Earthmasters: Clive Hamilton’s latest on “Playing God with the Climate”

resized_9781743312933_224_297_FitSquareClive Hamilton’s latest book is going to be coming out soon. Clive also has this article out on climate change and the end of the social sciences.

Here’s the info from the publisher’s website:

Earth Masters: Playing God with the Climate

What if there were a magic bullet to fix our ailing planet? What if it meant seizing control of Earth’s climate? Clive Hamilton investigates the huge risks of reaching for desperate measures to save the planet, explains the science accessibly and uncovers the worrying motives of those promoting them.

Description

‘As we collectively contemplate upping the ante on the same arrogant logic that created the climate crisis, we could ask for no wiser nor more trustworthy guide than Clive Hamilton. A dazzling, multilayered exploration of the strange and terrifying world of geoengineering.’ – Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
While Washington, London and Canberra fiddle, the planet burns. It has become painfully clear that the big democracies won’t take the hard decisions to halt climate change. Climate scientists now expect the worst, and they’re considering a response which sounds like science fiction: climate engineering.
This means large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate using grand technological interventions, like spraying sulphur compounds into the upper atmosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet, or transforming the chemistry of the world’s oceans so they soak up more carbon. The potential risks are enormous: disrupting the food chain, damaging the ozone layer, the loss of monsoon rains in Asia – the list goes on. It is messing with nature on a scale we’ve never before seen, and it’s attracting a flood of interest from scientists, venture capitalists and oil companies.
We have reached the end of the epoch of climate stability that allowed human civilisation to flourish, and the end of the era of ‘progress’. Like an angry beast woken from a long slumber, climate instability is dangerous and resists efforts to control it. In his characteristically lucid and passionate style, Clive Hamilton spells out the implications for all of us.
‘I am in awe of what Clive Hamilton has done in Earthmasters.’ – James Gustave Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment

Country, native title, and ecology: a new (free!) e-book

Australian National University Press has published Jessica K. Weir’s

edited collection: Country, native title and ecology.Country, title and ecology

It is freely available as a download e-pub document here or, if you don’t have an e-reader (or software to convert the file for your PC) then you can read it online at the same link.

Here is the opening paragraph, followed by the table of contents, it looks quite interesting:

“The overtly technical process of making a native title application has obscured one of the central reasons why Indigenous people engage with the native title system – to affirm and promote their relationships with country. This publication focuses on Indigenous peoples’ relationships with country, and seeks to discuss native title in terms that are more directly related to those relationships. In doing so, we also describe ways of living on country that inform and critique mainstream land and water management. This volume also includes case studies that are not classified as part of the native title system, so as to broaden native title issues into the frame of traditional ownership. Limitations with common and statutory native title law have meant that native title is not a land justice system accessible to all traditional owners of country. Profound connection to country frequently exists where native title cannot be successfully applied for, or where traditional owners choose not to make native title applications.”

Title page

Imprint and copyright information

List of Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

List of Shortened Forms

Contributors

1. Country, Native Title and Ecology

2. Connections of Spirit: Kuninjku Attachments to Country

3. The Kalpurtu Water Cycle: Bringing Life to the Desert of the South West Kimberley

4. ‘Two Ways’: Bringing Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Knowledges Together

5. Water Planning and Native Title: A Karajarri and Government Engagement in the West Kimberley

6. Native Title and Ecology: Agreement-making in an Era of Market Environmentalism

7. Towards a Carbon Constrained Future: Climate Change, Emissions Trading and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Australia