Six new books expose environmentalism’s false friends, analyse the idea of ‘environment’, explain renewable energy, trace the history of oceans, expose Monsanto’s Round-Up, and examine UK science denial
Climate & Capitalism can’t review every book we receive, but this column lists and links to those that seem relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission, along with brief descriptions. Titles described here may be reviewed in future.
Please note: Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that we agree with everything (or even anything!) these books say.
Carol Dansereau
WHAT IT WILL TAKE
Rejecting Dead-Ends and False Friends in the Fight for the Earth
CreateSpace, 2016
To win the environmental fight, we must understand what we’re up against. It is folly to focus on problems like ‘money in politics’ while leaving the system that produces these problems intact. And we must recognize that many of the environmental groups we support are holding us back.
Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin
THE ENVIRONMENT
A History of the Idea
John Hopkins University Press, 2018
This account of how people came to conceive and dispute environmental crisis trace the emergence of the concept of the environment from its first appearance after World War II, to the 21st Century, the rise of Earth System Science and the declaration of a new planetary epoch, the Anthropocene,
Bruce Usher
RENEWABLE ENERGY
A Primer for the Twenty-First Century
Columbia University Press
A concise yet comprehensive account of the extraordinary growth in wind and solar energy; the trajectory of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables; and the implications for industries, countries, and the climate.
Eelco J. Rohling
THE OCEANS
A Deep History
Princeton University Press, 2017
An invaluable introduction to the cutting-edge science of paleoceanography. Rohling traces the history of oceans from their first appearance to today, exploring the close interrelationships of the oceans, climate, solid Earth processes, and life.
Mitchel Cohen, editor
THE FIGHT AGAINST MONSANTO’S ROUNDUP
The Politics of Pesticides
Simon & Schuster, 2019
Scientists and activists from around the world take a fresh look at the politics underlying the mass use of pesticides and the challenges people around the world face in their continuing campaigns against the purveyors of poison and the governments that enable them.
Richard Black
DENIED
The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism
The Real Press, 2018
For a decade, contrarians controlled the UK’s political and media discourse on energy and climate change. In this look at the history of UK climate denial, former BBC science and environment correspondent Richard Black outlines how they and their canonical arguments came to such prominence – and how they lost.