My Latest Book Review > Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth

                                   Book Review


Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth, by Benjamin von Brackel, The Experiment, New York, 2022, 278 pp. ISBN: 978-1-61519-861-0 (Translated by Ayça Türkoğlu).


One of the nine components of the scientifically based planetary boundaries framework* is the loss of biosphere integrity (biodiversity losses and extinction).

Biodiversity is all the living things on our planet – from the smallest bacteria to the largest plants and animals…. Biodiversity on Earth is the result of four billion years of evolution.

The Royal Society

Relatively recently, a new scientific field of research has emerged ̶ movement ecology or climate change-induced migration of flora and fauna. Placed within such context, this book, originally published in Germany (2021) under the title Die Natur auf der Flucht, reports numerous examples of how the biodiversity threshold of our world is being overstepped. 

Book Review > The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science

 Book Review

 

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science, by Paul Behrens, London, Indigo Press, 2020, 346 pp. ISBN: 978-1-911648-09-3.

Deeply researched, remarkably accessible and comprehensive, The Best of Times is a treatise of the deteriorating social and physical systems of our world. Particularly critical structures include climate, racism, politics, energy, economies, food, information, and the media. Uniquely qualified to address the cross-disciplinary threads of our planetary crises, Behrens categorizes a bundle of wicked problems now facing the human race. Providing context and perspective, this book points to several examples of where inequality has led to collapse of civilizations. A vast set of complex objectives are set out which we must meet in a crucially brief and shrinking timespan. As the author has stated on social media, he emphatically provides no “sugar coating.”

Book Review > Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet:

BOOK REVIEW

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, by Johan Rockström and Owen Gaffney, New York, New York, DK, 2021, 227 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7440-2813-3.

What is our destiny? As we look forward to COP26 (Glasgow) in the fall, this book makes clear what must be achieved. Our planet is in crisis. But we’re not only experiencing a climate emergency, we face massive ecological disasters on many fronts. Breaking Boundaries builds upon collaborative research, specifically highly cited scientific papers (2009, 2009, 2015, 2019) which introduced the novel concept of “planetary boundaries”  ̶  irreversible and abrupt tipping points (non-linear changes) in our Earth’s systems. Not only has this ground breaking approach catalyzed a new area of academic research, over recent years, Rockström has clarified this model to a widening audience via TED Talks and other public formats (including a recent Netflix documentary).

Antilla Kellems: Book Review of Media and the Ecological Crisis (Public Understanding of Science):

Book Review: Richard Maxwell, Jon Raundalen and Nina Lager Vestberg (eds), Media and the Ecological Crisis

Public Understanding of Science November 2016 25(8): 1023, doi:10.1177/0963662516670501

A diverse, well informed group of interdisciplinarians collaborate with academic editors based in Norway and the USA to explore an existential question: will we continue with unsound practices relating to communications technology and media production which run counter to balancing human culture with the natural world? Alternatively, are we capable of transforming global information and communication paradigms into more sustainable models?