CC & DD Resources

  CC= Climate Change

   DD = Devloppement Durable (Sustainability)

I now find myself teaching these subjects (on programmes like IES at FSESJ) or using these as important background themes when I am teaching final year Degree or Mater’s level Professional English courses.   As a result, I find myself often writing things in 7 or 8 different places.  Better then hat I do this more economically: just the once, so I am using this page to host a host of links to materials to which I may refer you.  I will try to keep updating it, but it is a massive job given that it is a global subject, as you will appreciate.

I will try to do this under meaningful headings, but I suspect certain things may deserve to be under more than one heading!

If  you come across useful materials, please do send me the links and I’ll see where they can fit here.  Thanks for your help.  Hope you find this useful.

You will appreciate that this is very much a work in progress!!   T.

Books you should read.

Mark Lynas. 2020  Our Final Warning: 6 degree of Climate Emergency. Brilliant ‘tour de force’ drawing together all the latest credible scientific studies and publications in recognised journals as regards the rate of climate change and the most likely consequences for the planet and our lives at each degree rise from 2°C to 6°C  (we surpassed 1°C in 2015!).  The consequences ARE there on the horizon for us all to see – and they are coming over that horizon towards us pretty quickly….

Bill Gates. 2021. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need.  This covers a little of Lynas’ ‘ground’ as a base in order to give a rationale for us changing our CO2 outputs rapidly but then Gates goes on to put together solutions and to prioritise them by means of the application of a simpe and helpful tool:  the ‘Green Premium‘ (how much extra one might currently have to pay to replace a traditional system (car … heating etc) with the ultra-low pollution / no pollution alternative) and what options there may be (technological, government funding etc) to dramatically reduce or even eradicate the Green Premium.  In so doing, he identifies clearly (as his title suggests) what solutions are in existence already and what needs to be done to get them applied to the problem AND a list of currently intractable isssues/problems/inhibitors where ‘breakthroughs’ (technologies, engineering etc) are required.  In the incredibly challenging situation in which we find ourselves, this ‘simple’ conceptual and practical roadmap is particularly helpful, but it demands of us immense courage and determination: personally, professionally and politically.

TJ. If you want to get a ‘handle’ on where we are headed currently and what we need to do to avoid the worst prognosis and how to do it, then the above are the two books for you.  I would recommend you read Lynas first and then Gates.

James Lovelock. 2007. The Revenge of Gaia.   Any book by Lovelock is brilliant IMHO, but I particularly like this one as he explores the limits within which Gaia can operate in support of life and how close we are to pushing ‘her’ over the limit.  But what IS Gaia Theory?   « The Gaia Paradigm, also known as the Gaia theory or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet » Wikipedia.  Here is Lovelock at 100 years of age talking about Gaia  and the current results of scientific research and what they suggest about her state of ‘health‘. The originality of his concept lies in the fact that he was the first to realise that different systems (that science had been treating almost entirely separately) actually related together intimately (Climatology, Oceanograpy, Marine Biology etc etc) and that they formed a holistic system that appeared to operate to sustain life.

Elizabeth Kolbert. 2014.  The Sixth Extinction.  Kolbert looks at five historical mass extinctions and then at the signs and evidence around us relating to species endangerment and threat of extinction.  She considers the causes and the extent to which we are alking into our own ‘firing line’.  I will leave you with her parting gesture: « Right now, in the amazing mment that to us counts as the present, we are deciding, without quite meaning to , which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed. No other creaure has managed this, and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy… »  It is a most erudite read and deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize. [Aside: I couldn’t put the book down – even on a lazy summer’s trip along the Canal du Midi on a péniche!].

Al Gore. 2013.  The Future.  Were I to sumarise the book and its final paragraph mixing English and French (but not mixing meaning), I would say: ‘Future or Foutu’!  Al Gore… almost-President of the USA, Nobel Prize and Oscar winner (the latter for his ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘ documentary movie on the rate of climate change we are witnessing at the hands of our loveaffair with fossil-fuelled energy production) holds much in common with the above writers, but he has perhaps a sharper and much deeper sense of the critical role of politics and politicians in the mix as regards the choices we face.  His final words in his book are quite similar to the writers above.  « Human civilisation has reached a fork in the road we have long travelled. One of two paths must be chosen.  Both lead us into the unknown. But one leads toward the destruction of the climate balance  on which we depend, the depletion of the irreplaceable resources that sustain us, the degradation of uniquely hman values, and the possibility that civilisation as we know it would come to an end.  The other leads to the future. » .  So close to Mark Lynas’ exhortion to ‘choose life! – almost biblical in its feeling and fervour.

Jared Daimond.  2005 (updated edition 2011) .  Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed.  It may seem strange to include a title here from a Geographer, but his title is so very germane to the subject in question.  There is a question and a call to action before us all (hence my comments at the end of the paragraph above).  We can have as many plans and possibilities before us, but will we choose and how will we choose?  I well remember his conclusions as regards ancient human occupation of Easter Island and that society there must have had a moment when virtually all the trees had been cut down (thereafter there would be no shade, no housing/protection, no fuel to make a fire to keep warm and cook) when they must have decided to just keep cutting to the very last tree rather than start planting or making rafts.  They didn’t ‘choose life’.  We humans are capable of not choosing the only sane choice.  His other case studies serve to confirm this.  We have much to learn about how we choose (or fail to choose)….  Maybe Diamond can show us how to choose the sane choice in climate change while we have some time.

Naomi Klein. 2014.  This Changes Everything: capitalism vs. the climate.   Although starting from the same basic ‘reading of the runes‘ (well the science) as Lynas, Gates, Lovelock & Gore [sounds like a group of soicitors in Kidderminster, England!], Klein tends to take a long, critical look at the intractibles in the system that will have to change if we are going to tackle climate change: ourselves and the capitalist system in which we live.  Like Daimond, she is interested in us finding a way to make sane choices in a system that seems largely predicated against making this possible for us.

George Monbiot. 2007. HEAT: How we can stop the planet burning.   As I write, Monbiot is putting the finishing touches to a book with the amitious aim of feeding the word without devoiring the planet! Can’t wait to read that one.  I am becoming fond (as you will see from the above) of quoting ‘parting gestures‘ (last lines or paragraph)  to illustrate the tone of a piece of work.  Monbiot says it all in his…  « …the campaign against Climate Change is an odd one. Unlike almost all the public protests which have preceeded it, it is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less.  Strangest of ll it is a campaign not jut against other people, but also against ourselves. »  Once again, this has echoes (for me at least) of Lynas, Diamond and Klein.

Béa Johnson.   Zero Waste Home.  Her challenge to each one of us is that she has saved 40% of her family’s dsposable income in going for Zero Waste in the home and that she can fit a year’s actual waste in a pretty small jar: good for the planet and great for the pocket.  Perhaps this has the spirit of what Gates calls ‘solutions we already have‘ (the unspoken follow-up being that we are not always applying them. The great thing here is that this operates at the level of the individual and the family: her recommendations are basically pretty simple, if occasionally time-consuming and inconvenient – but then if we want to ‘Dig for Victory‘  (WW2 exhortation in England to cultivate each square foot of land – or starve, frankly) in the face of this modern threat, we have to get used to things not being as free, easy and quick as we might like them.  She doesn’t say it, but I will: when are we going to realise that we are ‘on a war footing‘ here: it could (as Chief Seattle put it in 1854 – see further down the page!) be the difference between living and survival…..

Seminal Sources

The BrundtlandReport… AKA ‘Our Common Future’ / ‘Notre Avenir à Tous‘ or officially the ‘World Commission on Environment and Development 1987‘.   [You can read this in just about every language conceivable – just search for the language you require].  This coined the modern word ‘sustainability’ and put it on the front page and the world stage.  But don’t get the idea that this was a discovery – frankly it was more like a RE-discovery of a sense in which humanity could live in some kind of harmony with nature.  The core concept is that we should take from nature / the planet’s resources oly that which we NEED [NOT WANT] in order to meet our needs so that future generations will have sufficient to meet their needs.  Brundtland said that it was possible to realise the objective of sustainability provided four preconditions were respected and achieved:

1. That the gap between poor and rich nations should be reduced and closed
2. That richer nations should live within the planet’s ecological means
3. That decisions shoud be taken with a LONG term perspective
4. That businesses should take on a moral/ethical responsibility to go beyond the requirements of the law in order to respect the environent (because law always lags behind what everyone knows is really required).

The question is: do you think we are complying?   How do you see the evidence lining up?

Chief Seattle’s Reply 1854.  [Back to the Future? … Again?!?] Although there is some doubt about the authenticity of this ‘document’ as a verbatim (translated) response to the then President Pearce to his offer to buy the Indian lands and to move the tribe to lands that would be ‘reserved’ for them [hence the term ‘indian reservation’], upon two pages of A4 it is pehaps even more eloquent than the Brundtland Report and prefigures Gaia Theory, the Polluter Pays Principle and so many other features of the modern sustainability movement. It ends with what is for me the most ‘chilling‘ line in all literaure after a desription of slow species extinction: « …. The end of living, and the beginning of survival ».   Do read it…. accurate – and beautiful… and prescient.

An Inconvenient Truth. Book and Film. 2006. Al Gore.  Here is Gore delivering a 10 minute exerpt from the Oscar winning Documentary.   Then: the update to that film: ‘Truth to Power’ with Al Gore interviewed.

Global Organisations

UN Climate Change Portal.  Back as far as Kyoto, via the Paris agreement and heading to Glasgow in 2021 [CoVid willing]

Intergovernmental Panel on Clmate Change.  Here are the scientists in the lookout tower giving planners and decision makers and takers the best evidence and advice they have on the basis of their research indicators.

E3g Climate Change strategists – offering research and advice to the public and private sector alike: a ‘think tank’ largely but not exclusively operating in Europe.  The way they see things (a little like Lynas, Diamond and Klein – see ‘Books’ above) is summed up by their comment: « The barriers to achieving a climate-safe world are political and institutional, not financial or technological ».

The Climate Accountability Institute – They introduce themselves thus: « ….engages in research and education on anthropogenic climate change, dangerous interference with the climate system, and the contribution of fossil fuel producers’ carbon production to atmospheric carbon dioxide content. This encompasses the science of climate change, the civil and human rights associated with a stable climate regime not threatened by climate-destabilizing emissions of greenhouse gases, and the risks, liabilities, and disclosure requirements regarding past and future emissions of greenhouse gases attributable to primary carbon producers ».  This organisation has identified the world’s top 100 CO2 producers and polluters and has suggested that over a period of time the top 20 produce ihave produced in excess of 1/3 of the entire world’s C02….  Here is an article in the Guardian newspaper on the subject in which the report’s principal author explains the research and its implications.

350.org.   A global organisation started by one of the founding fathers of the modern movement: Bill McKibben.  The 350 refers to Parts Per Million CO2 – the safe limit which we are now well past (410 as I write).  It is a protest movement to show politicians we want and need more positive policies.  Have a look at their work.

France.

Education Nationale on Climate Change and Sustainability now in the curriculum.  By its own admission it didn’t seem to get o grips with the subject prior to 2007 (some 30 years after ‘Notre Avenir à Tous’!).  The plans look OK, but I remain to be convinced for two principal reasons:

1. the teaching is ‘transversal‘: there is no one solid, major unit with a high number of hours and weighting (‘coeff’), which I feel would give it more focus, coherence and importance instudents’ eyes.  It is all to easy to see it ‘getting lost’ in small chunks of other modules…. and how are students supposed to bring it all together and make sense of it?  It will be taught by teachers who are largely specialists in other areas too.    Frankly, if the issue is as important as Laurent Fabius said at the Paris COP in 2015 (‘the greatest challenge ever faced by mankind’, I think was the phrase), then SURELY it deserves to have its own place at the core of the syllabus!
2. from year to year, over half of my Degree and Masters students claim to have had ZERO time on the subject in all their school years and absolutely NO opportnity to consider how it concerns them personally and professionally.  Others have more, but for the last 15 years the average in my classrooms has been 5 or 6 hours of relevant teaching, learning and thinking in over 14 years of school.  Doesn’t seem to be working for me …. and we aren’t doing anything much about this reality when they get to our university at least.   As one of my school reports said: ‘Must try harder – Must do better’.  I think I did … I’d like to think that the EDucation Nationale can and will and soon!!

Interesting Sources as they come to light!

• A vibrant, sustainable natural environment as a Human Right: is it possible and how do we achive it.   A well-researched article from this interesting perspective from Knowable Magazine as linked from the BBC News website in June 2021.

• UK Overseas Aid Budget set to reduce from 0.7% of GDP/PIB to 0.5%.   Doesn’t sound much, does it, but from 2021 will represent almost a 30% reduction at a stroke.  Put another way, the 6th biggest economy in the world (after the US, China, Japan, Germany and India – France is 7th by the way – World Bank in 2019), is now giving to those who are in desperate need only 1 pound in every 200 generated by its economy.    If one of the four key preconditions for sustainability enshrined in the Brundtland Report / Notre Avenir à Tous / Our Common Future in 1987 was that ‘the gap between poor and rich countries must be reduced‘, then what impression does this give us of whether this precondition is being met…?    Add to this that some (much?) support is of a ‘conditional‘ or  ‘Tied Aid‘ nature, where funding is dependent upon certain terms which are designed to advantage the giver (‘We will give you $/£ XXX provided you use it to buy our expertise / products’)… and just how ‘altruistic‘ is the aid really?  I suppose we shouldn’t be too worried about this, provided that the reason for which the aid was given is addressed… but I do recognise that there is a flaw in my thinking there!

To be continued!