NEW CLIMATE CHANGE articles on The Corner House website

The recent devastating storms and floods in India and the Caribbean provide another chilling foretaste of the hazards of a warmed world. A dozen new items just posted in the climate section of The Corner House's website (http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/subject/climate) -- books, videos, articles and presentations -- continue our series aimed at encouraging dialogue on what's needed for effective action on the issue.


ARTICLES FOR ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

1. 'Climate Crisis: Social Science Crisis' by Larry Lohmann

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/SocSci.pdf

It's sometimes said that governments are failing to address climate change because they aren't taking the warnings of natural scientists seriously enough. In fact, this draft chapter suggests, the failures may have more to do with lack of social science understanding -- in particular, of how the kind of social change required actually takes place.


2. 'Privatization of the Air Turns Lethal: Pay-to-Pollute Principle Kills South African Activist Sajida Khan' by Patrick Bond

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/BondCNS.pdf

The death of Durban environmentalist Sajida Khan in July 2007 calls attention to the consequences of the climate justice struggle. If South Africans are to be at the cutting edge of progressive climate activism, not partners in the privatization of the atmosphere, three citizens' networks -- environmentalists, community groups and trade unions -- must join forces to identify the contradictions within both South African and global energy sector policies and practices and help synthesize modes of resistance.


OTHER ARTICLES AND PRESENTATIONS

3. 'Six Soundbites on Climate Markets'

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Soundbites.pdf

Will current plans to expand carbon trading in the US and elsewhere work? No. Because carbon trading:
- is aimed at the wrong objective;
- squanders resources on the wrong things;
- requires knowledge and institutions that do not exist;
- is antidemocratic;
- interferes with positive solutions; and
- puts ideology above experience.


4. 'Climate Change and Social Justice: An Interview with Re-Public' by Arlen Dilsizian and Larry Lohmann

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Dilsizian.pdf

Climate change is not a new kind of social issue. It requires a re-examination of classic questions of power relations.


5. 'Mausam' by Soumitra Ghosh and Subrat Kumar Sahu

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Mausam_July-Sept2008.pdf

The inaugural issue of this new Indian magazine, 'Mausam', is aimed at helping to return the dialogue about climate change solutions to the ''public space'', instead of allowing it to remain the ''exclusive property of governments, profiteers and 'experts' of various shades and hues''.


6. 'Offset Standard Is off Target' by Kevin Smith

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/OffTarget.pdf

Widely-publicized frauds in the carbon 'offset' market have led to governmental and corporate proposals for standards. But no standards are working. And the more onerous any attempted regulation becomes, the more the market comes to be dominated by big corporate polluters with the money to work the system.


7. 'A Death in Durban: Capitalist Patriarchy, Global Warming Gimmickry and our Responsibility for Rubbish' by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/BondDada.pdf

Sajida Khan, an environmental activist based in Durban, South Africa, who died in July 2007, dedicated her life to fighting international corporations and local municipalities over the pollution and environmental degradation of her community. An interview with Khan about environmental justice and possible ways forward to create healthier livelihoods is included.


8. 'Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold? REDD with Carbon Trading' by Larry Lohmann

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/Chronicle.pdf

Many new schemes are afoot to allow the North to pay the South for conserving its forests in return for permission to continue using fossil fuels. But how would a market in pollution rights generated by Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) play out in reality? This powerpoint presentation aruges that the answers are far more complex and disturbing than might appear at first glance.


9. 'Trading away the Future? Climate Politics and the Gulf' by Larry Lohmann

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/TheGulf.pdf

The Kyoto Protocol and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme tend to substitute empty play with numbers for the hard thinking about historical pathways needed for planetary survival. This is dangerous for fossil fuel exporters and importers alike.


VIDEOS

10. 'The CO2 Alibi' (video) by Zembla (The Netherlands)

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=562320

Exploring both ends of the carbon market through research and interviews in Uganda and The Netherlands, this video (available in Portuguese and English versions) brings new clarity to the debate over climate change solutions.


11. 'A Vermont Meeting on Carbon Trading' (video)

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=562060

A two-hour discussion on climate politics and carbon trading at the Unitarian Church, Montpelier, Vermont, in January 2008, videoed by Orca Productions.


FREE BOOKS

12. 'The Struggle of Villagers in Chana District, Southern Thailand in Defence of Community Land and Religion against the Trans Thai-Malaysian Pipeline and Industrial Project (TTM) 2002-2008' by Chana activists and others

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/TTM2002-2007.pdf

Southern Thai Muslim communities have been trying for a decade to halt destructive local fossil fuel developments backed by foreign banks. In words and pictures, this book (in an updated and revised second edition) recounts their struggle.


13. 'Cooling It! No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming' by Gar Lipow

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/coolingit.pdf

The obstacles to tackling the climate crisis are political, not technological, argues this book, which focuses on the most carbon-profligate country, the USA.