Climate & Capitalism editor Ian Angus presents five new books for reds and greens.
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Endangered Maize: Industrial Agriculture and the Crisis of Extinction
By Helen Anne Curry
University of California Press, 2022
Over the past century, crop varieties standardised for industrial agriculture have increasingly dominated farm fields. Behind widespread concerns for the loss of plant diversity is another extinction narrative that concerns the survival of farmers themselves. Curry examines the rich history of corn in Mexico and the United States to uncover this hidden narrative and proposes alternative strategies to protect and preserve crop diversity.
A Blue New Deal: Why We Need a New Politics for the Ocean
By Chris Armstrong
Yale University Press, 2022
We face two urgent challenges at sea: massive environmental destruction and spiraling inequality in the ocean economy. Armstrong examines these crises, from the fate of people whose lands will be submerged by sea level rise, to the exploitation of people working in fishing, to the rights of marine animals, and presents a radical manifesto for putting equality, democracy and sustainability at the heart of ocean politics.
The Ocean, Guarantor Of Life: Sustainable Use, Effective Protection
World Ocean Review #7
Maribus, 2021
Since 2008, World Ocean Review has presented the latest scientific knowledge about the oceans in understandable form. The seventh edition focuses on the effects of climate change on the physics of the ocean and its biotic communities; the consequences of fishing, shipping, resource extraction, energy production and marine pollution. It questions how the ocean can be managed in the future in such a way that both its protection and the participation of as many people as possible in its services and goods are ensured.
Beyond Fossil Law: Climate, Courts and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
By Ted Hamilton
OR Books, 2022
Financial interests, colonial powers and outmoded legal ideas are blocking efforts to prevent global warming, but people are fighting back. Climate movement lawyer Ted Hamilton tells the story of the Valve Turners, a group of climate activists who successfully stopped the flow of tar-sands oil to the United States in 2016. Their courtroom battles to justify an act of civil disobedience were a major step forward in crafting a new, democratic law of climate justice.
The Farmer’s Lawyer: The North Dakota Nine and the Fight to Save the Family Farm
By Sarah Vogel
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021
Sarah Vogel, a struggling young lawyer and single mother in North Dakota in 1980, brought a national class action lawsuit to stop the foreclosure of family farms by the US Department of Justice. This is her account of that battle and her call for action to prevent the similar crisis facing farmers today.
[Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement.]