The gap between rich and poor is far greater than previously reported, because the poorest half of the world has even less wealth than previous studies showed
Archive | Books & Reports
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, January 2017
Ian Angus offers his opinions and recommendations, pro and con, on seven books he read while Climate & Capitalism was taking a break.
The British Columbia Carbon Tax: A Failed Experiment
British Columbia’s carbon tax has been held up as a climate success, but an analysis of the province’s emissions under the tax tells another story.
Victor Wallis reviews ‘Facing the Anthropocene’
‘Ian Angus’s distinctive contribution is to underscore, with his geologically grounded perspective, the need to combine immediate measures of relief with a long-term agenda of transformation.’
What to read while C&C takes a break
Climate & Capitalism will resume its regular publishing schedule on or about October 24. In the meantime, have you read these top-rated articles from the summer of 2016?
Two more radical precursors of Anthropocene science
Long before the Anthropocene Working Group reported on the new epoch, Yrjö Haila and Richard Levins argued that global ecohistory entered a new stage sometime after World War II
Facing the Anthropocene: September book launch events
Mark your calendars: Ian Angus speaks on ‘Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System,’ at public meetings in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa
Book review: How did we get into this mess?
Social and environmental problems are aptly diagnosed in George Monbiot’s new book and, more importantly, they are diagnosed with great flair and eloquence.
Marx and the Earth:
Why we wrote an ‘anti-critique’
The German daily Junge Welt interviews John Bellamy Foster on capitalism’s destruction of nature, ecological Marxism from Marx’s time to the present, and the environmental crisis as a class issue.
Book Review: The Birth of the Anthropocene
Ian Angus: “I can’t recall another book that positions the present global crisis in Earth’s deep history so well, in a form that can be readily understood by non-specialists. Every ecosocialist should read it.”
A vision of democratic ecosocialism
Hans Baer: “Democratic eco-socialism rejects a statist, growth-oriented, productivist ethic and recognizes that humans live on an ecologically fragile planet with limited resources that must be sustained and renewed as much as possible for future generations.”
Confirmed: 2015 set all-time heat records
The annual State of the Climate report confirms that 2015 surpassed 2014 as the warmest year ever recorded. Greenhouse gases, surface temperatures and global sea levels all passed previous highs.
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, August 2016
Five new books for green lefts and left greens. Cuban science fiction … the birth of the Anthropocene … agribusiness and disease … surviving catastrophe … rising seas … private plunder of public assets.
Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin
Janet Biehl’s engrossing biography shows that Bookchin, an unlikely social theorist and radical philosopher, produced an important body of work of lasting significance.
How the Great Acceleration has changed the planet
An important history of the Anthropocene updates the classic ‘Something New Under the Sun.’ It describes how our world has been transformed since 1945, but avoids discussing why.
‘Capitalism in the Web of Life’ – A Critique
Kamran Nayeri argues that Jason W. Moore’s theories involve major departures from Marxism, and do not themselves provide a coherent alternative approach to understanding capitalism’s impact on the natural world.
A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe
A valuable introduction to the development of Marxist thinking on the environment, by a leading ecosocialist. Michael Löwy explores proposals for radical change, and concrete experiences of the global struggle against ecocide.
Some comments on Andreas Malm’s ‘Fossil Capital’
Another contribution to C&C’s ongoing discussion of Andreas Malm’s masterful new book on the origins and current implications of an economic system whose deep dependence on fossil fuels threatens the survival of civilization.
Summer reading for green-lefts and left-greens
Climate & Capitalism is taking a short break. To help you avoid painful withdrawal symptoms, here are five books and a pamphlet that should be in every ecosocialist’s book bag this summer — or winter, if you are in the southern hemisphere.
Video: Christopher Wright on ‘Facing the Anthropocene’
“In the opening pages, I immediately recognized that here was an author who actually gets what the ‘Anthropocene’ entails both in terms of the physical science and the political economy of our times and conveys this in such a readable and accessible style.”