Class Action December 2006 Books of the Month!

December's books address the subject of Class and Climate Change.

Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming

Tom Athanasiou and Paul Baer ( 2002)

Dead Heat argues that justice—not rhetoric and “aid” but real developmental justice for the people of developing world—is going to be necessary, and surprisingly soon. It argues, more particularly, that such a justice must involve a phased transition from the Kyoto Protocol to a new climate treaty based on equal human rights to emit greenhouse pollutants. Dead Heat makes the case for climate justice, but insists that justice and equity, for all their manifold ethical and humanitarian attractions, must also be seen as the most “realistic” of virtues. It insists, in other words, that our limited environmental space will itself show that it is the dream of a “business as usual” future that is naïve and utopian.

Athanasiou and Baer argue that the battle against global warming is key to the larger battle for global justice. Dead Heat isn’t simply about understanding the political and social arguments about global warming, it’s about winning them.

Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature and Climate Change

Elizabeth Kolbert (2006)

On the burgeoning shelf of cautionary but occasionally alarmist books warning about the consequences of dramatic climate change, Kolbert's calmly persuasive reporting stands out for its sobering clarity. Expanding on a three-part series for the New Yorker, Kolbert (The Prophet of Love) lets facts rather than polemics tell the story: in essence, it's that Earth is now nearly as warm as it has been at any time in the last 420,000 years and is on the precipice of an unprecedented "climate regime, one with which modern humans have had no prior experience."

Other Recommended Books:

The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth - Tim Flannery (2006)

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What we Can do about It - Al Gore (2006)

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed- Jared Diamond (2005)

The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity - James Lovelock (2006)

View previous Class Action Book of the Month selections...

November book of the Month: Awol

October Book of the Month: Class Passing

September Book and Video of the Month: Beyond Silenced Voices and Declining By Degrees

August Books of the Month: Human Cargo and Gathering the Sun

July Book of the Month: The Overworked American by Juliet Schor

June Book of the Month: More Money Than God by Steven R. Leder

May Book of the Month: Global Class by Jeff Faux

April Books of the Month: Classified and Strapped

March Book of the Month: Welfare Brat, A Memoir by Mary Childers

February Book of the Month: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

January Book of the Month: Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender by Paula Rothenberg

View last year's Book of the Month selections...

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