Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam
Anne Chapman reviews this trilogy of novels by Margaret Atwood which are set in the future after climate change has really hit us. It is not a far distant future: at one point we learn that it is the twenty-first century
There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years
This book is more than about climate change. Berners-Lee also mentions the biodiversity crisis, ocean acidification and plastics, to which I would add the global dispersal of man-made synthetic chemicals – the invisible counterpart of the plastics issue.
Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing
This book examines the role of housing in the contemporary economy – one that it characterises as ‘residential capitalism’. How we got here is explained by historical accounts of land ownership, economic thought relating to land, UK housing supply and tenure, and mortgage finance.
Unlocking the Job Potential of Zero Carbon
This report outlines the methodology used and results of our climate jobs modelling work in the UK, Ireland and Hungary carried out in 2018. It is published by the Green European Foundation, with the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation.
Community Energy in the UK
This review of community energy in the UK concludes that the things needs is committed people, financial viability of small scale renewable energy, legal structures, assistance and stability
Evidence for the Environmental Audit Committee inquiry: Heatwaves, adapting to climate change
We need community-level responses to identify vulnerable people, communicate what they can do to stay cool and ensure that people check they are coping with the heat. The dangers of heat waves needs to be communicated
Viking Economics – How the Scandinavians Got it Right and How We Can, Too
The book emphasizes how Nordic welfare systems, pensions and healthcare give people freedom: there are more start up businesses per capita in Norway and Denmark than in the US, for example as people have the freedom to take the risk of setting up their own business.
Escaping Growth Dependency
This report from Positive Money is a clear exposition of the factors which drive governments to pursue economic growth despite this being ecologically unsustainable. The focus is on how current system creates high levels of debt, which are only manageable if there is economic growth
Meat, a Benign Extravagance
Fairlie brings several decades of practical experience of farming, a critical quantitative approach and whole systems thinking. He does not defend our current industrialised systems of livestock farming and he is clear that, collectively, we need to eat less meat
The Production of Money Ann Pettifor
There is a limited supply of natural resources, human creativity and skills, but not of money. Pettifor takes economic ideas from Keynes and Polanyi.
Tackling our Housing Crisis: why building more houses will not solve the problem
This report challenges the conventional policy wisdom of ‘just build more homes.’ It argues that the most significant cause of the affordability problem is not shortage of supply but a high level of inequality combined with a dysfunctional financial system.
Greens and Science: Why the Green Movement is not anti-Science
Anne Chapman argues that the Green movement owes a great deal to science, and like scientists Greens tend to think that decisions should be made on the basis of rational arguments, by appeal to the evidence