Floating Dumpster 16: The Nasty Ninety 17: The Social Media Axis of Evil 18: Dial Down That Air Conditioning, But Not Too Much 19: Going Vegan to Go Green? Don't Bother 20: Drive Electric Shamelessly - the Green Energy Revolution Is Here 21: Green Bonds Do More Harm Than Good 22: Tinker, Lawyer, Banker, Fry 23: The ESG Con 24: Don't Worry (At All) About Bitcoin's Energy Use 25: Love Thy Insect 26: The Royal Baby Versus Biodiversity 27: Sue the Bastards 28: It's Raining Renewable Energy
£10.44
Verso Books Who Owns the Wind?: Climate Crisis and the Hope
Book SynopsisThe energy transition has begun. To succeed - to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power - that process must be fair. Otherwise, mounting popular protest against wind farms will prolong carbon pollution and deepen the climate crisis. David Hughes examines that anti-industrial, anti-corporate resistance, drawing insights from a Spanish village surrounded by turbines. In the lives of these neighbours - freighted with centuries of exploitation - clean power and social justice fit together only awkwardly. Proposals for a green economy, the Green New Deal, or Europe's Green Deal require more effort. We must rethink aesthetics, livelihood, property, and, most essentially, the private nature of wind resources. Ultimately, the energy transition will be public and just, or it may not be at allTrade ReviewDavid Hughes it doing some of the most innovative thinking and writing about energy democracy in the world. The movements for climate justice are in his debt. -- Naomi Klein, author of This Changes EverythingNo task is more crucial than building out renewable energy around the world--but it can't happen at the speed it must unless communities embrace windmills and solar panels. And as this frank, straightforward and clarifying book makes clear, that will happen if and when we have a real stake in these assets. The author's proposals are ambitious but also modest and logical, and they are deeply grounded in real life observation--this is a book to be reckoned with. -- Bill McKibben, author The End of NatureHow do we conjure hope in these times of climate breakdown? In Who Owns the Wind? David McDermott Hughes shows that a climate-stabilizing energy revolution must socialize renewables so that wind power comes to be equated with social justice rather than private gain. McDermott Hughes takes readers to a small town in Spain where wind is abundant, and where citizens rose up against privately-owned, corporate wind power, stymieing energy transition. To head off such resistance, McDermott Hughes advocates for a "socialism of the wind." Who Owns the Wind? shows that we will win fossil fuel abolition only if we succeed in transforming renewable power into a common resource, one that tangibly benefits and enfranchises the communities where turbines and other infrastructure is located. McDermott Hughes's book should be required reading for all energy democracy advocates and environmental justice activists. -- Ashley Dawson, author of Extreme CitiesUntil reading David Hughes' exquisitely written yet hard-hitting and crusading book, I hadn't realized how much hangs on the wind-and on who will own it. From one angle it is an eco-socialist manifesto, pushing its message with an unswerving passion: build millions of wind turbines, yes, but the people must own the wind. From another, it is a sumptuous volume that sparkles with moments of almost synaesthetic beauty-while reading it you feel the Andalusian wind brush your skin...Ultimately, the author finds sparks of hope among his ethnographic and literary subjects: the individuals and the picaresque traditions of southern Spain. For those who would like our planet to remain habitable, this is a must-read. -- Gareth DaleEloquent and incisive, this is an important contribution to climate change discourse. * Publishers Weekly *As radical as the most ambitious of the green revolution's plans. -- Anna Aslanyan * Times Literary Supplement *Fascinating, highly revealing and sometimes poetic ... a joy to read. -- Gabriel Carlyle * Peace News *David Hughes provides a nuanced and complex assessment of the perils and promises of developing renewable energy. Who Owns the Wind? is a joy to read, connecting large scale global forces with the lives and stories of individuals. This is a work full of insight, critical analysis, and even a modicum of hope. -- Richard YorkWho Owns the Wind provides a fantastic account of a tense relationship between a wind farm and a 200-person village...The anthropologist's narration is rich and smooth, carefully untangling the reasons behind the inhabitant's varying postures toward the wind farm and reflecting on where these stances fit in the urgent need for a transition to clean energy. -- Paola Velasco-Herrejón * Journal of Agrarian Change *
£16.14
Verso Books Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of
Book SynopsisAs we rebuild our lives in the wake of Covid-19 and face the challenges of ecological disaster, how can the left win a world fit for life? Planet on Fire is an urgent manifesto for a fundamental reimagining of the global economy. It offers a clear and practical road map for a future that is democratic and sustainable by design. Laurie Laybourn-Langton and Mathew Lawrence argue that it is not enough merely to spend our way out of the crisis; we must also rapidly reshape the economy to create a new way of life that can foster a healthy and flourishing environment for all. Planet on Fire offers a detailed and achievable manifesto for a new politics capable of tackling environmental breakdown.Trade ReviewWe now face an environmental crisis that has to be confronted. This book sets out the scale of the emergency as well as marks out the route to a better society. This is an essential read. -- John McDonnell, MPFor all who would build tomorrow not merely suffer it; for all who would heal the rifts that threaten us today between the generations and among the peoples; for all who know that human beings and human societies alike stand always within Nature never above it; for all who know that we must now turn our backs once and for all on domination, oppression, and exploitation, of Nature and of each other: this book is a manifesto and a call to arms. Please read it." -- John Ashton, UK climate change envoy 2006-12This book lays bare how capitalism led to the age of environmental breakdown and what this will mean for human societies. Most importantly, it focuses on explaining what an eco-socialist future would look like and that this future is a realistic, achievable and hopeful alternative to the predominant narrative of doom which typically surrounds discussions of environmental destruction. -- Carola Rackete, activist and author of It's Time to ActEloquent, clear-sighted and erudite, Planet On Fire is an important analysis of the interlocking political and economic forces driving us towards ecological catastrophe, and a credible route-map towards an alternative -- Will DaviesThis clear and incisive book starts from the immensely important insight that we cannot understand climate breakdown outside of the capitalist social relations that produced it. Planet on Fire reminds us that climate breakdown is intimately linked to all the overlapping crises humanity faces - from the rise of the far right, to growing socioeconomic inequality, to the COVID-19 pandemic - and that ecosocialism is the only route to an equal and sustainable world. -- Grace BlakeleyFor all who would build tomorrow not merely suffer it; for all who would heal the rifts that threaten us today between the generations and among the peoples; for all who know that human beings and human societies alike stand always within Nature never above it; for all who know that we must now turn our backs once and for all on domination, oppression, and exploitation, of Nature and of each other: this book is a manifesto and a call to arms. Please read it. -- John Ashton"Capitalism would create a desert and call it profit." Halfway through Planet on Fire, Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton drop this devastating judgement-but they don't stop at doom. Instead they offer blueprints, rally-points for energies, and chronicles of useful pasts for a decarbonized future. In the end, the climate crisis, they remind us, is not about individual morality or scientific authority but power and politics. This is a handbook for the fights to come. -- Quinn SlobodianThis book lays bare how capitalism led to the age of environmental breakdown and what this will mean for human societies. Most importantly, it focuses on explaining what an eco-socialist future would look like and that this future is a realistic, achievable and hopeful alternative to the predominant narrative of doom which typically surrounds discussions of environmental destruction. -- Carola RacketeA clear, powerful vision for ecosocialist transition. Don't miss this book. -- Jason HickelTrump may have left, but Trumpism is here to stay. In response, a transformative Green New Deal is more urgent than ever, charting a course beyond fossil fuel capitalism and deepening eco-apartheid and inequality. This vital contribution is a roadmap for how we get there and a political guide for the times ahead. -- Kate AronoffThe authors' vision of the path to climate justice is an antidote to disaster politics in so many ways, not least because it is both fair and unexpectedly luxurious. Each page is absolutely brimming with ideas as they meticulously take us through every important sector of the economy and reveal carefully thought through recommendations for reform. By focusing on power and who wields it they correctly identify the levers for change and who must now be empowered to push them. * Michelle Meagher, author of Competition is Killing Us: How Big Business is Harming Our Society and Planet - and What To Do About It *Reading Planet on Fire feels like traversing a humming, interdependent ecosystem of ideas, porous to the post-crash movements and thinkers shaping today's progressive environmentalism ... Starkly realistic whilst unflinchingly radical, Planet on Fire is a guidebook of hope for this crucial decade. -- Flora Parkin * LSE International Development *A practical starting point for reworking power structures that are dependent on extraction and initiating the new, society-oriented systems ... essential reading. -- Martha Dillon * It's Freezing in LA! *Offers an urgent alternative. -- George Eaton * New Statesman *Framing the situation in terms of the global inequality that fuels extractive global capitalism, and its roots in colonialism, Lawrence and Layborne-Langton put this power imbalance at the heart of their analysis. It enables them to offer some worthwhile answers for how we might solve our interconnected crises. -- Ann Pettifor * Guardian *
£9.49
Penned in the Margins Plastiglomerate
Book SynopsisPlastiglomerate finds our world in the midst of environmental disaster: from plastic pollution and wrecked shipping to fires in the Amazon rainforest. Geographer-poet Tim Cresswell writes with the forensic eye of a professional, bending the hard vocabulary of science into a jagged but compelling lyric that telescopes from the vast to the cellular in the space of a line. Plastiglomerate completes a trilogy of poetry books that examines mankind's impact on the earth; its central poem recycles the British folk ballad 'The Twa Magicians' to make an ecological protest song fit for the Anthropocene age. But among powerful depictions of the natural world under threat - from beached whales to lost birds - it is the humanity of Cresswell's imagery that wins through: leaf-blowers in surgical masks, blue nail polish, the biro 'leaking in the heat of my pocket'. 'Engaging and unsettling poems that tell it like it is, looking unflinchingly at environmental beauty and disaster. There is redemption here too, in the warmth of human relationships - while this is indeed a world of 'ruin and plunder', it is also a place 'full of love and sap'. A powerful and memorable collection.' - Jean SpracklandTrade Review'Poetry is there when we are broken; it charts and maps the damage. And lifts us from the mud or dirty beaches because of its honesty, brilliance and insight. This is a beautiful collection of interior thoughts processing what we don’t want to know about the state of our damaged world. Cresswell is a traveller who takes us with him and points at what he has seen in a complexity of poetic voices that whisper in your ear, standing close by. With urgency and intimacy our climate crisis is there in our conscious and unconscious minds – and finds a powerful poetic witness in these works.'-Tania Kovats; 'Engaging and unsettling poems that tell it like it is, looking unflinchingly at environmental beauty and disaster. There are redemptions here too, in the warmth of human relationships – while this is indeed a world of ‘ruin and plunder’, it is also a place ‘full of love and sap’. A powerful and memorable collection.'-Jean Sprackland; 'Plastiglomerate is a cursory reminder of the state we are in, that all places are in, told with a knowing, precise but also a deeply compassionate voice. Cresswell’s integrity is carried by the truthfulness of what he names, the events that are mentioned, the debris that are listed, but also by the concern he has for the natural world and for those closest to him. It’s a collection that is both protest and celebration.' GE Stevens, Caught by the River
£11.77
The Indigo Press The Disenchanted Earth: Reflections on
Book SynopsisFrom Richard Seymour, one of the UK’s leading public intellectuals, comes a characteristic blend of forensic insight and analysis, personal journey, and a vivid respect for the natural world. A planetary fever-dream. An environmental awakening that is also a sleep-walking, unsteadily weaving between history, earth science, psychoanalysis, evolution, biology, art and politics. A search for transcendence, beyond the illusory eternal present. These essays chronicle the kindling of ecological consciousness in a confessed ignoramus. They track the first enchantment of the author, his striving to comprehend the coming catastrophe, and his attempt to formulate a new global sensibility in which we value anew what unconditionally matters.Trade ReviewIn Conversation with Richard Seymour https://jacobin.com/2022/04/richard-seymour-disenchanted-earth-book-review-climate-crisis/ -- Nell Whittaker * Tank Magazine *Six New Books for Activists https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/ecosocialist-bookshelf-april-2022 -- Ecosocialist Bookshelf by Ian Angus * GreenLeft *Review - The Collapse of Our Natural World Won’t Be Like a Hollywood Disaster Movie ‘This is a persuasive call for a new, radical understanding.’ https://jacobin.com/2022/04/richard-seymour-disenchanted-earth-book-review-climate-crisis/ -- Sam Knights * Jacobin *An ecological awakening - A collection of essays by a leading Marxist thinker moves Russell Warfield 'Richard remains one of the sharpest thinkers and most stylish writers on the contemporary Marxist left...never less that interesting and insightful.' https://twitter.com/PressIndigoThe/status/1562400612498767872?s=20&t=HgMDLOmULR890sydOrjSNg -- Russell Warfield * Resurgaence and Ecologist magazine *
£9.49
The Indigo Press Banzeiro Òkòtó: The Amazon as the Centre of the
Book SynopsisA confrontation with the destruction of the Amazon by a writer who moved her life into the heart of the forest. In lyrical, impassioned prose, Eliane Brum recounts her move from São Paulo to Altamira, a city along the Xingu River that has been devastated by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. In community with the human and more-than-human world of the Amazon, Brum seeks to “reforest” herself while building relationships with forest peoples who carry both the scars and the resistance of the forest in their bodies. Weaving together the lived stories of the region and its history of violent corruption and destruction, Banzeiro Òkòtó is a call for radical change, for the creation of a new kind of human being capable of facing the potential extinction of our species. In it, Brum reveals the direct links between structural inequities rooted in gender, race, class, and even species, and the suffering that capitalism and climate breakdown wreak on those who are least responsible for them. The title Banzeiro Òkòtó features words from two cultural and linguistic traditions: banzeiro is what the Amazon people call the place where the river turns into a fearsome vortex, and òkòtó is the Yoruba word for a shell that spirals outward into infinity. Like the Xingu River, turning as it flows, this book is a fierce document of transformation arguing for the centrality of the Amazon to all our lives.Trade ReviewEliane Brum: 'The fight for the Amazon is the fight against our extinction' https://revistamarieclaire.globo.com/Cultura/noticia/2021/12/eliane-brum-luta-pela-amazonia-e-luta-contra-nossa-extincao.html -- Humberto Toze * Marie Claire (Brazil) *Banzeiro Òkòtó: a breathtaking experience (APPOA Column) https://sul21.com.br/opiniao/2022/02/banzeiro-okoto-uma-experiencia-arrebatadora-coluna-da-appoa/ * Sul21 *This year, I only needed to open my window in Brazil to witness the climate crisis ‘My snapshot of 2022 shows the Amazon burning – but what it doesn’t communicate is the pain’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/29/this-year-i-only-needed-to-open-my-window-in-brazil-to-witness-the-climate-crisis -- Eliane Brum * The Guardian *5 – Star Review from Peter Whittaker ‘beyond reportage, beyond polemic; channelling the many voices’ https://newint.org/node/29987 -- Peter Whittaker * New Internationalist *A Manifesto for a New World, With the Amazon at Its Center “Banzeiro Òkòtó,” by Eliane Brum, considers the devastating impacts of mass deforestation on Brazil and its people. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/books/review/eliane-brum-banzeiro-okoto.html?smid=tw-share -- William Atkins * The New York Times *The Amazon’s History is Also That of Its Indigenous Residents Eliane Brum on Whiteness, Bodies in Different Languages, and a More Holistic Approach to Ecology https://lithub.com/the-amazons-history-is-also-that-of-its-indigenous-residents/ * Literary Hub *Living with the Xingu in deepest Amazonia The Brazilian journalist Eliane Brum moves from São Paulo to ‘reforest’ herself in the Amazon, and slowly gains the trust of a wary, isolated tribal people. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/living-with-the-xingu-in-deepest-amazonia/ -- Hugh Tomson * The Spectator *Journalism from the centre of the world https://sumauma.com/en/ * SUMAÚMA *April Edition https://emagazine.com/ * The Environment *One Journalist’s Dispatch From the Battle to Protect the Amazon Rainforest https://www.insidehook.com/article/books/new-book-banzeiro-okoto-preservation-amazon-rainforest * InsideHook *
£12.59
Fitzcarraldo Editions Emergency
Book SynopsisEmergency is a novel about the dissolving boundaries between all life on earth. Stuck at home alone under lockdown, a woman recounts her 1990s childhood in rural Yorkshire. She watches a kestrel hunting, helps a farmer with a renegade bull, and plays out with her best friend, Clare. Around her in the village her neighbours are arguing, keeping secrets, caring for one another, trying to hold down jobs. In the woods and quarry there are foxcubs fighting, plants competing for space, ageing machines, and a three-legged deer who likes cake. These local phenomena interconnect and spread out from China to Nicaragua as pesticides circulate, money flows around the planet, and bodies feel the force of distant power. A story of remote violence and a work of praise for a persistently lively world, brilliantly written, surprising, evocative and unsettling, Daisy Hildyard's Emergency reinvents the pastoral novel for the climate change era.Trade Review‘Hildyard doesn’t offer the narratives of therapy, social criticism or self-development to be found in other English pastoralists (Helen Macdonald, Ronald Blythe or Adrian Bell). Her style is more reminiscent of such contemporary poets as Kathleen Jamie and Alice Oswald, with their quiet and attentive watchfulness to a non-human reality they only half-understand. Her prose calls for, and frequently earns, the same respectful attentiveness from its readers.’ — Dr Nikhil Krishnan, Telegraph‘Daisy Hildyard has confronted our new nature and, bravely, compellingly, makes our shared emergency visible.’ — Claire Pettitt, TLS ‘Rich and unflinching, this writing expands our sense of what it means to live, as we do, in a time of crisis. It leads us beyond rational climate debates into the deeply sensual, and sometimes nightmarish, places where our inner and outer worlds make contact.’ — Katharine Kilalea, author of OK, Mr Field‘In this powerfully attuned novel, the world presses in on all sides, refusing to become background. From the discarded plastics of the narrator’s childhood, now circulating microscopically in the world around her as an adult, to the journey of grass through the bodies of animals and back out to the field as fertiliser, Emergency shows us the cost, as well as the conflicted splendour, of a world that is “fatally interconnected”. Its prose is bewitching and uncompromising, alive to the enmeshing of cruelty with care that articulates our shared – human and nonhuman – existence.’ — Daisy Lafarge, author of Paul‘Emergency is an incisive kaleidoscope of past and present, nature and industry, stillness and pace, collapsing all into a tapestry of consciousness.’ — Aysegül Savas, author of Walking on the Ceiling‘Hildyard’s writing stretches the mind.’ — Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun‘Emergency is a strange and luminously original novel. Daisy Hildyard writes about childhood with a kind of ecstatic detachment, dissolving the boundaries between past and present, and between human and animal life. I find her work exhilarating and subtly provocative. There is, as far as I'm aware, nothing else quite like it in contemporary English-language fiction.’ — Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse‘Daisy Hildyard’s Emergency is a pastoral novel for the age of dissolving boundaries…The slowness and gentleness of the text, its pace and its language, make you consider its title. There are emergencies and ruptures, but less of the urgent kind. More at play is a slow, steady and inevitable unfolding – of emergence.’ — Abi Andrews, Irish Times‘Past and present, nature and humanity, life and death intermix, ebbing and flowing in a stream of prose that carries the reader on an exhilarating and frequently provocative and violent ride.’ — Philippa Nutall, New Statesman
£11.69
PCCS Books Holding the Hope: Reviving psychological and
Book SynopsisGlobal heating, catastrophic climate change and the growing reality of ecosystem damage and accelerated species extinction hang over us all. For the counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, coaches and their supervisors who make up the talking therapy professions, these topics are increasingly coming up in their work. They must deal both with their clients' and communities' emotions and responses - their fear, anger, denial, grief, helplessness and hopelessness - and with their own. The chapters in this thought-provoking, honest, moving and sobering book explore the frameworks, theoretical constructs and ways of working they have devised to hold hope and build agency in the face of all this complexity, uncertainty and injustice. Contributors from a range of cultural backgrounds and professional disciplines discuss our inter-relationships with the natural world, indigenous practices and understandings, acknowledging our betrayal of our children and young people, how to go on practising at the edge of despair, staying well in unwell times, 'rewilding' hope, deep adaptation coaching and much more.Trade Review‘Holding the Hope charts the way to fertile ground through the wild lands of climate shock, overwhelm, paralysis and despair. These essays, written by trailblazers in climate psychology and related domains of existential coaching, psychotherapy and philosophy, will validate, strengthen and inspire those looking to help others on this path. A gritty gift for these times.’ Britt Wray, PhD, author of Generation Dread and Planetary Health Fellow, Stanford University School of Medicine;‘Climate change is a crisis confronting us all, clients and therapists alike. This innovative and important collection of chapters can help us meet this challenge with hope and with a sense of possibility for overcoming inactivity, resignation and despair. An essential read for therapists who want to face the reality of our world in crisis with their eyes open.’ Mick Cooper, Professor of Counselling Psychology, University of Roehampton, and author of Psychology at the Heart of Social Change; ‘Mild concerns about climate change only a couple of decades ago have now shifted to intense fears of an impending climate crisis and disaster. Every season, somewhere on the planet, there are weather conditions that are more severe than any experienced only 50 years ago. This existential threat is not just restricted to Homo sapiens but impacts upon flora and fauna across the globe, with the inevitable losses in biological diversity. This book is a call to action for coaches and counsellors and their professional bodies to face up to the challenges of the ensuing climate catastrophe while remaining hopeful that it can be addressed. Instead of just becoming overwhelmed by the current situation, practitioners will find this book helpful to stay focused and motivated.’ Professor Stephen Palmer, Director, International Centre for Ecopsychology, Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and editor of the Journal of Ecopsychology; ‘The global ecological challenge requires humanity to fundamentally change the way we think and how we understand and engage with the world around and beyond us. This book provides so many helpful different perspectives on how we can undertake the transformation the Earth is requiring of us in our personal and professional lives, to move from overwhelm to hope in order to co-create a radical new future in the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world.’ Professor Peter Hawkins, Chairman of Renewal Associates, author and global thought leader on ecology, leadership, systemic coaching and societal change; ‘Hope dies, action begins. These words helped us to set the tone for Extinction Rebellion back in 2018, and between then and now there has been a lively debate about this malleable concept, hope! I know that where we are headed we will need therapeutic relationships and practices. In fact, I believe that we will soon need to find ways to grow supportive and therapeutic systems and networks exponentially. So this is a timely contribution to the world we find ourselves in, and with excellent breadth and depth. I congratulate the editors and contributors for this enriching compilation. It will be very helpful if this will assist people to find courage after despair and reckon with the responsibility we now shoulder to make hope possible through engagement, care and action. For in these times, we must earn our hope.’ Clare Farrell, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, fashion designer and lecturer; ‘This beautifully curated and intelligent collection reminds us of the interconnectedness that is our birth right and the wisdom that lies in accessing diversity of voices and cultures. Not a comfortable read, given the territory – ecological emergency – but also the authors choose depth, authenticity and courage over cheerleading and false hope. Yet the overarching sense is that there is hope. A vibrant, and vital read for all helping professionals, including coaches.’ Liz Hall, editor of Coaching at Work, leadership coach, mindfulness teacher and author of Mindful Coaching; ‘In these times increasing numbers in the “psyche” professions are engaging with what climate breakdown means for them. The rich contributions here provide prophetic clarion calls for (bio) diverse transformation and engagement, simultaneously synthesising the environmental, political and personal. The chapters are strung together on a thread of hope, with hope itself critiqued rigorously. The reader is left in no doubt that mindless optimism has no space here; rather, what is needed is the radical hope of Jonathan Lear, reflected on deeply in Hetty Einzig’s chapter, or what Totton calls for – a releasing of hope, out of our control and into the wild, to make its own way. There is nourishment here, too, for our clinical practices – not fast food, but substantial slow cooking. I am deeply grateful for the work of so many behind this essential curation.’ Judith Anderson, Chair, Climate Psychology Alliance; ‘The editors of Holding the Hope have brought together practitioners from around the world to share insights, examples and pragmatic processes that can help us all – personally and professionally. As a systemic practitioner, who has been hugely influenced by Gregory Bateson, I am struck by the ways in which this book makes significant contributions to reintegrating the natural environment that supports our very breathing, eating and drinking, back into our professional and cultural paradigms, helping us all through the emotions of letting in such a disturbing current reality. This book is a powerful call to reconceive the individualistic foundations of our notions of health and therapy. In chapter after chapter, I found myself jotting down ideas to include in my executive coaching and leadership development programs – and to reflect upon personally.’ Dr Josie McLean, co-founder of Climate Coaching Alliance, coach, leadership and organisational developer and past President of ICF Australasia; ‘This book is full of love and intensely moving, drawing as it does on the insights of practitioners worldwide, with different experiences and perspectives. I went through a gamut of emotions – tearful, joyful, grieving, thoughtful, hopeful – and found it insightful and relatable personally and professionally. This is a book of breadth and depth that puts climate change in a wider social context. And the section on children and young people wasn’t just enlightening, it really gave a sense of their perspective. Here’s one example from Caroline Hickman’s research: “It’s personal, this is being done to us. But we’re not the ones doing it.” Please do read this book.’ Eve Turner, co-founder of Climate Coaching Alliance, coach, supervisor, researcher and author of Ecological and Climate-Conscious Coaching‘Every word of this text spoke to not only my mind but my heart and soul as well. It brings courage and compassion, wisdom and humility – and it honours the idea that the climate crisis is a human, emotional crisis. There is so much that the world of coaching – executive, life or other – can learn, appreciate and take from it. And the book is peppered with signposts for coaching, psychotherapy, counselling and mentoring, signalling where they need to evolve, mature and stretch into. All of the helping professionals – and every industry and society – faces a crucial adaptation ahead, and this collection is a key text on what we can think, feel and do about it. I loved the variety of thought, backgrounds and approaches of the different contributors. I will be recommending this book widely for years to come.’ George Warren, coach, supervisor and mentor coach, faculty member of the Academy of Executive coaching Association and co-creator of the podcast series ‘Coaching in the Climate Crisis’Table of ContentsForeword by Sally Weintrobe, Introduction, PART 1 - With the Earth in mind, 1. What your biology teacher didn't teach you: Reclaiming a Western indigenous relationship with nature for a post-mechanistic world - Roger Duncan, 2. What does it mean to be well in unwell times? - Bayo Akomolafe, 3. Towards a sacred framework - Niki Harre, 4. How green is your mind? - Robin Shohet, PART 2 - Hope, what hope? 5. Radical hope: a dimension of the rooted soul - Hetty Einzig, 6. Rewilding hope - Nick Totton, 7. Coming home to a post-human body: finding hopefulness in those who care - Caroline Frizell, 8. Holding hope, letting go - Emma Palmer, PART 3 - From theory to practice, 9. Active hope training - Chris Johnstone, 10. Imaginative engagement with the climate crisis: the role of climate and ecology fiction - Maggie Turp, 11. Breaking silos: sketching an integrative psychotherapy model for working with eco-anxiety - Pedro Oliveira, 12. Deep adaptation coaching in a time of planetary meta-crisis - Matthew Painton, 13. Cultivating kinship through therapy - Yasmin Kapadia, 14. Solution focused practice at the edge of despair - Fred Ehresmann, PART 4 - Holding hope for children and young people, 15. Helping children and young people make meaning from their experience of climate emergency - Caroline Hickman, 16. Changing the world in one generation: raising children to grow resilience amid climate and social collapse - Jo McAndrews, 17. Climate crisis as emotion crisis: Emotion validation coaching for parents of the world - Andy Miller
£22.79
RIBA Publishing Nature of the City: Green Infrastructure from the
Book SynopsisA practical guide to delivering green infrastructure from the ground up and bringing nature in to the built environment. Exploring the process of delivery through an array of design approaches and case studies, it demystifies the concept and provides the tools for practical implementation - highlighting the challenges and opportunities on both small and large projects.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Interweaving the Human and Natural Worlds 2. A Framework for Green Infrastructure 3. Key Principles for Nature-Based Solutions 4. Making It Happen: Embedding Nature-Based Solutions in Each Work Stage of a Project Final Words Annexe
£36.10
Slanted Publishers UG Imagine Embracing Chaos and Possibility in a Planetary Emergency
£23.80
Columbia University Press Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction
Book Synopsis300 million years ago, dog-sized scorpions and millipedes walked the earth and tropical rainforests towered into the sky. George R. McGhee Jr. explores that ancient world, explaining its origins, its downfall in the end-Permian mass extinction, and its legacies, to offer insight into past and present extinction events and climate change.Trade ReviewCarboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction is a superb and unique synthesis of the current knowledge of processes and conditions during the Late Paleozoic, incorporating the results from all subdisciplines of the earth and life sciences. McGhee demonstrates his expertise and knowledge in all the subdisciplines in a magnificent way. The book is a pleasure to read and at the same time erudite. -- Hermann Pfefferkorn, University of PennsylvaniaCarboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction is comprehensive and well researched, and provides fascinating insights into the complex Carboniferous world. It has amazing presentation, including depth, perception, and interpretation, and the writing style is readable and captivating. This work will be a valuable reference for geology students and others interested in past earth climates. -- Peter E. Isaacson, University of IdahoA valuable contribution to our understanding of ancient environments and the incredible plants and animals that once inhabited the Earth. * Everything Dinosaur *Highly recommended. * Everything Dinosaur *Table of ContentsPreface1. Harbingers of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age2. The Big Chill3. The Late Carboniferous Ice World4. Giants in the Earth . . .5. The End of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age6. The End of the Paleozoic World7. The Legacy of the Late Paleozoic Ice AgeNotesReferencesIndex
£38.25
Princeton University Press The Fate of Rome
Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of Medium.com’s Books of the Year 2017""One of The Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year 2017""One of the Forbes.com “Great Anthropology and History Books of 2017” (chosen by Kristina Killgrove)""One of The Federalist’s Notable Books for 2017""Honorable Mention for the 2018 PROSE Award in Classics, Association of American Publishers""One of Strategy + Business's Best Business Books in Economics for 2018""One of Choice Reviews' Outstanding Academic Titles of 2018"
£999.99
The Indigo Press The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Future
Book SynopsisThe environmental emergency is the greatest threat we face. Preventing it will require an unprecedented political and social response. And yet, there is still hope. Academic, physicist, environmental expert and award-winning science communicator Paul Behrens presents a radical dual analysis of a civilisation on the brink of catastrophe. Setting out the pressing existential threats we face, he writes, in alternating chapters, of what the future could look like, at its most optimistic and pessimistic, and details the steps we can take to ensure our survival. In lucid and clear-sighted prose, Behrens argues that structural problems need structural solutions, and examines critical areas in which political will is necessary, including women’s education, food and energy security, biodiversity and economics.Trade Review‘One of those books suffused with intriguing facts and stories, the narrative takes the reader through alternate outcomes on key issues such as population, energy and food: the pessimistic scenarios outline what will happen if we don’t take action; the hopeful scenario shows what is possible if we do.’ https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/18727627.opinion-the-change-required-now-greater-magnitude/ -- Tom Bromley * The Sailsbury Journal *‘urgent, compulsively readable and thoroughly researched’ https://www.instagram.com/p/CFO76haHLJ_/ -- Caoilinn Hughes * Instagram *‘It doesn't dumb down the science, it doesn't sugar-coat things, but it also offers possibilities that we can work towards, and, most importantly of all, inspires the reader to go and do something about it, which is what all those Hope chapters are kind of dependent on.’ https://awfullybigreviews.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-best-of-times-worst-of-times-by.html -- Kelly McCaughrain * An Awfully Big Blog Adventure *‘@DrPaulBehrens wrote one of the most deep, wide ranging and thought-provoking books I read this year. It's a tour de force.’ -- Professor Julia Steinberger * Instagram *Climate primer: How to debunk myths about climate change ‘Author and scientist Paul Behrens picks apart some of the most egregious and long-standing myths around global warming’ https://news.trust.org/item/20201116115403-oz28n/ -- Thin Lei Win * Thomas Reuters Foundation *8 of the best books of 2020 recommended by LSE blog editors ‘The book will defamiliarise and radicalise you in the best way. It makes much media coverage of the environment look predictable and dated.’ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2020/12/17/8-of-the-best-books-of-2020-recommended-by-lse-blog-editors/ -- Ros Taylor, Managing Editor, LSE COVID-19 blog * LSE Review of Books *‘Paul Behrens...explains in accessible language a complex multidisciplinary issue that affects all of us –climate change.’ https://twitter.com/Admelioran/status/1356254045837656066 -- Anfisa Girusova * Twitter *Cheddar Climate: Global Warming Claims, Making Space for Renewables, and Sustainable Sparkles https://cheddar.com/media/cheddar-climate-global-warming-claims-making-space-for-renewables-and-sustainable-sparkles * Cheddar News *The Best- and Worst-Case Scenarios for the World as COP26 Ends: An environmental scientist assesses the outcomes and possibilities coming out of the climate conference in Glasgow. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/11/cop-26-climate-future-520817 -- Paul Behrens * Politico Magazine *Near term threats & societal risk as the Earth changes state | Dr Paul Behrens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TTvwJY9ssc * ClimateGenn *
£11.69
Chelsea Green Publishing Co At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the
Book Synopsis'One of the most perceptive and thought-provoking books …Essential reading for these turbulent times.' Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement 'Dougald Hine’s brilliant book demands we stare into that abyss and rethink our securest certainties about what is actually going on in the climate crisis. It’s lucidly unsettling and yet in the end empowering. There is something we can do, and it starts with where we look, how we see and what we choose to change.’ Brian Eno, Musician ‘[A] rich book, which like a poetic or religious text deserves multiple readings’ Richard Smith, British Medical Journal ‘I consider this book a must-read for all those activists feeling lost, desperate and perhaps subject to ‘press-on-itis'.’ Gail Bradbrook, cofounder, Extinction Rebellion Dougald Hine, world-renowned environmental thinker, has spent most of his life talking to people about climate change. And then one afternoon in the second year of the pandemic, he found he had nothing left to say. Why would someone who cares so deeply about ecological destruction want to stop talking about climate change now? At Work in the Ruins explores that question. ‘Climate change asks us questions that climate science cannot answer,’ Dougald says. Questions like, how did we end up in this mess? Is it just a piece of bad luck with atmospheric chemistry – or is it the result of a way of approaching the world that would always have brought us to such a pass? How we answer such questions also has consequences. Through our over-reliance on the single lens of science, Dougald writes that we are blinded to the nature of the crises around and ahead of us, leading to ‘solutions’ that can only make things worse. At Work in the Ruins is his reckoning with the strange years we have been living through and our long history of asking too much of science. He offers guidance by standing firmly forward and facing the depth of the trouble we are in, to ultimately, helps us find the work that is worth doing, even in the ruins.Trade Review'Drawing on decades of experience in climate journalism and activism, Dougald Hine’s At Work in the Ruins is one of the most perceptive and thought-provoking books yet written about the multiple intersecting crises that are now upending our once-familiar world. Of particular importance is Hine’s deeply respectful yet unsparing analysis of the strengths and limitations of science in reckoning with these crises. At Work in the Ruins is essential reading for these turbulent times.' Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement‘As it begins to dawn on us all that we won’t “stop” climate change or “solve” the climate crisis, we are left looking into something of an abyss. Dougald Hine’s brilliant book demands we stare into that abyss and rethink our securest certainties about what is actually going on in the climate crisis. It’s lucidly unsettling and yet in the end empowering. There is something we can do, and it starts with where we look, how we see and what we choose to change.’ Brian Eno, Musician'In this age of confusion and corruption, Dougald Hine has always had a great gift for asking the right questions. Here he makes a stab at some answers, too – and, more bravely, identifies the places where ‘answers’ are not available and that the real work is rebooting our entire way of seeing. There are far too many books about climate change around, but this book is about something more unsettling: what our response to climate change reveals about us – and what we can’t do about it, as well as what we can. You are certain to come away rethinking some of your own assumptions.' Paul Kingsnorth, author of Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist'Dougald Hine’s book At Work in the Ruins is a deep reflection on the foundations of the destructive path humanity has been pushed on, driven by colonialism, modernity and fossil fuel addiction, by its love for centralization, control, consumerism, certainty. By stopping to talk about climate change and the other problems we face, Dougald invites us to make deeper shifts by making a turn in our hearts and minds, seeking smaller paths, paths to be discovered and walked along by individuals and communities, paths of diversity and decentralization. And trust uncertainty.' Vandana Shiva, author of Terra Viva'I’ll get right to it: every time the world ends, it leaves a mark. Yes. Implicitly, the apocalypse is not new. There have been many before. But this mark I speak of...it is like a signature. A prophetic molecule of sorts. A sense of discomfort with the rush of the familiar. A taste for questions too slippery for the public imagination. A slant of the eye. An initiation that queers the flesh. Like fungal spores inseminating a zombie ant in the forest. A virus. Not to worry: Not everyone is so marked. But Dougald Hine clearly is. Dougald Hine is mad. And he has my full attention and trust. In this sonorous swoosh of earnest prose composed with the cadence of a fugitive journalist who has a news story that should end all other stories – as well as the unmistakable lilt of an elder who would have sat at the edge of my Nigerian village – Dougald ushers us into the Gordian knots of our strange times where ‘following the science’, ‘solving the climate challenge’ and ‘saving the world’ no longer hold much cartographical promise. Ironically, talking this way about a phenomenon that calls into question humanity’s claims to sovereignty is how the modern machine keeps reproducing the fires we want to extinguish. Pushing past popular tropes, Dougald helps us see that how we talk about and address this end-of-world crisis is the crisis. Something else is needed. Mutiny of some kind. An apostasy. Definitely more than a manifesto, a new solution or a new campaign. Let Dougald Hine’s masterful storytelling mark you; let his song of loss and longing, his call to fugitivity, dispossess you of your steady gait and poise. Perhaps then we, collectively infected, might together witness the incomprehensible.' Bayo Akomolafe, author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences'I’ve long felt Dougald Hine an elder to our environmental movements. In this timely book, he is asking us to pause and consider where we are now and how we got here – to think about the deeper causes of the polycrisis. I consider this book a must-read for all those activists feeling lost, desperate and perhaps subject to "press-on-itis". Let’s find our curiosity together, hold each other as we navigate the turbulence and face our lack of roadmap. For me, reading this book was like having a long and honest supper with an old friend around a warming fire. I finished it with a relieving sigh, feeling nourished, heart opened, humanity seen. Let our longings guide our actions. Thank you, Dougald.' Gail Bradbrook, cofounder Extinction Rebellion'I love reading Hine’s writing. Here is a work that began with a feeling that was sensed before it was thought. The result is a book of rare originality and depth – profound, far-reaching, mind-altering stuff.' Helen Jukes, author of A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings'There is great storytelling woven within Dougald’s timely and sometimes-disturbing book. Hine addresses the blessings and chaos of this moment without ever moving into relentless naysaying or vapid optimism, which makes it hugely refreshing. He seeks a third, truer position. A bigger one. At Work in the Ruins carries the weight of many years at the front line of thinking around climate emergency. This isn’t a weary, trotted-out mandate; it wonderingly tugs at what we think we know and points towards what we may not.' Martin Shaw, author of Courting the Wild Twin'Dougald Hine’s very personable book makes a persuasive and welcome case for a new view of science. He shows clearly how movements that live by science – in its current, institutionalized meaning – will also die by science. At Work in the Ruins speaks up for practical judgment, common sense and the wisdom of heart as guides on the ‘small and branching path’ that Hine contrasts with the big highway of surveillance and regulation by which scientized technocracy proposes to address climate change. The Covid years have revealed a stark choice, long foreseen by the prophetic thinkers, such as Ivan Illich, by whom Hine is inspired. I hope many will heed Hine’s invitation to friendship and intellectual modesty, and join him on the adventure of the small path.' David Cayley, author of Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey'If the hourglass has come to stand for the time of endings in which we find ourselves, Dougald Hine looks beyond it to recall the myriad encounters with thinkers and knowledges which have shaped his sense-making over the past two decades, and which shed light on our predicament. When our gaze returns to the hourglass, the reader might question its shape, the width of the opening, where the sand was taken from and who gets to turn it. What actually happens once the sand has drained? Or what happens if it doesn’t? What would happen if the glass cracked and the sand was allowed to spill out onto the table? Hine makes tentative maps with that spilt sand, tracing lines with his finger that are clear, compelling and cathartic; reverent to the unknown and unknowable.' Sarah Thomas, author of The Raven’s Nest'Here is a book that explores the public understanding of science around climate change, Covid and social movements. Asking if we demand too much of science, Hine points beyond the "dark hubris" of despair. With eloquence and honesty, he invites us to the hope of deeper mystery that life on Earth might yet unfold.' Alastair McIntosh, author of Soil and Soul and Riders on the Storm'We’ve tried browbeating people into saving the planet. It doesn’t work, both because most people don’t like to be told what to do and because it is pure folly to imagine that individual microchoices are sufficient to lift us out of this crisis. Why not try, instead, to invite people to think together with us in a spirit of honesty, not only about the crisis and possible ways out of it, but also about the deeper reasons why we cherish the world we have been told we must save? This is Dougald Hine’s approach, and it is timely indeed – a desperately needed change of register in contemporary environmental thinking.' Justin E.H. Smith, author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is'In this book, Dougald Hine invites us to repurpose the ruins of the modern structures of organisation and existence (within and around us) that have led us on the path of premature extinction. The end of the world as we know it is the end of a world that needs hospicing, and perhaps, through this hospicing, humanity can learn to be taught by the violence it has inflicted on itself and the rest of nature. It is pretentious to think we (humans) can ‘birth’ a new world; but since we are part of nature and not the centre of it, we can learn to trust the healing capacity of its metabolism to work through us, if we can decentre ourselves to allow it to happen.' Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, author of Hospicing Modernity'It’s hard to exaggerate the importance and sheer nerve of Hine’s prophetic call to face the facts. This is an elegant and acute examination of our personal and societal pathology, and a stirring but never polemical insistence that we must start the treatment. What’s wrong with us? Our storylessness, our pathetic clutching at polarities, and our ludicrous faith in progress rather than process. And the therapy? Stories that are worthy of us, because we’re huge and enduring – unlike politics or institutions or ideas. These are apocalyptic times. Hine reminds us that apocalypse means "unveiling" and prepares us for what we might see if we’ve still got eyes.' Charles Foster, author of Being a Human and Being a Beast"Without dismissing the importance of governments or science, Hine writes that an important first step is acknowledging that governments and science don't have ready solutions for all the problems people face. . . Looking ahead, he seeks options, not optimism, and works to advance the conversation around climate change and other global crises from a Western perspective, with the aim of encouraging dialogue beyond binary ideologies. VERDICT A thought-provoking suggestion for readers well versed in climate discourse." Library Journal‘[A] rich book, which like a poetic or religious text deserves multiple readings’ Richard Smith, British Medical Journal'(Hine's) powerful performance of this important message will make listeners question their unexamined assumptions about the planet's future and what they can do about it.' AudioFile Magazine
£18.70
Oneworld Publications The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses,
Book Synopsis‘A book about one apocalypse – much less five – could have been a daunting read, were it not for the wit, lyricism, and clarity that Peter Brannen brings to every page.’ Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes Apocalypse, now? Death by fire, ice, poison gas, suffocation, asteroid. At five moments through history life on Earth was dragged to the very edge of extinction. Now, armed with revolutionary technology, scientists are uncovering clues about what caused these catastrophes. Deep-diving into past worlds of dragonflies the size of seagulls and fishes with guillotines for mouths, they explore how – against all the odds – life survived and what these ominous chapters can tell us about our future.Trade Review'His evocative prose brings the “incomprehensible eternities” of ancient history vividly alive…A remarkable journey into the deep past that has much to teach us about the future of our planet.' * Guardian *‘Gripping… Brannen excels at evoking lost worlds.’ * The New Yorker *‘Fascinating.’ * The Economist *‘A book about one apocalypse – much less five – could have been a daunting read, were it not for the wit, lyricism, and clarity that Peter Brannen brings to every page. He is a storyteller at the height of his powers, and he has found a story worth telling.’ -- Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes‘An exciting detective story venturing into the extraordinary worlds of our Earth’s past to discover what caused them to end. Brannen describes unimaginable floods, planet-scale catastrophes and incredible creatures that were once common. A cautionary tale for the future of our human age.’ -- Gaia Vince, author of Adventures in the Anthropocene‘[Brannen] is a companionable guide, as good at breathing life into the fossilized prose of scientific papers as he is at conjuring the Ordovician reign of the nautiloids.’ * New York Times Book Review *‘Urgent, compelling and beautifully written, Peter Brannen brings immense geological timescales sharply into focus, forcing us to reflect on humanity’s brief but potent impact on the planet through the lens of deep time. Whether through fascination with the ancient past or grim fear for our future, The Ends of the Worlds is essential reading.’ -- Kat Arney, science writer and broadcaster‘If readers have time for only one book on the subject, this wonderfully written, well-balanced, and intricately researched (though not too dense) selection is the one to choose.’ * Library Journal, starred review *‘A vivid, fascinating story about all the past and future lives of our planet. Peter Brannen has the knack of opening up new worlds under our feet.’ -- Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World‘History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, the second as farce. Human history, that is. But the history of life on planet Earth only ever repeats as tragedy, as Peter Brannen explains in this powerful and unsettling book. The Ends of the World recounts the breath-taking stories of the five mass extinctions that have punctuated and diverted the course of evolution. Its vertiginous sense of the awful fragility of living things will never leave you, not least because humanity may now be writing the ultimate end of Brannen’s riveting tale.’ -- Stephen Curry, professor of structural biology, Imperial College‘Want to know the future? Look to the past, the deep past. That’s one of the many insights you’ll glean from reading Brannen’s entertaining, engaging, elegant book.’ -- David Biello, author of The Unnatural World‘Fascinating.’ * Geographical Magazine *‘Much-needed as a cautionary lesson and a hopeful demonstration of how life on Earth keeps rebounding from destruction.’ * Booklist *'A simultaneously enlightening and cautionary tale of the deep history of our planet and the possible future, when conscious life may become extinct…. Entertaining and informative on the geological record and the researchers who study it. [Brannen] provides a useful addition to the popular literature on climate change.' * Kirkus Reviews *‘Robert Frost only gave us two options to end the world: fire or ice. Peter Brannen informs us in this fun rollick through deep history that there are so many more interesting ways to go.’ -- Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish
£10.44
Cambridge University Press Introduction to Modern Climate Change
Book SynopsisThe third edition of this introductory textbook for both science students and non-science majors has been brought completely up-to-date. It reflects recent scientific progress in the field, as well as advances in the political arena around climate change. As in previous editions, it is tightly focussed on anthropogenic climate change. The first part of the book concentrates on the science of modern climate change, including evidence that the Earth is warming and a basic description of climate physics. Concepts such as radiative forcing, climate feedbacks, and the carbon cycle are discussed and explained using basic physics and algebra. The second half of the book goes beyond the science to address the economics and policy options to address climate change. The book''s goal is for a student to leave the class ready to engage in the public policy debate on the climate crisis.Trade Review'Andrew Dessler is that rare breed of scientist who can contribute at the leading edge of scientific discovery while adeptly explaining the science and its implications to lay audiences. With his newly revised edition of Introduction to Climate Change, Dessler provides a comprehensive, up-to-date and engaging account of the science, the impacts, and the policy dimensions of the climate crisis. Climate change is the defining challenge of our time and this textbook is the ideal choice to ensure students are informed about it.' Michael Mann, Penn State University, author of The New Climate War and Dire Predictions'In a world dominated by headlines, Dr. Andrew Dessler's Introduction to Modern Climate Change delivers a fresh take on something we're all craving: fundamentals. The book begins with the physical science basis for climate change, from blackbody radiation to the fluxes and reservoirs of the carbon cycle, before delving into hot topics, from feedbacks to exponential growth. Dessler delivers a robust and much-needed framework for addressing modern global environmental change.' Hari Mix, Santa Clara University'Introduction to Modern Climate Change has been my text of choice for a general education class on the topic. It provides students with the foundations of climate physics, places modern variations in the context of the geologic record, establishes the man-made nature of current trends and (uniquely for textbooks on this matter) discusses the economic and political dimensions of the problem, and how best to respond to it. This new edition brings a significant upgrade by adding the most up-to-date numbers from the IPCC and the Paris Agreements, as well as a greatly expanded set of engaging graphics, conveying the information most pertinent to this existential crisis. I heartily recommend this approachable textbook to any student or scholar.' Julien Emile-Geay, University of Southern California'Introduction to Modern Climate Change is essential reading for anyone interested in anthropogenic global warming. Andrew Dessler's textbook is easily accessible for students from a range of backgrounds, as no prior knowledge of Earth Science is needed. It is the first resource I add to my reading lists, and the new color figures enhance it further. There are also important updates concerning the policies of climate change, such as the impact of the Trump Administration and the Paris Agreement.' Matt Smith, University of Worcester'… an excellent textbook for the general audience of undergraduates … In the third edition there are more exercises than in earlier editions, allowing the instructor to emphasize those exercises depending on the particular department providing the course … An important update is the transition to colored graphics throughout the book, which bring to life the arguments in the text … Dessler is a very gifted writer for the general reader … In this book he engages the reader with relevant analogies from everyday life … Most importantly his presentation is clear. His arguments are strong and presented passionately … I grade the third edition as excellent.' Gerald R. North, Texas A&M UniversityPraise for the third edition: '… a textbook about the scientific basis for global climate change that's well balanced, well written, highly illuminating, and accessible to non-science majors.' John M. Wallace, University of Washington'I was so impressed with its simple and compelling coverage of the science of climate change, and, just as importantly, its social and political context. The students loved the book - some even commented that it was the first time they had actually understood and enjoyed reading a science book.' Steve Easterbrook, University of Toronto'Dessler's book is written so clearly that anyone can read it and understand the major issues in climate change. It hits just the right balance between rigor and comfort, making the whole topic more appealing and accessible to students.' Deborah Lawrence, University of Virginia'The text provides a readable, concise summary of the science of climate change, but it is the nonscientific aspects of the book that set it apart … a well-crafted textbook. The writing is very accessible without being too simplistic. The combination of a broad overview of the science and policy of climate change is both novel and appropriate for … an introductory-level survey course on climate change. Reading the book was a learning experience for me, and I would happily recommend this book to anyone seeking an introduction to climate change.' Guillaume Mauger, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society'The book reads extremely well: it uses stories, analogues, and examples to draw the reader into the story of the science of our changing planet. Despite the complexity of the actual science, Dessler presents the material in a clear manner and does it without drawing on mathematics any more difficult than simple algebra … I recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about climate change and the challenges it presents to humanity.' Donald J. Wuebbles, Physics Today'Dessler has done an excellent job of clearly describing the different issues of climate change in a way that will be accessible to both science and non-science majors. I can see this book becoming the standard textbook for the growing number of introductory courses that discuss both the science and policy of climate change.' Darryn Waugh, Johns Hopkins University'Dessler does an excellent job of simply explaining the science … should be on the reading list of anyone with an interest in climate science, if for no other reason that it introduces a complex subject in such a coherent and comprehensible fashion.' John Brittan, The Leading Edge'All in all, I expect that this third edition of Introduction to modern Climate Change will continue to be a popular choice in climate science education. It is written for use in undergraduate modules and courses, and it does an excellent job of explaining the fundamentals of climate science and combining these with an insightful treatise of the impacts on society, economy and politics.' John F. Hiemstra, The HoloceneTable of ContentsContents; Preface; 1. An introduction to the climate problem; 2. Is the climate changing?; 3. Radiation and energy balance; 4. A simple climate model; 5. The carbon cycle; 6. Forcing, feedbacks, and climate sensitivity; 7. Why is the climate changing?; 8. Predictions of future climate change; 9. Impacts of climate change; 10. Exponential growth; 11. Fundamentals of climate change policy; 12. Mitigation policies; 13. A brief history of climate science and politics; 14. Putting it together: A long-term policy to address climate change; Index.
£33.24
Chelsea Green Publishing Co What We Think About When We Try Not To Think
Book SynopsisWhy does knowing more mean believing—and doing—less? A prescription for change The more facts that pile up about global warming, the greater the resistance to them grows, making it harder to enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare communities for the inevitable change ahead. It is a catch-22 that starts, says psychologist and economist Per Espen Stoknes, from an inadequate understanding of the way most humans think, act, and live in the world around them. With dozens of examples—from the private sector to government agencies—Stoknes shows how to retell the story of climate change and, at the same time, create positive, meaningful actions that can be supported even by deniers. In What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Stoknes not only masterfully identifies the five main psychological barriers to climate action, but addresses them with five strategies for how to talk about global warming in a way that creates action and solutions, not further inaction and despair. These strategies work with, rather than against, human nature. They are social, positive, and simple—making climate-friendly behaviors easy and convenient. They are also story-based, to help add meaning and create community, and include the use of signals, or indicators, to gauge feedback and be constantly responsive. Whether you are working on the front lines of the climate issue, immersed in the science, trying to make policy or educate the public, or just an average person trying to make sense of the cognitive dissonance or grapple with frustration over this looming issue, What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming moves beyond the psychological barriers that block progress and opens new doorways to social and personal transformation.Trade ReviewChoice, , winner, Outstanding Academic Title 2015- "Stoknes (a psychologist, economist, and entrepreneur based in Norway) does not explain climate change. Rather, he illuminates barriers that prevent solving problems caused by increasing global temperatures while simultaneously giving a clear strategy to overcome these hurdles. The book's three parts—'Thinking: Understanding the Climate Paradox,' 'Doing: If It Doesn't Work, Do Something Else,’ 'Being: Inside the Living Air'—examine how people think about climate, what individuals can do to affect climate, and how one relates to environment. Each is well researched and insightful and offers powerful proposals. Stoknes explains why so many people have laissez-faire attitudes to dire predictions from the scientific community, and he reveals tactics employed by those wishing to conduct business as usual. He poses a clear blueprint for new ways to engage in global climate discussions. This reviewer notices that many journalists are adopting Stoknes’ designs—evidently his ideas are becoming mainstream. Although he successfully addresses the climate issue, it is clear that Stoknes has something bigger in mind as he expertly describes contemporary human relationships with the natural world and offers hope for a revitalized ecological link. This book will initiate a paradigm shift in thinking about and discussing climate change. Read it soon. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.” Library Journal- "Norwegian psychologist and economist Stoknes (Money and Soul) has produced a work about the psychological effects of global warming messages. While accepting dire facts and projections put forth by scientists, the author argues that their usual type of presentation is counterproductive. Providing audiences with abstract but scary information requiring sacrifice has produced apathy and denial among citizens of wealthy nations, the author says. Stoknes notes that there are social barriers against discussing the situation, and it can be politically divisive. However, ethics require all of us to find valid ways to combat climate disruption, he states, adding that we need to harness ancestral human drives to this task. Messaging needs to be simple, positive, and social to lead to mass behavioral change. The author commends movements such as Transition Town, which promotes community resilience and explains that the many inspiring stories about green innovation can help shift public attitudes over time. VERDICT: Stoknes has done a service for readers alarmed or concerned about global warming. He provides helpful strategies for accepting and dealing with their own reactions to the evidence, reducing carbon footprints, and influencing others to do likewise.”Publishers Weekly- Stoknes (Money and Soul), a Norwegian psychologist and economist, addresses the polarized American debate over anthropogenic climate change, observing how it has devolved into 'a deteriorating and desperate spiral.' In this earnest and well-organized volume, he introduces a new aspect to the discussion, focusing not on the phenomenon’s causes or consequences, but people’s responses to it, including how they think, what they do, and how they live in the world. Stoknes puts a cognitive-psychological spin on the matter at hand and differentiates among climate 'skeptics,' ‘contrarians,' and 'deniers,' distinguishing active and passive forms of denial. He also looks at evolutionary self-interest and the ways in which people can use social networks to further their goals. People like to believe their actions matter, he notes, and a solution is more likely to be implemented 'when people want it, like it, love it,' not when they are guilted or shamed into it. The more people 'see happy others conserve energy ... the more they are inclined to support ambitious climate policies on local, state, and national levels.' Framing the argument in this manner, Stoknes effectively combines talk of social psychology with environmental activism.”"Stoknes offers expert insights, drawn from the discipline of psychology and the art of storytelling, to the high-stakes quandary of our time: Why the response to climate change has not, yet, come close to matching the overwhelming magnitude and sophistication of the scientific evidence. He peels away the multiple layers of passivity-inducing narratives, and demonstrates how avoiding climate caricatures—apocalypse on one hand, ecotopia on the other—is the most effective way to prompt action. His alternative narratives, highlighting the many co-benefits of a switch away from fossil fuels, suggest a broad common ground across the ideological spectrum.”--Mark Schapiro, author of Carbon Shock: A Tale of Risk and Calculus on the Front Lines of a Disrupted Global Economy"Science is no longer the bottleneck to action on climate change. Why do we so often ignore, deny, and resist the science? Why aren’t we outraged, demanding change? In a style both rigorous and personal, Per Espen Stoknes explains why, and more importantly, offers strategies for success. A pleasure to read, this book can help us all become more understanding, more committed, more effective—and, along the way, more joyful."--John Sterman, professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World"Mahatma Gandhi said 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' We’re in this last phase but to win we need to change tactics, from using guilt to draw attention to instead using persuasion to change behavior and policy at a mass scale. Per Espen Stoknes shows the way with this brilliant description of how to go with rather than against the flow of human nature and thus shift society to action. There is no more important challenge facing society today and Stoknes's contribution is crucial.”--Paul Gilding, author of The Great Disruption"How, most effectively, to communicate the reality and ramifications of a slow-motion planetary meltdown? Whether you are a scientist or a CEO, an activist or a slacker, this book provides a simple toolkit for breaking down frozen attitudes. As a work that surveys a great deal of psychological research, it's at once accessible, practical, and – in its last third – richly reflective and evocative. In these concluding chapters Stoknes wrestles eloquently with the ways in which earthly calamity reverberates and sometimes wreaks havoc in any person’s innermost sense of self and meaning."--David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous "In a fresh and intimate voice Per Espen Stoknes navigates the obstacles and collective denial of climate change. Drawing on his own deep love of nature he suggests ways to overcome our ‘Deep Grief’ by creating a spiritual connection with the air around us. In every way this is a book full of new perspectives and insights."--George Marshall, author of Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change"Combining an entrepreneur’s innovation with an economist’s analytics and a psychologist’s knowledge of human behavior, Per Espen Stoknes gives us a much-needed guide to moving beyond the politics and paralysis that generally cripple action on climate change, and provides us with concrete ways to inspire grounded hope for real climate solutions”--Heidi Cullen, chief scientist, Climate Central"The human brain is poorly equipped to cope with mind-numbing problems like climate change. Per Espen Stoknes tell us why—and then explains what we can do to change the way we think, act, and live. Highly recommended."--John Elkington, cofounder of Volans, SustainAbility, and Environmental Data Services (ENDS), and coauthor of The Breakthrough Challenge"If information enlightened, then effective climate policies would have been put in place two decades ago, after the second IPCC assessment. The recent, massive fifth assessment enlightens only a teeny bit more. Stoknes’ small, powerful, readable book enables us to build the social networks that will lead to action and change our old stories, the blinders that comfort so many along our path to destruction. Read it, get to work, and find joy in being effective."--Richard B. Norgaard, coauthor of The Climate Challenge Society and professor emeritus, University of California at Berkeley
£18.70
Oxford University Press The Emerald Planet How plants changed Earths
Book SynopsisPlants have profoundly moulded the Earth''s climate and the evolutionary trajectory of life. Far from being ''silent witnesses to the passage of time'', plants are dynamic components of our world, shaping the environment throughout history as much as that environment has shaped them.In The Emerald Planet, David Beerling puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth''s history, and in helping us to predict its future. His account draws together evidence from fossil plants, from experiments with their living counterparts, and from computer models of the ''Earth System'', to illuminate the history of our planet and its biodiversity. This new approach reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, allowing spectacular giant insects to thrive in the Carboniferous; and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. Along the way, Beerling introduces a lively cast of pioneering scientists from Victorian times onwards whose discoveries provided the crucial background to these and the other puzzles.This understanding of our planet''s past sheds a sobering light on our own climate-changing activities, and offers clues to what our climatic and ecological futures might look like. There could be no more important time to take a close look at plants, and to understand the history of the world through the stories they tell.Oxford Landmark Science books are ''must-read'' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.Trade ReviewA fascinating insight into the way life -- especially plants -- evolved on our planet. * Jonathan Cowie, Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation *Review from previous edition Within these pages is one of the greatest stories ever told... It is as fascinating as it is important. * New Scientist *Here at last is David Beerling as the Green Knight, revealing the extraordinary story of the construction of our emerald planet. Rigorous science joins hands with an enthusiastic delivery to re-awaken our fascination in plants, while engaging anecdotes provide a thrilling background to an extraordinary story of climate change and our current environmental crisis. * Simon Conway Morris (author of Life's Solution) *Beerling gives us the big picture of how plants have changed our planet - and poses the key question of how we will manage the emerald planet to ensure the kind of future we desire. * Sir Peter Crane (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 1999-2006) *If I can find a fault with this book it is that each subsequent chapter is so engrossing that it drives the author's previous deliberations from my head... I will return to this book again and again. * Lyn Dunachie, Glasgow Natural History Society *David Beerling's book is both fascinating and important. * P D Smith, The Guardian *An illuminating account of the ways "greenhouse gases, genes, and geochemistry" are linked. * P D Smith, The Guardian *My favourite non-fiction book this year...[a] highly readable history of the last half-billion years on earth * Oliver Sacks, Observer Books of the Year *David Beerling tells two stories in parallel. Both are eloquently and engagingly merged in a scholarly, yet generally accessible book...Beerling provides for the reader a fascinating history of the discovery of fossils and the inferences drawn from them...this book is a wonderful example of the nascent field of Earth systems science. * Paul Falkowski, Nature *...of great value and relevance to all interested in plants, climate and, equally, the future of our 'emerald planet'. * John MacLeod, RHS Professor of Horticulture, Garden *David Beerling's fascinating new book offers a new global perspective on the evolution of our planet...[a] vivid account...The environmental legacy of the plant kingdom upon our world can only be better appreciated after reading this book. * Louis Ronse De Craene *A beautifully detailed account...a gorgeous book. * Steven Poole, The Guardian (Review) *[A] fascinating overview of green evolution. * Karl Dallas, Morning Star *Within these pages is one of the greatest stories ever told ... It is as fascinating as it is important. * New Scientist *The Emerald Planet is a serious talking-to about why plants must not be ignored. * Jonathan Silvertown, TLS *Table of ContentsPreface 1: Introduction 2: Leaves, genes, and greenhouse gases 3: Oxygen and the lost world of giants 4: An ancient ozone catastrophe? 5: Global warming ushers in the dinosaur era 6: The flourishing forests of Antarctica 7: Paradise lost 8: Nature's green revolution 9: Through a glass darkly Notes Index
£999.99
Arkbound Great Adaptations: In the shadow of a climate
Book SynopsisAcross ten captivating and beautifully illustrated chapters, Morgan Phillips recounts stories of adaptation from the air-conditioned pavements of Doha and the feral camels of Australia, to the ‘cool rooms’ of Paris and the ‘fog catchers’ of Morocco. These are the lesser-told stories of good, bad, ugly and very ugly adaptation to climate change – they will be the inspirations for the positive adaptations of the future; and the forewarnings of the mal-adaptations that must be avoided. Great Adaptations is a call to action, it presses home the need for adaptations that are ecologically restorative and socially just. It examines how adaptation is framed, unpicks the contested notion of Deep Adaptation, explores the potential of Transformative Adaptation, and questions the legitimacy of the ‘reassuring stories’ that still dominate mainstream climate discourse. It is conversational, provocative, engaging and visually arresting – a tactile, pocket-sized and very shareable object.Trade Review‘My earnest hope is that this book will be a turning of the tide; and that, with the silence broken, the world can finally begin the painful process of awakening properly to climate reality... including to the reality of how we must now adapt transformatively, if we are to have any chance of heading off eco-induced collapses.’ Prof. Rupert Read, University of East Anglia.
£9.49
Verso Books Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The
Book SynopsisThe environmental crisis under way is unique in human history. It is a true existential crisis. Those alive today will decide the fate of humanity. Meanwhile, the leaders of the most powerful state in human history are dedicating themselves with passion to destroying the prospects for organized human life. At the same time, there is a solution at hand, which is the Green New Deal. Putting meat on the bones of the Green New Deal starts with a single simple idea: we have to absolutely stop burning fossil fuels to produce energy within the next 30 years at most; and we have to do this in a way that also supports rising living standards and expanding opportunities for working people and the poor throughout the world. This version of a Green New Deal program is, in fact, entirely realistic in terms of its purely economic and technical features. The real question is whether it is politically feasible. Chomsky and Pollin examine how we can build the political force to make a global Green New Deal a reality.Trade ReviewThis little book contains a big idea: climate stabilisation that avoids the collapse of organised social life can be achieved, along with more decent jobs, improved living standards and reduced poverty everywhere in the world. Two eminent thinkers present a convincing case for a realistic, feasible Global Green New Deal. * Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi *The project that is the Green New Deal is enriched by the insights of two great minds: those of Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin. Both understand that the GND will fail if it does not protect the jobs and livelihoods of the working class. They explain how a transformation needed to restore the ecosystem can, and will transform the organisations and lives of working people worldwide - for the better. * Ann Pettifor, author of The Case for The Green New Deal *This book is a survival manual for civilization. I want everyone--yes, every person on the planet--to learn its message and to face the challenge it poses: "What am I doing to help bring about a global Green New Deal in the early years of this decade?" For Americans, the first steps are clear: consign all climate deniers to permanent political oblivion and force all other policymakers to match fine words with deeds - i.e.commit to the Pollin-Chomsky global program for climate stabilization, a massive expansion of good jobs, and just transition. -- Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday MachineBrisk and lucid. -- Lit Hub ("Most Anticipated Books of 2020") * John Freeman *In this compelling read, linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky and progressive economist Robert Pollin present a convincing case for a realistic, feasible Global Green New Deal. * Dazed *A thought-provoking and succinct manifesto. -- Russell Whitehouse * International Policy Digest *[Chomsky and Pollin] argue it is possible to tackle climate collapse over the next 30 years ... A capitalist system that fails to respond does not deserve to survive. * Irish Times *Emphasises the crisis our planet faces but also says 'there is a solution at hand'. * Irish Examiner *
£12.34
Pimpernel Press Ltd Gardening in a Changing World: Plants, People and
Book SynopsisOur planet, the Earth, is under threat, with potentially catastrophic consequences for ourselves and the other lifeforms it sustains. Yet Nature itself can still rescue us - with plants playing a pivotal role, in the countryside - and everywhere. In gardens and parks, plants are the mainstay of our relationship with the natural world, and we celebrate them for the pleasures they bring. However, that can be part of the problem: too often we value plants for their aesthetic qualities rather than the vital role they play in the ecology of the Earth. In Gardening in a Changing World Darryl Moore explores how gardens can be better for human beings and for all the other lifeforms that inhabit them. Recent developments in horticulture and plant science show us that we need to rethink our attitude to plants beyond purely aesthetic concerns, and to adopt more holistic approaches to how we design, inhabit and enjoy our gardens. He looks at the history of garden design, to show how we got to where we are today, and recommends ways of changing to new principles of sustainable ecological horticulture. This challenging and important new book will be essential reading for professionals and students of horticulture and garden and landscape design, as well as for anyone interested in making gardens part of the solution to the future of life on Earth.Trade Review‘The most illuminating book on this very important subject.’ -- Cleve West, multi-award-winning garden designer and popular author of books including Our Plot and The Garden of Vegan"I can't recommend this new book enough...a comprehensive and deeply researched account of humans' relationship with plants. The depth of the book is quite extraordinary. It's not a glossy image-led garden book, it's a serious text. And it is a fantastic and up-to-date overview of current trends and approaches in planting design." -- Nigel Dunnett, academic, plantsman, Olympic Park planting designer, author'This book not only acknowledges some of our greatest plantspeople, but ensures that we must always remember plants are front and centre stage on Earth . . . always!' -- Arit Anderson, garden designer, presenter Gardeners' World"The book every gardener needs." -- Claire Masset * Author, Secret Gardens of the National Trust, via Twitter *"Darryl Moore has been revolutionising how we grow in cities for the past decade and picked up a medal for his city-friendly design at RHS Chelsea this year. Here he galvanises readers to make meaningful change - whether in their gardens or beyond." * Sunday Times Best Gardening Books Autumn 2022 *"If there were a prize for most timely publication of the year, this would be a contender...This must-read book is expertly divided into neat, digestible sections that are jam-packed with fascinating and vital information." * Gardens Illustrated Books of the Year *"The premise of this book is simple. To avert further climate crisis and biodiversity loss, we need to rethink our relationship with plants. Gardening in a Changing World covers many complex topics, but it does so in short, digestible chapters and a lucid style...It will alter the way you garden." * Garden Design Journal *"The book forms a new intellectualism towards the use of plants. Moore's book cites more than 300 sources showing how recent developments in horticulture and plant science show how gardens can be better for humans and other lifeforms." -- Matthew Appleby * Horticulture Week *"Darryl Moore explores how our humble gardens could be key to saving us all from the climate crisis. He turns our enjoyment of plants on its head, showing how their vital importance to the future of the planet is even more beautiful than their aesthetic appeal. The book also draws on recent scientific research to offer guidance into changing our gardening habits and rethinking the design and use of our outside spaces for sustainable, future-proof gardens." * Evening Standard *"Hugely informative" * Amateur Gardening *"Gardening in a Changing World sets a new high-water mark in our individual and collective understanding and appreciation of the art and science of ecological planting design. A book for any ecologically-minded gardener or design professional looking to seriously sharpen and elevate their knowledge, awareness, and skill levels." * The New Perennialist *"A fascinating exploration of how gardens can be better for human beings, with reference to recent plant science that demonstrates the need to have a new attitude to plants beyond aesthetics. This book provides an introduction to taking a holistic approach when designing, inhabiting and enjoying our gardens." -- The Garden (RHS)Table of Contents Preface Introduction - A Changing World: Life in the Anthropocene; the climate and extinction crises 1. Plants as Producers: In Praise of Plants; Plants and a Changing Planet 2. Plants as Panacea: The Unseen Green- Plant Blindness; Health and Well-being; The Nature Disconnect; Managing the Environment; Ecosystem Services; Environmental Practice; Novel Ecosystems; Urban Ecology; Garden Ecology; Cleaning up the Garden 3. Plants as Pictures - Historical Planting Styles: Growing the Idea of the Garden; The Colourists (Gertrude Jekyll, the Garden Club of America, Lawrence Johnston, Vita Sackville-West, Margery Fish, Rosemary Verey, Penelope Hobhouse, etc.); Planting Through the Lens of Modernism (Garrett Eckbo, Thomas Church, Roberto Burle Marx, John Brookes, etc); The Zenith of Pictorial. Planting and the Path to Biodiversity (Christopher Lloyd and Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter); Right Plant, Right Place (Beth Chatto) 4. Plants as Processes - The ecological alternative: Ecological Planting; Plant Communities; The Competitive Edge and Beyond; Ecological Developments in the United States; Growing Wild in the Netherlands; Ecological Developments in Germany; New Directions in Britain; France: All Change 5. Plant as Possibilities: Ecotypes; The Rhizosphere; Mutualisms; Microbiomes; Biocenology; Plant Intelligence (Thinking Like a Plant) 6. Plants as Partners Traditional Ecological Knowledge; The Law of the Land; A Plantcentric Perspective Notes, Resources, Index, Acknowledgements
£17.00
The University of Chicago Press Heat Wave
Book SynopsisOn Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day on which the temperature would eventually climb to 106 degrees. This book reveals how in coming decades the effects of climate change will intensify the social and environmental pressures in urban areas around the world.Trade Review"Klinenberg draws the lines of culpability in dozens of directions, drawing a dense and subtle portrait of exactly what happened." (Malcolm Gladwell) "Revelatory." (Chicago) "Should be required reading for all public officials." (Choice)
£17.10
Island Press Green Growth That Works: Natural Capital Policy
Book SynopsisRapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being. It has lifted millions out of poverty, raised standards of living, and increased life expectancies. But economic development comes at a significant cost to natural capital--the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, farmland--that support all life on earth, including our own. The dilemma of our times is to figure out how to improve the human condition without destroying nature's. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One answer is inclusive green growth--the efficient use of natural resources. Inclusive green growth minimizes pollution and strengthens communities against natural disasters while reducing poverty through improved access to health, education, and services. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it. Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth's myriad ecosystems, including: Government subsidies Regulatory-driven mitigation Voluntary conservation Water funds Market-based transactions Bilateral and multilateral payments Through a series of real-world case studies, the book addresses questions such as: How can we channel economic incentives to make conservation and restoration desirable? What approaches have worked best? How can governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals work together successfully? Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.
£26.00
Penguin Books Ltd A Farewell to Ice A Report from the Arctic
Book Synopsis''Astonishing ... beautiful, compelling and terrifying'' Observer''Wadhams'' writing sparkles ... a lyrical sense of wonder at the natural world ... essential reading ... may be the best reader-friendly account of the greenhouse effect available to date'' John Burnside, New StatesmanIce is beautiful and complex. It regulates our planet''s temperature. And it is vanishing - fast. Peter Wadhams, the world''s leading expert on sea ice, draws on his lifetime''s research in the Arctic region to illuminate what is happening, what it means for the future, and what can be done.''This most experienced and rational scientist states what so many other researchers privately fear but cannot publicly say'' John Vidal, Guardian''Wadhams brings huge expertise to his subject - and he is an excellent writer'' Martin Rees''Utterly extraordinary'' Jonathon PorrittTrade ReviewWadhams's particular combination - of scientific passion, a lyrical sense of wonder at the natural world, an ability to pluck clear analogies from the air, and outspoken analysis of consumer-capitalist politics - marks out A Farewell to Ice as essential reading. -- John Burnside * New Statesman *A passionate, authoritative overview of the role of ice in our climate system, past, present and, scarily, the future. -- Carl Wunsch, Professor Emeritus of Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
£11.69
Yale University Press Burn Out
Book Synopsis
£13.99
Greystone Books,Canada Angry Weather: Heat Waves, Floods, Storms, and
Book SynopsisFrom leading climate scientist Dr. Friederike Otto, this gripping book reveals the revolutionary science that definitively links extreme weather events—including deadly heat waves, forest fires, floods, and hurricanes—to climate change.“Meet the forensic scientists of climate change; if you like CSI, you’ll be equally enthralled with the skill and speed these folks exhibit. But the stakes are infinitely higher!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter and The End of NatureTied with Hurricane Katrina as the costliest cyclone on record, Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding and over a hundred deaths in 2017. Angry Weather tells the compelling, day-by-day story of the World Weather Attribution unit—a team of scientists that studies extreme weather events while they’re happening—and their race to track the connection between the hurricane and climate change. As the hurricane unfolds, Otto reveals how attribution science works in real time, and determines that Harvey’s terrifying floods were three times more likely to occur due to human-induced climate change.At the forefront of cutting-edge climate science, Friederike Otto uncovers how the new ability to determine climate change’s role in extreme weather events can dramatically transform how we view the climate crisis: from how it will affect those of us who are most vulnerable, to the corporations and governments that may find themselves held accountable in the courts. The research laid out in Angry Weather will have profound impacts, both today and for the future of humankind.Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.Trade Review"A good overview of the climate-change issue, the evolution of climate change in the industrial era, the politics over the issue, and the responsibilities of the industrialized world—in particular, corporations and governments—to help repair the damage. The result is a most timely book."—Booklist"For the fact-minded, Otto's arguments are incontrovertible."—Kirkus Reviews"This elegant new branch of climate science [will] have profound implications for public policy and planning, and will lead to even more useful research in the future."—Vancouver Sun"Angry Weather is all about science, but it is not all technical. It is a readable book for those who have limited knowledge of weather and climate systems. Otto provides succinct scientific explanations throughout the book to ensure her main points are supported by science but still understandable and relevant to the main message."—Alternatives Journal"Attribution science—climate forensics, or reverse engineering—is a new discipline explained in this book with passion and verve by one of its creators. Fredi Otto is destined to be one of those rare scientists whose name becomes well known in the wider world."—Mark Denny, author of Making Sense of Weather and Climate: The Science Behind the Forecasts"Angry Weather introduces us to the forensic scientists of climate change; if you like to watch CSI, you'll be equally enthralled with the skill and speed these folks exhibit. But the stakes are infinitely higher!"—Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?"[A] thrilling work of nonfiction... If readers were holding any doubt about climate's effects on weather before picking up this book, that doubt will be eviscerated before the last gripping page."—Literary Hub"This fascinating book takes us on a voyage across the cutting edge of climate science that irrevocably alters our perspective of the world in which we live and the future it holds. I wish I could make this book required reading for the world."—Katharine Hayhoe, UN Champion of the Earth
£18.04
C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Geopolitics for the End Time: From the Pandemic
Book SynopsisA sharp vision of our changing world order as Covid and climate breakdown usher in a new ‘survival of the fittest’. How well have different cultures and societies responded, and could this become a turning point in the flow of history? Before Covid, a new competition was already arising between alternative geopolitical models–but the context of this clash wasn’t yet clear. What if it takes place on neutral ground? In a state of nature, with few or no political rules, amid quickly evolving chaos? When the greatest threat to national security is no longer other states, but the environment itself, which countries might rise to the top? This book explores how Covid-19 has already transformed the global system, and how it serves as a prelude to a planet afflicted by climate change. Bruno Maçães is one of the first to see the pandemic as the dawn of a new strategic era, heralding a profoundly changed world-political landscape. Cover image: Ludwig Meidner, ‘Apocalyptic City’, 1913. © Ludwig Meidner-Archiv, Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am MainTrade Review'Perceptive.' -- The Economist'Refreshing.' -- Simon Jenkins, New Statesman'Provocative and original.' -- Gideon Rachman, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Financial Times'Endlessly inventive, restlessly cosmopolitan, Bruno Macaes has written an essential book with which to think about the Covid crisis and its implications for our future.' -- Professor Adam Tooze, historian and author of 'Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World''With typical panache, Macaes set out the story of what went wrong when Covid-19 spread around the world--and why. Gripping, terrifying and revealing in equal measures.' -- Professor Peter Frankopan, author of 'The Silk Roads: A New History of the World''2020 was the true start of the twenty-first century, marking the death of an old world, and a recognition that new ideas in culture, politics, science and technology have become possible. Macaes does an excellent job of taking us through some core themes of the world to come.' -- Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum and Bitcoin Magazine'Travelling through Covid exposes the reality of our leaders and lives. Maçães shows us why that matters not just for the pandemic but for life itself. This is a compelling polemic worth reading slowly, during another lockdown, perhaps.' -- Tom Tugendhat, Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling'An important book. Bruno Macaes once again asks the crucial questions.' -- Ece Temelkuran, journalist, novelist, political commentator and author of 'How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship'
£12.34
New Society Publishers The Story is in Our Bones
Book SynopsisA dominant, human-centered worldview has brought us to the brink of social, ecological, and climate collapse. Braiding poetic storytelling, deep cultural and climate justice analyses, and knowledge of Earth-centered cultures, The Story is in Our Bones opens a portal to restoration and justice beyond the end of a world.Trade Review"Highly recommended" —Library Journal "Filled with countless examples of women and Indigenous people reclaiming their power, The Story Is in Our Bones shares a hopeful, creative vision for Earth’s future" —Foreword Reviews "These pages summon from our bones our commitment to defend this living Earth. I bow to Osprey in deepest respect and gratitude for her years of inspired activism and this brilliant book." —Joanna Macy, environmental activist, scholar, Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology, author, Coming Back to Life and Active Hope, and featured, A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time "Osprey Orielle Lake has given us a magnificent book loaded with knowledge, wisdom, and fine story-telling. In it she lays out a tapestry of multiple pathways that unite to demand humility in our relationship with Mother Earth. The book exposes colonialism, imperialism, racism, capitalism, and patriarchal systems as the underlying factors that have fostered an extractivist, ecologically degrading mindset that drives the current polycrisis. With lavish examples of traditional ecological knowledge, reciprocal economic and governance frameworks, and new narratives, The Story is in Our Bones does not leave the reader exasperated and helpless—it is an empowering call for action." —Nnimmo Bassey , author, To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa, Right Livelihood Award winner "As a young Indigenous woman, it is important to me that we consider all the complex intersections of colonialism, racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and ecocide while building a better world. This incredibly important and timely book includes the memory and knowledge of how we can live in balance with nature, which still lives on in Indigenous communities and is crucial to solving the multiple crises we are facing!" —Helena Gualinga (Kichwa from Sarayaku), Indigenous youth climate leader, Ecuadorian Amazon "The Story is in Our Bones is a remarkable achievement, a rich read, and one surely not to miss. For anyone who wonders—as I often do—how on Earth we're going to navigate the seemingly intractable confluence of crises, this extraordinary book offers a very potent recipe, spanning culture, global systemic change, sense-making, and remembrance of our Earth legacy. The book resonates from mind to belly to bones." —Nina Simons, co-founder, chief relationship officer, Bioneers "Osprey Orielle Lake guides us on a majestic journey of sense making for the 21st century as we attempt to emerge from emergency. She leads us through the importance of adopting a systems approach that fosters new economic models and the need to value nature and climate justice. The resounding message throughout this book is to act with urgency and purpose in these times of interlocking crises." —Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president, The Club of Rome, co-author, Earth for All "In this beautifully written book, The Story is in Our Bones offers a frank acknowledgment of the Anthropocene that serves as a vital, yet sober grounding in what we should already know but many are in denial to fully admit. At the same time, Osprey skillfully weaves history, mythology, anthropology, climate and earth science, sociology, and spirituality to illustrate the central message. Capitalism and colonialism have gotten us on this path of catastrophic climate change, but as she says, they can be transformed. Whether it is learning from ancestors from Ukraine, movements like Via Campesina, or women foresters from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the path to a Just Transition and healthy ways of living like Buen Vivir, are rooted in interconnection and in learning from the story. If we do this, we all thrive, nestled in the bosom of Mother Earth." —Jacqui Patterson, founder, executive director, The Chisholm Legacy Project "This book traces luminous threads of possibility away from extractive collapse, coalescing back into reciprocity with sovereign living processes. Osprey Orielle Lake reminds us of the ancient lineage of regeneration, alive in our cells, awakening now in sacred form and practical action, in just the right places and forms to bring down the planetary fever." —Stuart Cowan, executive director, Buckminster Fuller Institute, co-author, Ecological Design "In this landmark offering, Lake, a tireless campaigner for a just and vibrant world, gives voice to those who have long been marginalized by the dominant culture: Indigenous and Black women from around the world along with the multitudes of our nonhuman relatives. At its core, this marvelous wide-ranging book takes us on a deep dive into root causes of our polycrisis and with flair and scholarship delivers a roadmap toward cultural transformation." —Jeremy Lent, author, The Web of Meaning and The Patterning Instinct "Reading this book in these dark times of increasing ecological destruction, is like being a salmon in the depths who scents the stream of origin that will guide it home. Osprey Orielle Lake speaks with great wisdom and scholarship—interweaving her exquisite sensitivity for the voice of the wild with her vast experience as a movement leader, and the knowledge of the many frontline communities she stands with. Reassuring us that the wisdom of our Earth-loving ancestors is still within us, Osprey shows how people all over the world are rising to defend Earth and bring more just and ecologically benign societies into being." —Cormac Cullinan, author, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, director, Wild Law Institute "Osprey Orielle Lake, in her magnificent The Story is in our Bones, offers us a new cosmology and a new lens with which to see reality. By combining the wisdom in Indigenous origin stories from around the planet with modern ecological knowledge, her work awakens a radical imagination capable of ushering forth a vibrant Earth Community. If you read her book and dwell in its wisdom, you will soon find yourself in the next era of your creative life." —Brian Thomas Swimme, author, Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe, director, Human Energy "This is a very valuable book. It delves deep into what we can and must learn from both Indigenous worldviews and the natural world that has helped inform them, and it does so without sentimentality or rancor; in so doing, it opens a number of paths for everyone trying to think more wisely about how we can inhabit a planet in fundamental crisis. It would best be read not as an intellectual exercise but as a guidebook to real change." —Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature, founder, Third Act "This is a profound and much-needed book. I am grateful to Osprey Orielle Lake for presenting an in-depth analysis of the root causes of the ecological crises we face and for paths forward to secure the future of humanity in harmony with nature. With gorgeous poetics and precise logic, the chapters show us how to build a thriving future informed by radical imagination, science, Indigenous People's wisdom, and principles of climate justice. Simply stunning. " —Farhana Yamin, lawyer, climate activist, Honorary Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford UniversityTable of ContentsAuthor's Note Foreword By Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca Nation, Environmental Ambassador and Hereditary Drum Keeper of the Ponca Tribe Part I: Entering the Terrain Chapter 1: Worldviews Are a Portal Chapter 2: The Story Is in Our Bones: Origin Stories to Remake our World Chapter 3: Ancient Trees and Ancestral Warnings Chapter 4: A Visionary Declaration from the Amazon Part II: Dismantling Patriarchy, Racism, and the Myth of Whiteness: Ancient Mother and Women Rising Chapter 5: She Rises Chapter 6: Tracing and Healing the Assault on Women Chapter 7: Listening to Black and Indigenous Women, and Debunking the Myth of Whiteness Chapter 8: Worldviews of Our Ancestral Lineages Part III: Reciprocity: A Thousandfold Act of Responsibility and Love Chapter 9: Offering and Tending to the Land Chapter 10: Composting the Cultural Toxins of Colonization and Capitalism Chapter 11: Reciprocal Relationships with People and Land Part IV: Living in Balance with the Natural Laws of the Earth Chapter 12: Rights of Nature: A Systemic Solution Part V: The Land Is Speaking: Language, Memory, and a Storied Living Landscape Chapter 13: Worldviews Conjured by Words Chapter 14: Songlines Through the Landscape Chapter 15: Building a Relationship with the Storied Land Reader's Guide and Resources Acknowledgments Credits Endnotes Index About the Author About the Publisher
£32.39
MIT Press Democracy in a Hotter Time
Book SynopsisThe first major book to deal with the dual crises of democracy and climate change as one interrelated threat to the human future and to identify a path forward.Democracy in a Hotter Time calls for reforming democratic institutions as a prerequisite for avoiding climate chaos and adapting governance to how Earth works as a physical system. To survive in the “long emergency” ahead, we must reform and strengthen democratic institutions, making them assets rather than liabilities. Edited by David W. Orr, this vital collection of essays proposes a new political order that will not only help humanity survive but also enable us to thrive in the transition to a post–fossil fuel world.Orr gathers leading scholars, public intellectuals, and political leaders to address the many problems confronting our current political systems. Few other books have taken a systems view of the effects of a rapidly destabilizing climate on our laws and governance or
£19.55
Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG Understanding climate change: with Sketchnotes
Book SynopsisWhat is driving climate change? What impact does it have on the Earth's ecosystems, our environment, and us? What can I do? This book explains in a clear and understandable way the interrelationships, influencing factors and effects of the greatest challenge facing mankind: climate change.The team of authors presents over 100 aspects in clear language, each on a double-page spread. With impressive sketchnotes, professor and sketchnoter Katharina Theis-Bröhl illustrates and explains the sometimes simple, sometimes complicated issues always understandable. Because: Sketchnotes are not only beautiful to look at – they are also an effective mnemonic, a structural tool and an aid to crystallize the essentials. Comprehensible accompanying texts by Cecilia Scorza and Harald Lesch round off each topic in an informative way. With this book, you can understand the causes of climate change, discover the physical connections, and recognize both local and global impacts. You will learn about the role our location in the solar system plays, the feedback processes involved in global warming, and what it means when the oceans acidify. And ultimately, the question will be asked: How much time do we have left to act? From the contents:How special is the Earth? – Understanding the greenhouse effect – The Earth's climate system – The climate change – Effects of climate change – What can I do? – A look ahead Table of ContentsHow special is the Earth?.- The sun as a source of energy.- Understanding the greenhouse effect.- The Earth's climate system.- Climate change.- Effects of the climate system.- What can I do?.- Future view.
£20.69
Princeton University Press The Spirit of Green
Book SynopsisTrade Review"William D. Nordhaus, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics""One of Foreign Affairs' Best Books""A Project Syndicate Commentators' Best Reads of the Year""Winner of the Silver Medal in Philanthropy / Nonprofit / Sustainability, Axiom Business Book Awards""A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year""Nordhaus’s green compendium is rational and balanced. . . . The author of The Spirit of Green clearly cares intensely about the climate, believes economics offers answers, and sees some welcome positive trends."---Richard Beales, Reuters Breakingviews"A compelling read, and a highly recommended up-to-date guide to the economics of the environment and climate change."---Bejoy K. Thomas, Current Science"In this superb analysis, Nordhaus (Yale Univ.), Nobel laureate in economics, contends that addressing environmental problems should not inhibit economic growth. . . . Highly recommended." * Choice *
£22.50
Chelsea Green Publishing Co The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of
Book SynopsisWith carbon farming, agriculture ceases to be part of the climate problem and becomes a critical part of the solution "This book is the toolkit for making the soil itself a sponge for carbon. It’s a powerful vision."—Bill McKibben "The Carbon Farming Solution is a book we will look back upon decades from now and wonder why something so critically relevant could have been so overlooked until that time. . . . [It] describes the foundation of the future of civilization."—Paul Hawken In this groundbreaking book, Eric Toensmeier argues that agriculture—specifically, the subset of practices known as "carbon farming"—can, and should be, a linchpin of a global climate solutions platform. Carbon farming is a suite of agricultural practices and crops that sequester carbon in the soil and in above-ground biomass. Combined with a massive reduction in fossil fuel emissions—and in concert with adaptation strategies to our changing environment— carbon farming has the potential to bring us back from the brink of disaster and return our atmosphere to the "magic number" of 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Toensmeier’s book is the first to bring together these powerful strategies in one place. Includes in-depth analysis of the available research. Carbon farming can take many forms. The simplest practices involve modifications to annual crop production. Although many of these modifications have relatively low sequestration potential, they are widely applicable and easily adopted, and thus have excellent potential to mitigate climate change if practiced on a global scale. Likewise, grazing systems such as silvopasture are easily replicable, don’t require significant changes to human diet, and—given the amount of agricultural land worldwide that is devoted to pasture—can be important strategies in the carbon farming arsenal. But by far, agroforestry practices and perennial crops present the best opportunities for sequestration. While many of these systems are challenging to establish and manage, and would require us to change our diets to new and largely unfamiliar perennial crops, they also offer huge potential that has been almost entirely ignored by climate crusaders. Many of these carbon farming practices are already implemented globally on a scale of millions of hectares. These are not minor or marginal efforts, but win-win solutions that provide food, fodder, and feedstocks while fostering community self-reliance, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and repairing degraded land—all while sequestering carbon, reducing emissions, and ultimately contributing to a climate that will remain amenable to human civilization. Just as importantly to a livable future, these crops and practices can contribute to broader social goals such as women’s empowerment, food sovereignty, and climate justice. The Carbon Farming Solution is—at its root—a toolkit and the most complete collection of climate-friendly crops and practices currently available. With this toolkit, farmers, communities, and governments large and small, can successfully launch carbon farming projects with the most appropriate crops and practices to their climate, locale, and socioeconomic needs. Toensmeier’s ultimate goal is to place carbon farming firmly in the center of the climate solutions platform, alongside clean solar and wind energy. With The Carbon Farming Solution, Toensmeier wants to change the discussion, impact policy decisions, and steer mitigation funds to the research, projects, and people around the world who envision a future where agriculture becomes the protagonist in this fraught, urgent, and unprecedented drama of our time. Citizens, farmers, and funders will be inspired to use the tools presented in this important book to transform degraded lands around the world into productive carbon-storing landscapes.Trade ReviewJournal of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems- "Readers interested in carbon capture and climate mitigation will welcome this new resource, one of the most complete books on the market today that deals with what could be called 'carbon farming.' Although the focus is on perennial crops and systems often grouped under the topics of agroforestry, or more recently permaculture, the book also delves into creative and biodiverse annual cropping and livestock systems, new crops, and innovative designs all focused on the issue of carbon. Toensmeier is an applied ecologist with extensive experience in the Latin American tropics, and practices these principles in workshops, books, and at home. More than a reference volume, The Carbon Farming Solution is an easily read and interesting overview of this important frontier. … The appendixes to the book provide a wealth of data on species and relevant references that could keep anyone truly interested engaged for months in following up on sources and designing new systems based on these ideas. The Carbon Farming Solution is indeed a monumental project that will help guide tropical agricultural development for decades, and Toensmeier has provided a significant resource for those concerned about climate and the future.”Choice- "The terrestrial carbon pool is one of the most dynamic because it is directly affected by how people manage soils and implement cropping systems. The renewed interest in sequestering carbon into the soil reservoir creates a series of questions on how to introduce practices that are effective in increasing soil carbon along with providing plant resources to sustain the goods and services needed for a healthy ecosystem. In this volume, Toensmeier (Yale Univ.), co-author with David Jacke of Edible Forest Gardens, (v. 1) (CH, Jan'06, 43-2794), explores the carbon sequestration potential of different agroecological systems. He directly compares these systems, revealing the limitations of each and placing their dynamics in perspective. These include annual versus perennial systems and grasses and crops versus trees. As the subtitle indicates, the book uses a toolkit approach to help readers understand the value of selecting different practices and species appropriate to a given ecosystem. Included in the analysis of mitigation strategies are livestock systems and ways these can be managed in concert with plant systems to create viable agroecosystems to reduce the carbon footprint in agriculture. Summing Up: Recommended. All library collections.”Booklist- "To minimize climate change, environmental engineers have recently proposed several innovative, if controversial, schemes designed to soak up CO2 or even block sunlight altogether, including spraying aerosols in the upper atmosphere. Yet, according to permaculture expert Toensmeier, a more reliable and safer solution involves trading in conventional agriculture practices for a soil-management methodology known as carbon farming. In this weighty but well-organized handbook, Toensmeier offers a wealth of guidance on cutting-edge farming techniques that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and capture carbon in vegetation and soils. As a successful model of what’s possible, Toensmeier cites Las Canadas, in Veracruz, Mexico, where food-cooperative owner Ricardo Romero restored 250 acres of degraded farmland within 10 years. In 5 lucidly written sections, Toensmeier covers the science of carbon sequestration, perennial crop cultivation, and key financing tips. On the coattails of the recent, successful Paris Climate Summit, Toensmeier provides invaluable information and inspiration to farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs as well as everyone interested in environmentally positive farming as part of the effort to protect food sources and mitigate global warming.”Library Journal- "Toensmeier (Perennial Vegetables) contends that shifting agricultural practices can help mitigate climate change and advocates for carbon farming, i.e., using a suite of perennial crops and practices that simultaneously seclude carbon in the soil while maintaining the amounts of crops needed globally for food, materials, and energy. The author delineates the different types of systems that are best at sequestering carbon and also provides strategies for livestock management, supplying general information on practices such as rainwater harvesting and terrace farming that will help guarantee the successful implementation of this type of farming. A large section is devoted to perennial crops that Toensmeier maintains would be strong candidates for carbon farming. VERDICT: Both small- and large-scale farmers will find ways to apply methods that segregate carbon and therefore lessen the deleterious effects of climate change in this comprehensive title.”“Agriculture is currently a major net producer of greenhouse gases, with little prospect of improvement unless things change markedly. In The Carbon Farming Solution, Eric Toensmeier puts carbon sequestration at the forefront and shows how agriculture can be a net absorber of carbon. Improved forms of annual-based agriculture can help to a degree; however to maximize carbon sequestration, it is perennial crops we must look at, whether it be perennial grains, other perennial staples, or agroforestry systems incorporating trees and other crops. In this impressive book, backed up with numerous tables and references, the author has assembled a toolkit that will be of great use to anybody involved in agriculture whether in the tropics or colder northern regions. For me the highlights are the chapters covering perennial crop species organized by use—staple crops, protein crops, oil crops, industrial crops, etc.—with some seven hundred species described. There are crops here for all climate types, with good information on cultivation and yields, so that wherever you are, you will be able to find suitable recommended perennial crops. This is an excellent book that gives great hope without being naïve and makes a clear reasoned argument for a more perennial-based agriculture to both feed people and take carbon out of the air.”--Martin Crawford, director, The Agroforestry Research Trust; author of Creating a Forest Garden and Trees for Gardens, Orchards, and Permaculture “Scientific observations and models are building an increasingly dire picture of the obstacles that must be crossed on the road to achieving climate and ecological health and stability on a planet filled with humans. The relentlessly hopeful (but not naively optimistic) author of The Carbon Farming Solution reminds us that our planet is still rich in biological resources and that humanity is capable of astonishing feats of creativity and collaborative action; the picture painted here in word and image depicts both the barriers and paths through them. Eric Toensmeier draws upon both the scientific literature and the world’s ethnobotanical knowledge bank to construct a logical and compelling road map for future research and investment to reinvent agriculture. But reason and facts alone are insufficient to sustain a global and long-term agenda; passion is required. In the end, it is the perennial plants (and their human and microbial partners) themselves—lovingly portrayed here in their glorious diversity and elegant functionality—that steal the show and our hearts. This ‘Who’s Who’ of wild or orphaned potential crops can inspire a new generation of plant lovers and gardeners to become the convention-questioning, dedicated, passionate, hopeful scientists, farmers, and leaders that the movement requires.”--David Van Tassel, PhD, senior scientist, The Land Institute“These are exciting times for soil carbon! What was once an obscure topic mainly of interest to agronomists and gardeners is now viewed by many people as a key to solving multiple challenges in the 21st century, including climate change, hunger, and drought. For urgent times, we need an urgent agriculture. That’s exactly what we get in Eric Toensmeier’s new book—a detailed, practical explanation of how to increase carbon in our soils, written with passion and skill by a leader in regenerative agriculture. We know what to do, and with The Carbon Farming Solution we know how to do it. Let’s get going!"--Courtney White, author of Grass, Soil, Hope and Two Percent Solutions for the Planet“Eric Toensmeier has done it again! The Carbon Farming Solution is a detailed vision that will become the go-to reference guide for everyone who is interested in an accessible toolkit showcasing global agroecological carbon farming in action. This indispensable book needs to be put in the hands of all climate-change policy makers, agrarians, and people who eat food, drink water, and breathe air. Mr. Toensmeier’s book is not ground-breaking—it is ground-healing!”--Brock Dolman, director, Permaculture Program and WATER Institute at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center“The Carbon Farming Solution is a book we will look back upon decades from now and wonder why something so critically relevant could have been so overlooked until that time. We are told we have a choice between chemical/GMO agriculture if we want to feed the world, or we can see children starve and adopt organic agriculture as a romantic and sentimental pursuit. Really? Toensmeier describes a future that is in alignment with how life works, a scientific and sophisticated agricultural understanding of husbandry and biology that surpasses the productivity of industrial agriculture. What is phenomenal about these land-use solutions is that they are the only way we can bring carbon back home if we are to reverse climate change. The title is accurate but humble: The Carbon Farming Solution describes the foundation of the future of civilization.”--Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest“Eric Toensmeier presents a convincing argument that carbon farming is crucial to addressing global issues of the 21st century including climate change, food and nutritional insecurity, eutrophication and contamination of water, and dwindling of soil biodiversity. Implemented in a transparent manner and with payments of just and fair price based on the true societal value, carbon farming is also pertinent to alleviating poverty and addressing several Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Carbon farming as a strategy is in accord with the “4 pour 1000” initiative of the French Government presented during the COP-21 Summit in Paris on December 1, 2015 and The Carbon Farming Solution is a befitting tribute to the 2015 International Year of Soils.”--Dr. Rattan Lal, Distinguished University Professor of Soil Science and director of The Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, The Ohio State University; President Elect, International Union of Soil Sciences“The Carbon Farming Solution is a book whose time has come. This detailed documentation of regenerative practices from around the world, including principles and methods, provides a practical guide for others to follow and expand upon as humanity takes on the ‘Great Work of Our Time’—to restore the Earth’s natural systems to ecological health. The Carbon Farming Solution is of enormous importance.”--John D. Liu, founder and director, Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP)“If we seriously put our minds to it, we could easily provide ourselves with enough food, forever; and do so in ecologically sound ways; and at the same time—a huge bonus!—trap enough carbon in the soil to tip the battle against global warming. The methods are those of agroecology—including organic farming in general, and permaculture in particular; and as Eric Toensmeier excellently describes, farmers worldwide are already on the case. So this book offers what governments at present spectacularly do not: hope.”--Colin Tudge, author of Good Food for Everyone Forever and Why Genes Are Not Selfish and People Are Nice“Eric Toensmeier has done a hugely impressive job putting together this magnum opus. It is packed with an enormous amount of information about seven hundred plant species that have a role to play in saving the planet from land degradation and climate change, while at the same time improving the lives of millions of poor farmers, especially in the tropics and sub-tropics. The Carbon Farming Solution covers species for every use and every situation that can be assembled in infinite agroecological combinations. On top of that, the cultivation of these crops can lead to new industries in the production of food, medicines, cosmetics, and materials—creating wealth and employment. This information should be absorbed by everyone engaged in agriculture; everyone concerned about the future of the world and the well-being and health of its people; and everyone interested in protecting biodiversity. Indeed, The Carbon Farming Solution offers a path to a bright new world!”--Professor Roger Leakey, vice chairman of the International Tree Foundation and author of Living with the Trees of Life“Eric Toensmeier is one of North America’s most inventive and scientifically-minded permaculture experimenters. In this book, he offers nothing less than a new vision for world agriculture that is more resilient, supports traditional farmers, and also helps relieve the global climate crisis. The Carbon Farming Solution offers an encyclopedic but also highly readable view of new and old carbon-trapping farming methods that can be applied around the world, and a profile of the highly adaptable, soil-enhancing perennial plant species that may just be the key to a livable human future.”--Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology and author of Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change“The Carbon Farming Solution is an excellent reference book that convincingly explains the potential of farming practices based on perennial crops for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The numerous photographs and charts included help illustrate the food-security and multi-functionality attributes of agroforestry and other such farming systems. In addition to professionals who work on food security and climate stabilization issues, undergraduate and graduate students of these topics will find the book useful.”--Dr. P. K. Ramachandran Nair, Distinguished Professor in the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida“Dealing with climate change requires action on many fronts, and this book is the toolkit for making the soil itself a sponge for carbon. It’s a powerful vision, one that I’ve seen playing out in enough places to make me very hopeful it can presage major changes in our species’ use of the land.”--Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy“In The Carbon Farming Solution, Eric Toensmeier admirably harnesses available data with traditional wisdom to propose a practical response to climate change. Toensmeier’s solution-oriented ideas combine his clear understanding of ecology, agriculture, and the magnitude of the challenge we face with a set of agriculture-based solutions that are suited to various livelihoods, communities, and systems of production. This book will surely be a benchmark in policy-relevant knowledge.”--Dr. Cheikh Mbow, senior scientist on climate change and development, World Agroforestry Centre
£45.00
HarperCollins Publishers Ecology and Natural History Collins New
Book SynopsisEcology is the science of ecosystems, of habitats, of our world and its future. In the latest New Naturalist, ecologist David M. Wilkinson explains key ideas of this crucial branch of science, using Britain's ecosystems to illustrate each point.The science of ecology underlies most of the key issues facing humanity, from the loss of biodiversity to sustainable agriculture, to the effects of climate change and the spread of pandemics. In this accessible and timely addition to the New Naturalist series, ecologist David M. Wilkinson introduces some of the key ideas of this science, using examples from British natural history. Extensively illustrated with photographs of the species and habitats that can be seen in the British countryside, this book shows how the observations of field naturalists link into our wider understanding of the working of the natural world.Investigating ecosystems across the British Isles, from the Scottish and Welsh mountains to the woodlands of southern England aTrade Review‘All books in the New Naturalist series deal with ecology and natural history in one way or another, but this is the first to take ecology itself as the main theme. It provides a broad but comprehensive overview of the subject … The author has a pleasant ‘storytelling’ style, well suited to the task; this is a book that could, I think, be read and understood by anyone with a keen interest. I’ve bought plenty of books in this series over the years but this is the first for a while that I’ve been inspired to read through, cover to cover, within a few days.’ Ian Carter, British Birds ‘Gives a real feel of what ecologists actually have to do, and how their methods and conclusions are changing … Hasbeen done very well, combining the scientific knowledge intoan interesting story … An excellent book’ The Linnean Praise for David M. Wilkinson ‘Wilkinson offers answers as good as science currently can deliver’ Science ‘This is a fascinating book. Every ecologist will profit from reading it’ Basic and Applied Ecology ‘Extraordinarily readable and accessible … Examines some of the very basic questions underlying ecology in its widest sense’ British Ecological Society Bulletin Praise for the New Naturalist series ‘Taken either individually or as a whole, they are one of the proudest achievements of modern publishing’ The Sunday Times ‘The series is an amazing achievement’ The Times Literary Supplement
£28.00
HarperCollins UK Fragile Planet The impact of climate change
Book Synopsis
£13.59
HarperCollins Publishers Positively Green
Book SynopsisPositively Green is a guide to caring for the planet and yourself.From journalist and Positive News partnerships editor Sarah LaBrecque, National Trust's Positively Green is an informative and captivating guide to sustainable living. With chapters on energy, fashion, food and more, you'll discover what works, what's worth doing, and what's not.Positively Green provides advice on how to reduce your environmental impact, all while easing climate anxiety and boosting mental wellbeing. From changing how you clean your home to putting food impacts into perspective, this book is the perfect resource for those wanting to limit their effect on the environment and reduce climate-based worries.Chapters include: A Green Home, Energy, Food and Drink, Fashion, Technology, Transport and Travel, and Nature. As well as useful tips and links for further information, the book features Positivity Pauses' inspiring vignettes that pull in wisdom from leading thinkers, academics and writers about how to face the climate crisis with optimistic realism.
£9.49
Penguin Random House India Climate Change 2100 Survive or Thrive
a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.
£22.79
Oxford University Press Inc Saving Animals Saving Ourselves
Book SynopsisIn 2020, COVID-19, the Australia bushfires, and other global threats served as vivid reminders that human and nonhuman fates are increasingly linked. Human use of nonhuman animals contributes to pandemics, climate change, and other global threats which, in turn, contribute to biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and nonhuman suffering. Jeff Sebo argues that humans have a moral responsibility to include animals in global health and environmental policy. In particular, we should reduce our use of animals as part of our pandemic and climate change mitigation efforts and increase our support for animals as part of our adaptation efforts. Applying and extending frameworks such as One Health and the Green New Deal, Sebo calls for reducing support for factory farming, deforestation, and the wildlife trade; increasing support for humane, healthful, and sustainable alternatives; and considering human and nonhuman needs holistically. Sebo also considers connections with practical issues such as education, employment, social services, and infrastructure, as well as with theoretical issues such as well-being, moral status, political status, and population ethics. In all cases, he shows that these issues are both important and complex, and that we should neither underestimate our responsibilities because of our limitations, nor underestimate our limitations because of our responsibilities. Both an urgent call to action and a survey of what ethical and effective action requires, Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves is an invaluable resource for scholars, advocates, policy-makers, and anyone interested in what kind of world we should attempt to build and how.This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.Trade ReviewThe book provokes scholars from across disciplines to think through in further detail the empirical, normative, and other questions that arise from its main propositions, and the general public to openly engage with its contents. * Charlotte E. Blattner, University of Bern, Society & Animals *The pandemic should have caused a global awakening to how our treatment of animals significantly causes human harm. In one way or another, the pandemic is rooted in animal exploitation. But the world remains largely silent on this connection. Ditto climate change. Ditto world hunger. Ditto environmental destruction. Maybe Jeff Sebo's new book, Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, will end the silence. Sebo clearly shows how many of the most urgent public health issues we face today are directly related to our treatment of animals. This is a book that must be read. Time is running out – if we want to save ourselves, we have to save animals, too. * Aysha Akhtar, MD, MPH, Author of Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy and Our Shared Destinies *Jeff Sebo has been leading the conversation about the impacts of human behavior on animals and the environment for years. In Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, he shows that when we accept our responsibilities as well as our limitations, we can bring about transformative change for everyone and build a more just and sustainable future—including for the most vulnerable among us. This book is a must-read for policy makers looking to chart a new path forward. * U.S. Senator Cory Booker *In Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, Jeff Sebo argues forcefully that we have a responsibility to help everyone affected by human activity, including other animals. By reducing support for factory farming, deforestation, and the wildlife trade; increasing support for humane, healthful, and sustainable alternatives; and including the health and welfare of nonhuman animals in our advocacy and political agendas, we can create a better future for humans and nonhumans alike. This brilliant, wide-ranging book is essential for academics, advocates, policymakers, and anyone else with an interest in our shared future. * Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute & U. N. Messenger of Peace *In Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves, Jeff Sebo draws together a wealth of evidence to make an overwhelming case that the way we treat animals today is not only a grave moral wrong, but also a serious threat to our health, our well-being, and possibly our very existence. Every meat-eater and every policy-maker needs to read and ponder the evidence Sebo presents. * Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University, and author of Animal Liberation *It makes a real contribution to understanding the problem of saving animals and ourselves. * Angus Taylor, Digitalcommons.calpoly *What I liked most about the book is the cautiousness, honesty and holism of Sebo's approach... It thereby lays valuable groundwork for more concrete and specific future investigations into how animals should be included in our ethical thinking about human-induced crises. * Thomas Pölzler, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction: Saving animals, saving ourselves Chapter 2. Animal ethics in a human world Chapter 3. Animals, pandemics, and climate change Chapter 4. Limits on inclusion for animals Chapter 5. Methods of inclusion for animals Chapter 6. Animals, conflict, and politics Chapter 7. Animals, well-being, and moral status Chapter 8. Animals, creation ethics, and population ethics Chapter 9. Conclusion: Of minks and men
£26.59
Oxford University Press Inc Energy and Power Germany in the Age of Oil Atoms
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewStephen Gross has written a magnum opus that will stand as a landmark publication not only in postwar German history, but also at the intersection of global economic and environmental history. It offers a fascinating and persuasive account of how an intersection of idiosyncratic regulatory thinking, and a powerful anti-nuclear movement, set Germany on a peculiar path or Sonderweg in energy politics and trapped the country on Europe's economic and political fault-line. * Harold James, Professor of History and International Affairs, Princeton University *The shift to renewables changes modern society's energy base, possibly the most foundational decision we will take. With a topic grabbed from today's headlines and given meticulous historical analysis as it unfolded in Germany—a nation in the energy avant-garde, yet also still enmired in (Russian-supplied) fossil fuels—Gross delivers a scholarly coup. * Peter Baldwin, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles *Energy and Power shows that cheap oil and gas were not the only paths to a successful national economy. Instead, German leaders in the postwar era connected energy to security, social stability, and, intermittently, sustainability. In fascinating ways, Gross shows how a range of players—from green activists to unions to corporations— pursued Germany's ecological modernization. * Kate Brown, Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Perhaps the timeliest book of the year: Stephen G. Gross centers energy history to provide a compelling new interpretation of postwar Germany. In a brilliant sweep, he takes the reader through West Germany's energy crises and transitions from the 1950s into the new millennium. Whoever wants to understand Germany's past and current energy predicaments will find answers in this field-changing book. * Astrid M. Eckert, Emory University *These excellent volumes demonstrate that understanding West Germany's past can provide useful insights into contemporary Germany's economic and political predicament, and its eventual choices for the future. * The Survival *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Paradoxes of German Energy Part I: The Old Energy Paradigm Chapter 1: Energy Price Wars and the Battle for the Social Market Economy: The 1950s Chapter 2: The Coupling Paradigm: Conceptualizing West Germany's First Postwar Energy Transition Chapter 3: Chains of Oil, 1956-1973 Chapter 4: The Entrepreneurial State: The Nuclear Transition of the 1950s and 1960s Chapter 5: Shaking the Energy Paradigm: The 1973 Oil Shock and its Aftermath Part II: The New Energy Paradigm Chapter 6: Green Energy and the Remaking of West German Politics in the 1970s Chapter 7: Reinventing Energy Economics after the Oil Shock: The Rise of Ecological Modernization Chapter 8: Energetic Hopes in the Face of Chernobyl and Climate Change: The 1980s Chapter 9: The Energy Entanglement of Germany and Russia: Natural Gas, 1970-2000 Chapter 10: Unleashing Green Energy in an Era of Neoliberalism: The 1990s Coda: German Energy in the Twenty-First Century Acknowledgements Abbreviations and Archives Index
£34.19
OUP India Marine Pollution
Book Synopsis
£999.99
Dorling Kindersley Ltd The Renegades Flames of Amazonia Defenders of the
Book SynopsisBack from their adventure in the Arctic, the Renegades are once again called to a climate emergency - flaming monsters threaten to destroy the Amazon rainforest!Katelyn, Mo, and Leon need to use their superpowers to ensure that the world doesn''t go up in flames - quite literally! This graphic novel for kids follows the three heroes as they stand face to face with the climate''s latest threat.The Renegades: Flames of Amazonia follows on from the popular The Renegades: Arctic Meltdown comic book. Filled with adventure and captivating artwork, this action-adventure series addresses pressing environmental issues and connects ideas such as eating meat, deforestation, and farming. This climate change book in particular tells the story of the potential worldwide disaster the destruction of the Amazon forest would cause. What''s more, it helps teenagers between the age of 12-17 understand modern threats to the ecology and encourages them t
£9.49
Indiana University Press Understanding Climate Change through Religious
Book SynopsisHow can religion help to understand and contend with the challenges of climate change? Understanding Climate Change through Religious Lifeworld, edited by David Haberman, presents a unique collection of essays that detail how the effects of human-related climate change are actively reshaping religious ideas and practices, even as religious groups and communities endeavor to bring their traditions to bear on mounting climate challenges. People of faith from the low-lying islands of the South Pacific to the glacial regions of the Himalayas are influencing how their communities understand earthly problems and develop meaningful responses to them. This collection focuses on a variety of different aspects of this critical interaction, including the role of religion in ongoing debates about climate change, religious sources of environmental knowledge and how this knowledge informs community responses to climate change, and the ways that climate change is in turn driving religious change. Trade ReviewThis anthology will be valuable for scholars interested in religion, climate communication, and Indigenous cultures. The book, or selected chapters from it, would be appropriate for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in anthropology, area studies, environmental studies, and religion. -- Cybelle Shattuck - Western Michigan University * H-Environment *Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Multiple Perspectives on an Increasingly Uncertain WorldRecombinant Responses1. Climate Change Never Travels Alone2. Climate Change, Moral Meteorology and Local Measures at Quyllurit'i, a High Andean Shrine3. Religious Explanations for Coastal Erosion in Narikoso, FijiLocal Knowledge4. "Nature Can Heal Itself"5. Maya Cosmology and Contesting Climate Change in Mesoamerica6. Anthropogenic Climate Change, Anxiety, and the SacredLoss, Anxiety, and Doubt7. The Vanishing of Father White Glacier8. Loss and Recovery in the HimalayasReligious Transformations9. Angry Gods and Raging Rivers10. Recasting the SacredConclusion: Religion and Climate ChangeList of ContributorsIndex
£52.50
University of Washington Press Charged
Book SynopsisTrade Review"An eminently readable, elegantly precise treatise on the topic of batteries." * Science *"An enjoyable and accessible book...Many readers may be susceptible to the trap of wide-eyed idealism in terms of environmental activism and the 'clean energy future' Turner discusses in this book. He strikes a great balance between optimism and pessimism on that front; he puts a lot of things into historical and highly realistic perspective. In doing so, he provides a roadmap for people who actually want to achieve a clean energy future, pointing to the pitfalls previous engineers fell into or carved themselves, and advising how to learn from those mistakes and forge ahead." * H-Environment (H-Net) *"Engrossing and sobering, Charged is essential reading for anyone concerned about environment, energy, and the sustainable future." * H-Sci-Med-Tech (H-Net) *"The book provides readers with a valuable history of battery technology, the interdependency of batteries and the environment, and the challenge (and perhaps impossibility) of just energy transition policies." * Environmental History *"[A] careful and scrupulously referenced historical account of an important object: where [the battery] came from, its evolving influences on society, and where it might be taking us. . . . No one who thinks seriously about our energy future should neglect either Turner’s warnings or his hopes." * Literary Review of Canada *
£25.32