Archive for “Book Reviews” category
Showing results 1 - 5 of 39 for the category: Book Reviews.
22 May 2012
I am reading Jorgen Randers’ new book ’2052: a global forecast for the next forty years’, due for publication next month. Imagine a ‘Limits to Growth’ for the next 40 years, a presentation of Randers’ best guess as to how the world will pan out between now and 2052. As you can imagine, it’s not an uplifting read, but it is often illuminating, even though I disagree with some of his findings. Surprisingly, the most challenging bit comes at the end of the book, after all the graphs and charts, and talk about 2 degrees of climate change, of our inevitable mega-urbanisation and so on. It will hopefully prove to be the spark for a fascinating discussion here.
Read more»
19 May 2012
Here is a list of the books I am working my way through at the moment or have recently finished, I hope they might point you to some recently published books you may find useful and interesting. So, in no particular order:
Michael Mann (2012) The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: dispatches from the front lines. Columbia University Press.
Michael Mann is the principal creator of the (in)famous ‘Hockey Stick’ graph which showed that the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the last 100 years is in excess of historic warming, and clearly linked to increased CO2 emissions. The graph achieved great prominence, as a result of which he became a target of the fossil fuel industry, in particular during the co-ordinated assault on climate science known as ‘Climate Gate’, where emails, including his, were hacked from the University of East Anglia.
Read more»
30 Apr 2012
Many people involved in Transition have been inspired by the work of Joanna Macy, and also of Chris Johnstone. The two recently collaborated on a new book called “Active Hope: how to face the mess we’re in without going crazy”. In a couple of weeks I will be doing an interview with the two of them, and I want to offer you the opportunity to ask the questions you have always wanted to ask the two of them. Please send any questions you might have to me at rob (at) transitionculture.org. Get your thinking caps on! Thanks.
Read more»
8 Nov 2011
Here is another review of ‘The Transition Companion’, this time by Jeremy Williams at Make Wealth History.
If you’re a transitioner yourself, chances are you’re well aware of this book. You may even have a hand in it somewhere, having sent in a story, a photo or a quote. You may have read the draft chapters as they were posted on Rob’s Transition Culture blog, or suggested a title. The Transition Companion: Making your community more resilient in uncertain times is the follow-up to The Transition Handbook. Where the first book proposed a movement and speculated about how it might be created, the second reports on a dynamic and growing world of Transition. It is packed with examples, stories, experience and friendly advice, gathered together from Transition groups around the UK and as far afield as Brazil and South Africa. It is a crowd-sourced answer to the book’s central question: “What would it look like if the best responses to peak oil and climate change came not from committees and acts of parliament, but from you and me and the people around us?”
Read more»
19 Oct 2011
Here is a review of ‘The Transition Companion’ by Maddy Harland from the new edition of Permaculture Magazine. You can download a pdf of the page on which it appears here.
Transition is now a worldwide grassroots movement that looks climate change and peak oil squarely in the face and dismisses the utter impossibility of endless economic growth on a planet of finite resources. It offers community based solutions to help people in villages, towns and cities adapt to the inevitable challenges of the oncoming reality of profound economic and social change unflinchingly and with a good degree of humility and good cheer. It’s a collection of recipes for building community, environmental regeneration, relocalised economies and so much more.
Read more»
