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C.3.a. The Scientific, Political and Economic Context of Climate Change and Environmental Destruction

Volume Two -> C. Green Campaigns and Protests -> C.3. Mobilizing to Prevent Climate Change and Planetary Destruction -> C.3.a. The Scientific, Political and Economic Context of Climate Change and Environmental Destruction
The Big Story: Oceans. 'Who Owns the Sea?', Sept-Oct 2019, New Internationalist, 2019, pp. 16-26

Covers issues of both climate change and biodiversity: loss of fish stocks, plastic pollution and role of oceans as climate regulators, and dangers of planned seabed mining. These issues are framed by a legal and political analysis of the Law of the Sea, the role of the International Seabed Authority and the negotiations between 190 countries in the Intergovernmental Conference on the Protection of Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, intended to lead to a new Global Ocean Treaty.   

There are a number of timelines on the evolving scientific research and the political context of climate change:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15874560 (1712-2013)

Sources for the evolving scientific understanding of climate change include:

IPCC Reports (comprehensive assessment reports, special reports on specific issues and methodology reports); there are also summaries for policy makers. The IPCC releases very much shorter summaries to the press.

NASA provides climate change and global warming information on its website: climate.nasa.org

The Scientific American carries material on the science and politics relating to climate change. www.scientificamerican.com

The New Scientist provides accessible news reports and analyses on scientific issues, including climate change. https://newscientist.com
Special issue on climate change, The Economist, 21/09/2019,

Issue focusing on climate change: Contains an analysis of rising carbon dioxide emissions, articles on the role of China and Russia, forest fires in Indonesia, flood prevention plans in low lying Asian cities, and the climate diplomacy of small island states.
Briefing: The Rising Seas: Higher Tide, The Economist, 17/08/2019, pp. 16-19

Notes that two thirds of then world's large cities in 140 countries are close to the sea, that a billion people live only 10 metres above sea level. and that scientific reports show that the rate of sea level rise is accelerating. Discusses different estimates of rising sea levels and the inadequacies of engineering measures to create adopted by many countries.   
Dessler, Andrew ; Parson, Edward, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, pp. 282

This is the third, substantially revised and updated, edition of the volume first published in 2005 and reissued in a 2nd edition in 2009, by two US professors, specialists in atmospheric sciences and environmental law respectively. It explores climate change as a new type of environmental problem, the interplay of science and politics, the policy debates about climate change and possible approaches to tackling the problem. The book is designed to be suitable for undergraduate courses. 
Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It, Emmaus, PA, Rodale Press, 2006, pp. 191 (pb)

This book was published in conjunction with the showing of Gore's influential climate change film, with the aim of making climate change research accessible through charts, graphs and illustrations, and the inclusion of personal stories.
Gore, Al, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do about It, Emmaus, PA, Rodale Press, 2006, pp. 191 (pb)

This book was published in conjunction with the showing of Gore's influential climate change film, with the aim of making climate change research accessible through charts, graphs and illustrations, and the inclusion of personal stories.
Kolbert, Elizabeth, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, London, Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 336

Kolbert, a former New York Times journalist, sets the current crisis in the context of five mass extinctions over the last half a billion years. She draws on the scientific findings of geologists, botanists and marine biologists to track 12 species which have become extinct, or are on the point of extinction, and raises basic questions about the impact and role of the human species.   
Pittock, Barrie, Climate Change: The Science, Impacts and Solutions, 2nd edition, London, Routledge, 0, pp. 350 (pb)

Pittock, a well known Australian climate scientist, examines the scientific evidence for climate change, including new evidence in the 2007 Fourth IPCC Assessment Report of the rapid melting of arctic sea ice. He also covers the possibilities of investment in renewable technologies, and examines the role of the (in 2009) recently elected Australian government.
Rich, Nathaniel, Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change, London , Picador, 2019, pp. 256

Rich, an essayist and contributor to the New York Times Magazine, focuses on the period 1979 - 1990 and the role of the US, which in 1979 emitted more carbon dioxide per head than any other industrialized country and had the political leverage to bring about international change. He charts efforts by environmentalists and scientists to make climate change a global political issue, and the roles of Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. Bush (who argued for action on climate change in 1988, but, influenced by his sceptical chief scientist and internal pressure, failed to deliver on his promise).
Stern, Nicholas, Why Are We Waiting?: The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate-Change. Lionel Robbins Lectures, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2016, pp. 448 (pb)

Economist Nicholas Stern led research for the British government on the economic costs of tackling climate change and implications for the global economy and compared these costs with those resulting from unchecked global carbon emissions. His 700 page highly technical report of 2006 concluded that cutting carbon emissions would be very significantly less economically harmful than the impact of unchecked emissions. This book, published 10 years later, warns that the risks and costs of global warming are more serious than he estimated in 2006, and argues strongly for a comprehensive low-carbon transition. 

See also: Kahn, Brian '10 Years on, Climate Economists Reflect on Stern Review', Climate CO Central, 28 October 2016 (Climate Central describes itself as an independent body of scientists and journalists focusing on climate change).
Taylor, Matthew ; Watts, Jonathan, Special Issue, Guardian Weekly, 18/10/2019, pp. 11-16

A Special Investigation by Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts on the role of fossil fuel companies in promoting the climate crisis. Includes list of the 'top five global polluters': Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; Chevron, US; Gazprom, Russia; ExxonMobil, US; National Iranian Oil Co.
Wallace-Wells, David, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, New York, Random House, 2019, pp. 384

The author, an editor of NewYork magazine, writes not as a long term environmentalist, but an observer of the mounting evidence (such as the California forest fires of 2017) of the disastrous impact of global warming already being experienced. He also examines the implications of (on present trends quite likely) increase of 3C over pre-industrial levels, and how a 7C rise would make much of the equatorial region uninhabitable. This is primarily a call to action rather than a programme for effective action. An edited extract appeared in the Guardian Weekly, 8 Feb. 2019, pp.34-9.