78. Climate Memo Mondays, #78, June 6, 2022
Ashley Dawson, Extinction
Chris McGreal, Exxon Must Go To Trial
CLIMATE BOOKS DEDICATED TO CHILDREN
EXTINCTION IS UPON US
One hundred species are disappearing every day. Insects are especially vulnerable with more than 40% of species experiencing population declines in the past decade. From The Guardian: “Human nature isn’t driving mass extinction – as some have argued – but our acceptance of capitalism is,” according to Professor Ashley Dawson. In his recent, slim, eye-opening book, Extinction: A Radical History, Dawson lays out the case that our current global economic system is pushing the Earth ever closer to a mass extinction event – one not seen since a rogue comet ended the reign of the dinosaurs.
But he also argues there are potential solutions, including giving a universal guaranteed income to populations living in or near biodiversity hotspots to counter poaching, deforestation, and other harmful activities.
Dawson’s book [is] an elegant, controversial thesis about how we got here and why.” “The most accessible and politically engaged examination of current mass extinction.”—Los Angeles Review of Books
Exxon Must Go To Trial Over Alleged Climate Crimes, Court Rules. By Chris McGreal, The Guardian. Popular Resistance. Org (5-30-22). The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday ruled that the US’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, must face a trial over accusations that it lied about the climate crisis and covered up the fossil fuel industry’s role in worsening environmental devastation. Exxon claimed the case brought by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, was politically motivated and amounted to an attempt to prevent the company from exercising its free speech rights. But the state’s supreme judicial court unanimously dismissed the claim in the latest blow to the oil industry’s attempts to head off a wave of... -more-
CLIMATE BOOKS DEDICATED TO CHILDREN
A few of the many climate scholars who dedicated their books to children and grandchildren.
James Hansen. Storms of my Grandchildren. 2009.
Mark Hertsgaard. Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years. 2011. “For my daughter, Chiara, who has to live through this.”
Andrew Guzman. Overheated. 2013. “To Nicholas and Daniel, Whose Generation Will Face the Consequences.”
Mary C. Wood. Nature’s Trust. 2014. “To Sage, Cam, and Nick and all children of this world.”
Nicholas Stern. Why Are We Waiting? 2015. “For our children and grandchildren.”